The Future of Google Chrome

TRNick writes "Lars Bak, who heads up development of Google Chrome's cornerstone javascript engine, talks about why Google is so focused on in-browser javascript performance, the role Chrome has played in driving up javascript performance in other browsers, and why it's taking so long to introduce support for third-party extensions. 'The web is becoming an integral part of the computer and the basic distinction between the OS and the browser doesn't matter very much any more,' he says."

Comments

As we've seen.

[stonedcat]

As we've seen with Windows and IE.... the distinction between browser and and OS matters quite a bit. That is if you don't want to get accused of being and evil monopoly.

Re:As we've seen.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

There are fairly clearly two different senses of "distinction" at work here.

The lawsuit concerns the question of whether or not a web browser is structurally distinct from the OS or not: is it an integral component, or an instance of bundling of two essentially unrelated things.

This interview concerns the developer's observation that people's use of the browser doesn't draw much of a distinction between the browser and the OS(in that they consider the computer broken if web access isn't working, and in that they consider webapps to be on par with native apps).

It is also quite possible that, shockingly, an individual developer, speaking semiformally about his project, has a slightly different view than does Google's legal department, speaking on behalf of Google's official position.

Re:As we've seen.

[elrous0]

in that they consider the computer broken if web access isn't working

I suspect that will be MS's essential defense of bundling a default brower (IE) with Windows. People EXPECT any modern OS to come with a default browser. Most of them don't even realize the browser is a distinct program from the OS itself. The argument against MS not bundling a browser with their OS is a relic from the 90's. These days it would be suicide for anyone to release an OS without built-in web capability right out of the box.

Re:As we've seen.

[Tarlus]

Buzzwords like "cloud computing" and "online OS" don't change the fact that this is not a paradigm shift

And "netbook."

Thank you for writing this post, it really nails my opinion of the matter on the head as well. This whole new webapp craze has created such a stink in the IT world because so many people assume that it's going to phase out good-old-fashioned binaries. This is simply not the case. Like any tool, webapps are extremely useful for the right job. Regular binary programs are extremely useful for the right job. Writing a document with a webapp that is OS-independent and stored remotely is a nifty idea (especially if your laptop dies or is stolen, your data is safe), but the thought of something like MatLab, number-crunching or large spreadsheets using Javascript makes me cringe. Of course, people out there are still going to try doing this, and that's the crappy part about webapp popularity.

The two approaches just need to find a balance and coexist. There will continue to be a distinction between webapps and the local OS because there will continue to be different people who have different uses for their computers. Average Joe will not know or care what OS is on his Eee as long as he can use his Google Mail and Google Calendar and Google Documents... and as long he knows that when the Eee is pickpocketed or dropped and broken, he can still get his data back from Google using another computer. IT Dude Tarlus (me) will continue to be anal-retentive about my OS, my software and the more advanced applications I have for them. I admit that I have written and use webapps, but only because they're the best tool for the job at hand. But I'll stick with a native word processor. (And no vasectomy, please.) =)

The whole point of Chrome

[LeDopore]

is that its future per se doesn't matter.

What Google cares about is that there is a least one standards-compliant browser out there with fast javascript. Sure Google might have a slight preference for people using Chrome over another browser with fast javascript (like, say, Safari), but what really matters to them is that they are able to deliver web apps that are fast enough to be reasonable competitors to traditional desktop apps.

Chrome is a combination insurance policy/open-source soapbox whose purpose is to make sure that Google apps (and other web apps) will always have a browser to run on.

Re:annoyed

[Stormwatch]

Am I the only one annoyed by "Google are..."

That is UK-English, it seems TechRadar is a British site. I agree, it sounds really strange and illogical if you are used to US-English.

If the browser is the OS...

[MobyTurbo]

How come it's Windows-only still if the browser is all that matters and the OS isn't, Google?

Re:I know the future...

[Kagura]

Being uninstalled?

Until they get support for Firefox addons or get a base of addons equal to Firefox's, it won't be going on my computer anymore. ;*( I used it for about two weeks after its release, and then switched back to Firefox and never looked back.

Re:annoyed

[john.wingfield]

To be fair, we've butchered Latin as well as German.

Re:I know the future...

[Ninnle Labs, LLC]

Because not everyone in the world is a programmer?

Re:I know the future...

[0xABADC0DA]

if you really so sick of getting that noscript/adblock add-on, why not develop one yourself and contribute back to the project?

Time to develop extensions support and equivalent noscript add-on: six months, full time
Time to complain about lack of extensions in Google Chrome: <10 seconds

Your question is why people don't give up 6 months of their time instead of complaining why Google released a browser without modern features? That's madness. Developers work on open source for free when they feel like it, so unless some developer is really excited about reinventing NoScript they are going to complain instead.

And I'll go even further and turn the tables on you. If you are so sick of people complaining about lack of extensions why haven't you fixed it yet? And even if you are contributing to the project, why are you taking your free time to complain about everybody else instead of working on plugins? The chromium code is right there, so get back to work.

Re:I know the future...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Because not everyone in the world is a programmer?

I'm a programmer. But that doesn't mean I don't have better things to do than play with web browsers.

If I wanted to work on yet another solution to an already solved problem, I would write accounting software for fun.