browser – Josh Hrach

Google Announce Google Chrome OS

Josh on July 8, 2009

In what seems like another big announcement today, Google has announced that they are working on a new operating system. The Google Chrome OS is said to be different from Android and targeted towards netbooks.

It is little wonder that this new OS is targeted towards people that want to get online fast. In fact, their blog post mentions the intention of the OS itself:

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web.

For someone that has seemed to do a good job at providing both a great internet search engine and a simple, straight-forward browser, it is no surprise that they are pointing towards the web as the platform for their applications. And, what applications would one use on a netbook? Documents? Spreadsheets? Google Docs covers that. Email? Gmail has that down, too. What about talking with your friends online? Google Talk handles that.

“Alright,” some of you may be saying. “So you’re suggesting that Google does it all?” Not necessarily. There are times where you might find a need to chat with friends on Yahoo or MSN quickly, which is where a service such as Meebo can come in. Or if you need to pop on IRC to get some Ubuntu support, you can use a variety of web-based solutions, including Mibbit.

Overall, this may lead to a very versatile application environment:

For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies.

With the web as your platform, that gives you quite a few options. And, if we can assume that Google Chrome will be the standard browser in Google Chrome OS, then you’re looking at a fairly stable, smooth operating environment for your applications. Plus, there’s the added benefit:

And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

If some app happens to stand out on Google Chrome OS, it is possible it either already exists on the web or would be easily available for the rest of us to use (should we not be using Google Chrome OS).

As people use the Internet more and more for work, communcation, and the overall sharing of ideas, simpler and smaller internet solutions may be required. Netbooks cater to that audience. And, given how Google Chrome itself has jumped into the browser pool, Google Chrome OS may make a similar splash with netbooks when it is released.

Share your views on this! Leave a comment or send me a tweet about this post.

My Experience: Chrome vs Firefox

Josh on May 11, 2009

Before you start reading this, I’m not going to pick a favorite between these two browsers. If you’re looking for a clear cut choice, you will not find it here.

That said…

I can’t believe I’ve been using the internet in some form since 2000. What I really can’t believe is how I survived with Internet Explorer. Now, should I be working on a fresh Windows install, my first move is always to install an alternate browser. But what browser will it be? I really can’t say… I don’t use just one browser anymore.

As you probably can figure out by now, the two browsers I’ll be talking about are Google‘s Chrome browser and Mozilla‘s famous Firefox browser. Both are useful. Both have their advantages. How do I use them?

Firefox has obviously been on the scene longer. I’ve come to fully respect Firefox as a very stable and versatile browser. Over the years, I’ve come across many different add-ons that I have found to be very useful. Chatzilla, Colorzilla, Greasemonkey, Firebug, FireFTP, MeasureIt, ScreenGrab, ShowIP. Actually, those are the very ones I enjoy using. They’re helpful in so many ways.

Tabbed browsing forever changed the way I did work. I went from having multiple windows open and having to try and go through them to having just one window with multiple tabs. It definitely made it much easier to work.

For a good while, Firefox was my browser of choice. I got to a point, though, where I would enjoy keeping several tabs saved with Firefox. But what if I wanted to just look at a page real fast? I didn’t want to have to load Firefox, with the tabs I had open, just for a quick look somewhere.

Well, when Chrome came on the scene, that changed. After giving it a go, I quickly found my browser for such a purpose. Not only did it handle tabbed browsing well, but it also seemed to do things in a very simple manner. The UI is clean. It seems to run pretty fast, too, something that I was not liking about IE7.

So, how can I sum up my use of these two browsers?

Firefox is my all-in-one browser. The add-on capabilities just make it so easy to do various things, from figuring out colors as I’m working on a site to being able to just about anything else I need. Even Greasemonkey makes Firefox helpful with some gaming (for reasons I’ll talk about in an upcoming blog).

Chrome is there for me for my everyday browsing. If I’m just loading links from email or IM, or just want to check some message boards quickly, that’s my browser choice.

No, I don’t think one is better than the other. No, I don’t feel a need to just use one. I think these two each have their benefits and can easily be used together. If you’ve never tried either of them, why not try them now?