#comments

So I like Chrome, I think it has the potential to be a really great browser. Beyond that, I like that Google seems to be drawing a line in the sand for this project, something it’s not done in a long, long time. They didn’t announce it two years ago, they didn’t start a consortium of 23 of their best friends to ally with each other to figure it out. They just did it and launched it with a lot of press and backing when it was ready to be launched, they’ve hired and acquired the talent to keep at this bad boy and they seem fully intent on doing so.

I think, though, that some folks are a little too over the moon about this browser. A little breathlessly so. I read a lot of talk about how this is a revolutionary step in browsers and Brin himself gives up their aspiration to make this a web OS relagating the OS’s of today as legacy.

In all these arguments, I’ve seen folks compare it with the iPhone. A lot notice that most of what Chrome is getting press for is not new. But like the iPhone, some argue, enough of these evolutionary steps in one place can, in fact, be revolutionary.

Here’s the thing for me. From a user perspective, Chrome simply is not revolutionary. I’m all completely down with hating on the checklist feature mentality. But it does not significantly change the browsing experience for me the way the iPhone changed the smartphone experience. I do things differently on the iPhone than I do on any other smartphone, I use it more, much, much more. And that is the same thing I’ve heard from pretty much every other iPhone owner I’ve talked to.

On the other hand, Chrome doesn’t change the way I browse. Maybe it’s faster than the current crop of production browsers. Maybe the speed increase is noticeable. Maybe it crashes less. The screen is less cluttered and the Omnibar is freaking awesome – more awesome than the Awesomebar. But, it doesn’t change a single thing about the way I browse or what I browse to. Its touted javascript speed when compared, more properly, to the upcoming generation of browsers may not be so stunning.

Probably the most interesting change is turning each tab into a process. A trade-off, from what I’ve read of resource consumption for stability. This is probably the thing that most engenders the web OS chatter, but really, hopefully it’s true and it works (maybe not?). But ok, let’s not get so breathless here. Web servers have run their several of copies of themselves as different processes forever, but no one is calling them a new OS? The point of it all, is robustness, if from a user perspective everything runs well, it won’t matter if it’s different processes or what, so let’s see what everyone comes up with. And on the flip side, thanks to Microsoft (ok, low blow), people are used to their stuff crashing. They live with it, so even increased stability isn’t a huge draw for people. (Which is not at all to say that it isn’t important).

All I’m saying is that Chrome isn’t a huge step forward in browser evolution. It’s important on several levels. To me one of the most interesting thing about it is that Google has deep pockets and a genuine financial incentive to make the web work better and faster – all the other browser vendors are competing with each other for the abstract purpose of making a better browser to convince people to switch to their app. That difference alone gives Chrome a very interesting perspective and very interesting future. And even if it never ends up a mainstream browser its existence as well as its open sourceness will hopefully accelarate, whether by competition or cooperation, what was already an increasingly heated browser war.

But all this talk about how Chrome is this huge revolution and is totally light years ahead of their competition. Well, I just don’t see it. It’s a great browser, no doubt, but just a regular step (ok, a largish step) forward in this latest round of browser wars. I’d argue that projects like Ubiquity (although at a higher level than the browser) offers much more potential to change the web. Where do you fall on this? What am I missing?