The best thing about Chrome is that it is fast. The fastest. Evar. How so? To put it simply, the way it treats different tabs in the browser is the way your operating system treats different open applications. Each one runs independently, so the power of your computer—via its dual processors for example—can be divided and used for what God made processors for: speed. And, if you experience a crash on one pesky web page, the whole browser doesn’t have to be closed. You can just close the one hung tab. So, Chrome does for browsing what the Mac OS did for mainstream operating systems.

Think of your Chrome browser pages as application windows. They are nothing like your Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer (Internet Explorer? really? still?) browser pages. That equals stability and speed.

There are lots of other good (and somewhat boring) things I could write about Chrome. But none of them matter, because when it comes to using computers speed trumps everything. I close and never use applications that run slow. And then I delete them.

Firefox is painfully slow compared to Chrome. If that doesn’t change soon, Firefox will bleed users and slowly become obsolete. It’s like the Blackberry versus the iPhone. Crackberry has a keyboard that is actually useful, but it is so much slower than the iPhone and so is in big trouble.

It is more likely that Windows will change its operating system to compete with Chrome—it’s not really a browser issue per se. Chrome reorganizes how we think about browsers versus operating systems, just like Google redefined knowledge. Again, it is about speed. With a fast, reliable browser, cloud computing becomes obvious. That means even hardware will change. The MacAir makes more sense suddenly. The separation between desktop and browser, online and offline, is beginning to dissolve.

Does this prove Google is an evil monster that is taking over the universe not just of browsers but now operating systems? Well, Chrome is built on open source architecture. So once again Google is not selling anything in the out-dated way of explicit and direct product creation and sale. Its mantle of goodness, contained within their unofficial motto of “Do no evil”, remains in place. This is perhaps the most significant feat, at least in a cultural sense. Page and Brin (Google’s daddies) can keep posing around like a couple of affable kids who just stumble into a few billion dollars every year, their Masters of the Universe secret identities intact.

This is because they have set up the perfect win-win situation: If Firefox and Windows improve access and speed across the Internet, Google wins even if Chrome loses the “browser wars.” Chrome is as much about upping the ante and pushing access and useability up, so that more pageviews and ads can hit our eyes and fill Google databases and coffers. So use Chrome, use the soon-to-be sped-up Firefox and revolutionized Windows or any other operating system that has been Chromed into improving access—and Google still comes out ahead.

In other words, win or lose against Firefox et al, the release and speed of Chrome translates into the perfect glory-filled victory for Google.

Chrome Easter Eggs!

Tags: browser war, chrome, firefox killer, page and brin
Posted in Web 2.0 Museum 5 Comments