Google Demonstrates Chrome Native Client With Bastion

Multiple readers sent word that Bastion, an action RPG from indie developer Supergiant Games originally made for Xbox Live Arcade, has shown up in the Chrome Web Store. The purpose of the move is to showcase the browser's Native Client technology. From the article: "Ian Ellison-Taylor, Google's director of product management for the open Web platform, said that Native Client, also called NaCl, can currently improve browser performance by 1 to 10 times. 'What would it be like if we could run native code inside the browser,' he asked the crowd, and he enumerated two goals for the Native Client project. He said Google wants to bring native applications to the Web for performance and security reasons, and it wants to enrich the Web ecosystem by bringing popular, long-in-use programming languages to the Web."

Comments

Wow, this is so innovative.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so revolutionary. Now we can run native applications on our computers! Just imagine the possibilities! Oh, wait. We already can. And they aren't inhibited by some horrid browser-based sandbox.

Reminds me of IE 6

[Billly Gates]

I am a little uneasy of making a web browser a proprietary platform. PcMag had an article about Chrome being the next IE 6 of the browser wars 2.0.

IE 6 was a great browser in 2001 regardless of its security shortcomings found years later. Everyone on slashdot back then admitted to using it but were scared and assumed the WWW would die soon because of it. Everyone seems to be oblivious that Google is another evil big corporation no different than Microsoft. Actually synergy is behind Google now, like it was with MS a decade ago.

Dart is chrome only, the javascript libraries are Chrome only or particulary run much better on Chrome (google ones like V8), this and many other proprietary HTML 5 code like that site with the band a few months ago that only work in Chrome. This game will use HTML 5 but has other proprietary hooks to make sure it wont run in any browser.

Google is making it clear they look at the browser as an operating system. At least Microsoft today is running away from ActiveX and trying to do good with IE 10 which will be the most open and standards compliant browser to date. Firefox is dying and is losing popularity. In a year or two from now it will be a IE vs Chrome world.

Anyone else bugged or am I just paranoid? I just want a great browser and not a simple fast one, but with the real goodies underneath it that are dependent on Chrome.

Re:Reminds me of IE 6

[DragonWriter]

I am a little uneasy of making a web browser a proprietary platform.

There's two different uses of "proprietary" that are common, one is in contrast to FOSS (which Native Client is), and one is in contrast to "standard" (with regard to which, per the Native Client FAQ, Google thinks Native Client is too immature to consider trying to standardize at this time.)

Lots of technology gets integrated into browsers to be proven before being submitted for standardization.

Dart is chrome only

No, its not. The VM isn't integrated into Chrome yet, the only way to run it in a browser is compiling to JS that runs on any modern browser, so its not even runs-better-on-Chrome, much less Chrome-only.

Its possible that the when the VM is integrated in Chrome it will be runs-better-on-Chrome.

the javascript libraries are Chrome only or particulary run much better on Chrome (google ones like V8)

V8 isn't a javascript library, its the JavaScript engine that Chrome uses, parallel to SpiderMonkey or whatever the engine is that Firefox uses now.

[...] proprietary HTML 5 code [...]

You are misusing either "proprietary" or "HTML 5" here.

Good question

[0123456]

What would it be like if we could run native code inside the browser?

The massive swamp of security vulnerabilities that was ActiveX?

Re:bad idea

[kripkenstein]

To me [NaCl] seems like a reasonable way to move the web forward without subverting it (or even altering it much).

There are a few big problems with that:

• NaCl is not portable. NaCl apps only run on x86 and x86_64, not ARM or PowerPC or anything else.
• NaCl is not a standard or even a proposed standard, and all other browser vendors are opposed to it (because of the previous issue, and because it is controlled by Google). As a consequence, NaCl apps only run on Chrome (and on x86 and x86_64).

The web is all about open standards, viewing the same web from any browser or any OS, and so forth. So NaCl, that only runs on two archs and on one browser, is a step backwards.

Re:It's SLLOOOOWWWW

[VortexCortex]

Single core code... You bought more cores thinking coders (especially poor indie ones) were going to support all of them at once?
My 7 year old 3ghz single core machine, w/ 3GB RAM and a crappy $50 Nvidia GeForec FX 5200 runs this fantastically.

As a coder myself I take great pains to ensure my software can take advantage of as many cores as you throw at it, but in reality, most programs do not. What's the individual cycle speed of one of your cores? Less than my 6 year old laptop? Yeah, don't expect low quality software to run well on your high quality rig.

I wish Erlang wasn't crap when it comes to games -- it was a step in the right direction.

Re:bad idea

[suy]

NaCl is not portable. NaCl apps only run on x86 and x86_64, not ARM or PowerPC or anything else.

NaCL binaries are not portable in the same way I can't install the FireFox's Windows binaries on Linux (or the armel ".deb" from packages.debian.org on my amd64 computer), but honestly, who cares? Mozilla and Debian guys just compile it for each supported platform. There is also the possibility of creating a "fat nexe" that supports all platforms.

As a consequence, NaCl apps only run on Chrome (and on x86 and x86_64).

Is open source code on an open source browser. I would prefer it being a plugin (I think at some point there was one) so I can run it in all my browsers. But this is no different than any other proprietary feature on other browsers. I'm currently using Mozilla's proprietary "crypto" JavaScript API for an application, and it only runs on Mozilla's browsers. Not convenient, for sure, but what should I do? Not use the feature at all? Or try to make something valuable from it, so other developers might consider incorporating it?