Google Chrome 2 First Impressions

Google is boasting some impressive figures for its Chrome web browser launched yesterday at the 2.0 mark. The team made improvements on their already fast JavaScript engine dubbed “V8” and they claim that pages that make heavy use of JavaScript will see an increase in speed of about 30 percent. They also say it is a lot more stable with 300 serious bugs fixed since it was launched in September. You can read more about it here. But was this, along with some small features and tweaks, all of which should have been a long way coming, really enough for Chrome to get pushed to 2.0?

Well, according to the developers themselves, no. Here's what they said: "Finally, a note on version numbers: we're referring to this as Chrome 2, but that's mainly a metric to help us keep track of changes internally. We don't give too much weight to version numbers and will continue to roll out useful updates as often as possible."

OK so it's just an evolution not a new edition. But is it any good? Well, if you liked Chrome before you will like this version even more. If you didn't, there isn’t really anything to change your mind. The interface is practically identical and what you liked or hated about it is still there. There are some tweaks and new features but nothing to write home about. Instead, they're doing what they've always done with Chrome, what Google has done for every service or software it has to offer, namely keep it simple and fast. And it is fast. Faster than any previous version and faster than most of its competition. That's because most of the work has been done under the hood with Chrome sporting a new version of the popular open-source rendering engine, Apple's WebKit, also used by Safari and a couple of Linux web browsers, and the muscled-up V8 JavaScript engine. But its competition is not sitting still, with most browsers out there getting faster and faster JavaScript engines.

And is a browser that's fast but lacking in features going to gain more market share with the strong competition it's facing? Not likely. So you might want to know why Google is focusing solely on the technical side. For that you have to understand why the Mountain View-based search giant built a browser in the first place. Google is dependent on a browser yes – that's where it made and still makes most of its revenue – but there were already quite a few capable browsers out there. The company however is thinking in the long run, maybe a few years in advance. It wants a browser that can run its web applications like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps and future services as fast as possible, bridging the gap between the desktop and the cloud. And that's what it's doing; and we're not going to be that surprised if in time Google is going to shift its focus towards adding more features and making a better effort at gaining market share.

In conclusion, Chrome isn't going to replace your main browser just yet but in some cases like web applications it might just be the tool for the job. Still, things might be a lot more interesting in the future and Chrome is definitely worth keeping an eye on. And if you haven't tried it yet, we strongly recommend you to download it.