Examining Chrome's Source Code

An anonymous reader writes "Chrome is open source, and there's clearly still some work to be done on it. In this article, Neil McAllister decided to take a peek under Chrome's hood and view it through the eyes of the developers who will improve and maintain it in the coming years. It seems Google's open source browser currently has much to offer prospective hackers — provided they use Windows. Quoting: 'The Chromium site explains how to download the source code for Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows. Unfortunately, if you're eagerly awaiting a Mac version of Chrome, you shouldn't hold your breath. As the Mac OS X area of the Chromium developer site explains, "Right now, the Mac build is a work in progress that is much closer to the start than the finish." In fact, according to the latest status report, the Chrome developers have yet to get even the browser core running under Mac OS X. Rendering actual Web pages is still a long way off, to say nothing of a usable Aqua GUI. Then again, the Linux version is in arguably even worse shape.'"

Comments

Re:It's not over for Mozilla after all

[dotancohen]

They still have a near monopoly on the entire Linux desktop market!

Truth is, I don't really care if Chrome runs under Linux or not. What _is_ important is that there is a lot of buzz about a non-IE browser out there, and that will help Linux users no matter which browser they use. Chrome will get the attention of at least some PHBs and Frontpa^w webdevs who code IE-only websites. I have been complaining about this for years but now there finally is a product that they will have a hard time ignoring. Firefox was close, but was only talked about by gearheads. Even my mother-in-law asked me about Chrome. Which is too bad, as she's on Ubuntu and feels left out...

Tracemonkey vs. V8

[Anik315]

Chrome is currently faster than Firefox at most things even when Tracemonkey is enabled. I mostly work with browser based math/finance apps, and one of the most intensive things that can be done is a numerical integral. No other browser even comes close to Chrome in terms of speed. The only drawback is that it isn't cross platform yet. From what I hear, Tracemonkey is working really well on different processors so it will be an interesting match up. Try pasting this code into JavaScript Shell from Chrome and Firefox for a comparison.

Math.precision=function (x, eps) { var dec = Math.pow(10, Math.floor(Math.log(1 / eps) * Math.LOG10E)); return Math.round(dec * x) / dec; };function asr(f, a, b, eps) { var c = (a + b) / 2; var h = (b - a) / 6; var fa = f(a); var fb = f(b); var fc = f(c); return Math.precision(recursive_asr(f, a, b, c, eps, h * (fa + fb + 4 * fc), fa, fb, fc), eps); };function recursive_asr(f, a, b, c, eps, sum, fa, fb, fc) { var cl = (a + c) / 2; var cr = (c + b) / 2; var h = (c - a) / 6; var fcr = f(cr); var fcl = f(cl); var left = (fa + 4 * fcl + fc) * h; var right = (fc + 4 * fcr + fb) * h; if (Math.abs(left + right - sum) <= 15 * eps) { return left + right + (left + right - sum) / 15; } return recursive_asr(f, a, c, cl, eps / 2, left, fa, fc, fcl) + recursive_asr(f, c, b, cr, eps / 2, right, fc, fb, fcr); };asr(Math.sin,0,100,1e-15);

Re:the core not even running under mac?

[maxume]

It uses webkit for layout, but it uses a (sort of) homegrown library for rendering:

http://gigaom.com/2008/09/02/google-open-sources-skia-graphics-engine/
http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/skia/

Re:It's not over for Mozilla after all

[Fumus]

If a large enough subgroup of "the blue e takes me to the internet" group starts thinking that google=internet, then a convenient "Download chrome! Make your google experience even better." link on every search page can easily convert them.