Tag: browser

Chrome

Sometimes you have to wonder at Google. Yesterday they launched Chrome, a new WebKit-based web browser as a BETA for Windows. That’s not surprising considering that Android chose WebKit, S60 chose WebKit and, to be honest, unless you’re really into the politics of the Mozilla guys, you’d choose WebKit too. It’s lean, it’s fast, it’s … Continue reading “Chrome”

Sometimes you have to wonder at Google.

Yesterday they launched Chrome, a new WebKit-based web browser as a BETA for Windows. That’s not surprising considering that Android chose WebKit, S60 chose WebKit and, to be honest, unless you’re really into the politics of the Mozilla guys, you’d choose WebKit too. It’s lean, it’s fast, it’s where all the cool kids are.

Anyway. The real ‘new’ feature of Chrome as opposed to other web browsers is the idea of process proliferation. The Chrome application itself is really a process manager for Chrome sub-processes which spawn to handle a single page or tab each. This is a bit like the way Apache deals with increasing traffic by spawning new processes so the idea is not new (and I proposed that Apple should do something similar for the FTFF problem). The added benefit is that a single tab can crash out and not affect the rest of the tabs – it’s a shame that that alone is the ‘killer feature’.

Obviously it’s going to be attractive to some due to the ‘new and shiny’ but the minimalist interface might not be enough for some and my Twitter stream has been filled with people complaining about it not working as planned. And of course, it’s Windows only…

I’m currently playing with it as my default browser on Vista and will likely develop an opinion as time goes on. It feels no different to Safari to be honest which, in a way, is a big complement. Still leaves me wanting to try it on Mac OS X – Vista just isn’t to my taste.

So, there you have it. Download it (for Windows) or spend a few minutes reading about it in the Google Chrome online comic.

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Grrrr…Web design…

Apart from the issues we’ve seen when attempting to contact web sites belonging to digitalcircle.org, momentumni.org and investni.com when you do something as simple as omitting the ‘www’, I’m presented with this… Renders badly in Firefox and Safari. Renders okay in Internet Explorer. Come on guys…I know a couple of web developers who would fix … Continue reading “Grrrr…Web design…”

Apart from the issues we’ve seen when attempting to contact web sites belonging to digitalcircle.org, momentumni.org and investni.com when you do something as simple as omitting the ‘www’, I’m presented with this…

Renders badly in Firefox and Safari. Renders okay in Internet Explorer.
Come on guys…I know a couple of web developers who would fix this lickety-split.

I run Google Analytics on a few of my web sites and notice the following trends.

Site Firefox Safari I.E. Other
quayperformance.com 41% 30% 26% 3%
nimug.org 23% 54% 21% 2%
lategaming.com 54% 7% 36% 3%
host.io 43% 25% 7% 25%

These stats tell me quite simply that Firefox is dominant in every market except very Mac-specific markets. I’m sure this is partly due to the very aggressive push from the Mozilla corporation on Firefox but also because Firefox is more reliable and it’s working against the momentum of people who won’t update their anti-virus definitions never mind install a new web browser.

I don’t use Firefox much though I updated to version 3 when it was released. I prefer to use Safari. For the most part the macro-rendering of web sites is pretty identical. They both do things well, are compliant with standards and therefore web sites designed and tested for them present the widest field of accessibility.

In comparison, the legacy of web sites out there designed for Internet Explorer will become more and more incompatible as the old IE rendering model declines further and further into obscurity. Companies which do not act will be part of a ghetto of web pages which represent the very worst of design.

What do your stats say?

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And when there is no food…the dogs turn on themselves…

Firefox, the browser for the rest of them, hit version 3.0 yesterday. I say this because although I updated to version 3 as soon as the prompt appeared on screen, I don’t use Firefox much. And the reason is that it’s entirely built with non-native widgets, it looks unnatural and damn, if it isn’t really … Continue reading “And when there is no food…the dogs turn on themselves…”

Firefox, the browser for the rest of them, hit version 3.0 yesterday.

I say this because although I updated to version 3 as soon as the prompt appeared on screen, I don’t use Firefox much. And the reason is that it’s entirely built with non-native widgets, it looks unnatural and damn, if it isn’t really slow as well. I’m running a dual-core 2.4 GHz machine with 2 GB of RAM so nothing is ‘slow’ in any real sense. Firefox just feels sluggish. From selecting a button to dropping an in-window menu. I updated and kept it in my apps folder because you never know when some poorly designed web site will work better in Firefox than Safari. It’s rare but it happens (and yes, I keep a Wine bottle of Internet Explorer 6 for Windows installed for exactly the same reason).

Jack Shedd jumps in with this on his blog, Big Contrarian:

But fuck me if it’s not a lie. First, Firefox actually lags behind Safari in terms of web standards support. So if it was created to promote innovation, it must be more a “do as I say, not as I do” situation. In which case, they should also claim that it was created to help cure cancer. That’d look great in a feature chart.

The truth is that Firefox is not a great browser, it’s just better than Internet Explorer (I say this while using a Windows machine during the day). The very fact that I’m stuck using Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 6.02 here is a different story but I’m sure I’d go mad without Firefox tabs. But that’s on Windows. On my laptop it’s a different story. I have Safari, Firefox and Opera, all updated to the latest levels yet if you look at my browsing, Firefox and Opera are distant in terms of usage.

Getting Firefox rendering without the crap UI means going to Camino. Camino is a much leaner browser, the mozilla rendering engine wrapped in Cocoa widgets.

Why is this all important though?
Firefox and Safari have, to be honest, more in common than we’d think and it’s a shame that they feel they have to make up nonsense in order to get ahead. Both browsers have a vested interest in the web being standards-based and ridding the world of everything proprietary in a browser (and yes, though it pains me, I think making web sites iPhone-optimised is a big mistake – aim for ‘Mobile Optimised’?)

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