The internet is all atwitter about Google’s foray into the browser world with its release of Chrome. I began running it yesterday and I must say I like what I see so far. If you haven’t heard anything about Google Chrome I’ll summarize it for you: A browser made from the ground up for the way we use the internet today (Web-based applications, Social Media, Tabbed browsing… The list goes on and on) In typical Google fashion it was a horribly well kept secret. A “comic book” describing the details was leaked on the Google’s blog prior to the release of the software yesterday. From the moment I heard about the browser and what made it different I couldn’t wait to click the download button!

Since I started using it I’ve noticed a few things:
It’s faster than Firefox, IE7, or Safari.
It’s different and has a bit of a learning curve.
It’s not your father’s web browser.

If you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know I like to tie things back to FI’s an banking technology in general, and this is no exception. First off, they started from scratch. After 10 years crawling the internet, they used what they learned about the user experience to build a browser that fixes many of the problems common to websites. Sometimes with IE and Firefox you’ll run across a page that doesn’t display all of it elements correctly. In my initial experience I haven’t found any weird artifacts from pages that don’t “play nice” and look weird because they were coded “for” another browser. So either all web page code has miraculously become CSS compliant, or Chrome has found a way to “interpret” the quirks that are common to web development. That’s the good news for FI’s: you probably won’t need to have your pages tweaked out so it will display correctly in Chrome.

Google Chrome is licensed as open source. While that is not ground breaking in itself, it is interesting that elements at the core of Chrome were taken from other open source projects (Apple’s WebKit, and Mozilla’s Firefox) and used to create something new and fresh. Again, that’s not ground breaking either but ultimately its an exciting development (hey, I’m punny!) that could provide a blueprint for the often discussed “open source core system”.

I’m not going the complete fan-boy route here either, I’m not convinced that the ways that Google’s developers have implemented things won’t allow for future vulnerabilities or the execution of unwanted code. The acquisition of Green Mountain by Google a few months ago could do much to cut off the exploits before they are found, but only time will tell. The “sandboxing” schema of how Chrome processes code is another step in the right direction and unlike anything as yet available in a browser. One researcher has already discovered a “flaw” by combining previously discovered flaws in both WebKit and Java, but ultimately this exploit requires a significant amount of social engineering and gullible trust on behalf of the target. The only annoyance I’ve found so far is with in-line spell checking, it still highlights errors but normal right clicking the highlight doesn’t present you with options to fix the error. That really makks me sadd.

I think Chrome is a great browser. If you get a chance, try it out in your institution. While you’re doing that, take the time to consider how it affects the web based applications in your environments and how it will present your applications to your customers. I’m sure that there will be later versions that will fix issues with this initial release, but I think this “beta” release is unlike most v.1’s you may be pleasantly surprised at how stable and ready for real world use Chrome already is.