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Google Betas Chrome 4, Touts 30% Speed Boost

Posted by samzenpus on from the greased-lightning dept.

CWmike writes "Google upgraded the beta version (4.0.223.16) of its Chrome browser yesterday, boasting a 30% speed improvement over the current production edition and adding integrated bookmark synchronization. Developers Idan Avraham and Anton Muhin, who announced the release, tout Chrome 4.0's faster JavaScript rendering speeds. 'We've improved performance scores on Google Chrome by 30% since our current stable release, and by 400% since our first stable release,' they said, referring to Chrome 3.0. The new beta includes the ability to sync bookmarked sites across multiple computers."

9 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Cheating on my first love - Firefox by MasterOfGoingFaster · · Score: 4, Informative

    I so loved Firefox and use to tell everyone to use it. I loved that it kicked IE's ass. Gotta love any open source project that goes up against Microsoft and wins.

    As much as I hate to admit it, I can no longer stand to use Firefox. Like a slut that wins you over with fantastic sex, Chrome got me where it matters most - raw speed.

    In fact, it seems way too fast. Is Google caching the web pages in a nearby Google server? Even sites that use little JavaScript seem to load really fast. Is something going on here?

    --
    Place nail here >+
    1. Re:Cheating on my first love - Firefox by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Informative

      The lack of extension support is a myth. As is the supposed lack of adblocking extensions.

      The chrome extension API specifically includes the exact functionality needed for ad blocking via the filter APIs... and yet here we have conspiracy theorists breaking out their tin foil hats and claiming that Chrome is Google's plot to get rid of ad blockers. *facepalm*

      The adblock extension I linked above isn't the only one, although it's the only one that I've tried. It's a bit buggy and the UI isn't all there yet, but it does subscribe to the real ABP's easylist, and it *does* block the ads in the list.

    2. Re:Cheating on my first love - Firefox by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Informative

      I used to be like you. Still am, in a way.

      Here's the thing: Clicking something and having the action take place instantly makes that unnecessary for quite a lot of tasks. And that goes not just for links to new pages (though that is a factor), but for links that drive Javascript.

      I'll give you an example: I always hear people whining about the new Slashdot AJAX crap. I agree, it's bloated and completely unnecessary, and on Firefox and Konqueror, it's slow as hell. In Chrome, it's actually faster than the old system -- click reply, half a second later there's a reply box ready to type, and that's about the longest anything takes here. Clicking on a semi-hidden thread to expand it is even faster.

      Granted, that's not "instantly", the way so much of the Web has become for me. But the difference is pretty staggering, and pretty significant.

      I still use tabs almost the way you do, but that's when I have a slow connection, or a bunch of links that I can't easily visit in serial.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  2. Re:Love to use it, but... by ltmon · · Score: 5, Informative

    FYI, nightly builds for all platforms (Mac, Win, Linux, Linux x64) available here: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/

    Should get official versions soon, I guess, but I find any given nightly build (on Linux) fast and reliable.

  3. Re:Love to use it, but... by BitZtream · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/

    Which can be found by visiting:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=chromium+mac+download

    Imagine that.

    I stopped bothering with Chromium, Safari isn't different enough to justify the instability of Chromium for me.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  4. Re:Plugin support by 13bPower · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.chromeextensions.org/

    They have adblock.

  5. Re:60% faster loss of privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Try SRware Iron. It's just Chrome - tracking bits.
     
      Comparison of Chrome Vs Iron

  6. Re:JIT javascript by BZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Spidermonkey (the ECMAScript implementation in Gecko, hence in Firefox) and Nitro (aka SFX Extreme, the ECMAScript implementation in Safari) both use JITs as well.

    > just like modern Java runtimes

    Not quite; the tradeoffs are somewhat different.

    > JavaScript is going to approach native code speed

    Somewhat. Depends on your jit, on your code, etc.

  7. Re:60% faster loss of privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    That is true for ALL browsers that have the visited link style and browsing history activated.