What is Chrome?
What is Chrome (and why does this page look like it)? Chrome is Google’s next generation web browser with many new ideas in hopes of creating a new web experience. I found a theme that resembled the Chrome interface and really liked the simplicity and minimalism of it, which is why my site looks like it. So what special about chrome?
Chrome is based upon the WebKit rendering engine, which currently is the only rendering engine to score 100/100 on the Acid3 browser standards test (Opera’s Presto engine is in a close second at the time of this post scoring 99/100). When one develops a web application or site to target WebKit browsers, they are targeting a whole family of browsers, such as Safari, Chrome, or Konqueror, and the newest web specifications (DOM2, CSS3, and SVG)
Another cool feature of Chrome is the integration of Gears, formally known as Google Gears. Gears is a technology developed by Google that allows for offline use of rich web applications. Two of the most important features which Gears provides (of the many) are a database module allowing offline storage of data and a desktop module which allows applications to interact more natively with the desktop (drag and drop for instance).
Chrome also has a couple new security concepts (some of which also are possibly of Internet Explorer 8). The first feature that enhances the security of Chrome is a blacklist system for phishing and malware which warns users when they visit harmful sites, in addition Google also notifies owners of sites when they are added to the blacklist to warn them of harmful software they do not realize may be present. A second security feature introduced is the concept of running tabs and JavaScript as new processes (in a JavaScript virtual machine). Running tabs and scripts as a new process reduces the chances of cross site scripting and cross site reference forgery by keeping session variables unique to the process.
Although Chrome is not perfect, it has some great concept for things to come.
Tags: Browsers, Google Chrome, Software, Web, WebKit