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Google Chrome and it’s effect on RIA development |
| by Neil Middleton 11:39 pm Tuesday, 2 September 2008. |
Today, Google dropped a bomb onto the internet in the form of a new browser, Chrome. Whilst not initially ground breaking, the big news is in the details.
In summary, Google have created a browser that is suited to the modern internet, the one that is seeing a big shift towards online internet applications as well as traditional sites.
The key elements that Google have introduced, amongst others, are:
So, to cover these in more detail:
1. The tiny footprint
Now, to most this might not seem like a biggy, but for me it’s an interesting angle.
Google have the infrastructure in place to get this browser in front of lots of people a lot quicker than anyone else, after all, nearly everyone on the planet uses Google properties in some way. Bundling the browser, or advertising it everywhere is not a problem for them, so I would expect people to be very aware of it very soon.
At the moment, Google chrome is a 7mb download for Windows (yup, only 7Mb). Whilst not much smaller than the competitors (Firefox 7.2Mb, IE 8 b2 12.4Mb) it does show that adoption for this browser could certainly be rapid. RAM usage is also miniscule compared with the likes of Firefox (which lots of people complain about as being very memory heavy). This suits Chrome to lots of mobile/laptop applications as well as machines that might be getting on a bit.
Therefore, I personally see chrome as getting out there quickly, much more so than Firefox did, mainly due to who is promoting it and their reach. If anyone is able to get a product out, Google have to be one of the best placed people to do so.
2. Built in Google Gears
Another big item is the inclusion of Google Gears. Gears was launched a fair while back and is available as a add-on to your existing browser. In essence, Gears lets you do a lot of the things that Adobe AIR provides, for instance, local data storage, the ability to run offline, as well as a number of other features such as desktop access. This now means that your bog-standard AJAX app can now transition effectively to a desktop app with no need for an additional download (other than Chrome), or any sort of redevelopment at all. All the user needs to do is select what they need and then use the Prism style functionality to migrate it to their desktop as a standalone app (admittedly wrapped in Chrome). Fancy your favourite web app as a desktop app?
3. V8 - the new Javascript VM
But AJAX and Javascript are slow right? Well yes, largely, except that Chrome contains a brand new javascript virtual machine called V8 which is showing itself up to 100 times faster than competitor browsers in benchmark tests. This is a massive thing for AJAX. Historically, Flash’s main selling point for RIA was the performance. With AS3 and Flash Player 9 you can pull data into the player and process it very quickly - javascript just cannot even think about competing, but now, with V8 it will be interesting to see how things change. Without having testing this particular scenario it is now quite possible that we can see performant AJAX apps running inside the browser - almost to the same performance level as modern flash applications. AJAX has always been slightly cheaper to develop than Flash applications so it will be interesting to see if people start to choose AJAX over the superior Flash platform more for new RIA deployments.
So, there we go. But surely all this is reliant on Chrome being the users browser of choice? Well, No. Chrome is an open-source effort, which means that should Mozilla or Opera or anyone else want to make use of the improvements made by Google they can, without issue. Therefore the introduction of chrome can only introduce benefits for all browser manufacturers, after all, competition is a good thing.
At the end of the day, AJAX is firmly here to stay and looks set to do some interesting things in the near future. With the proposed introduction of video in HTML 5, Flash could be looking to have more of a niche for itself. Sure, there will always be times where Flash is suited best but Chrome has definitely put a new perspective on AJAX application development and where it could be headed in the future.
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What browsers are we seeing today? |
| by Neil Middleton 1:02 am Wednesday, 12 December 2007. |
Well, I’ve just had a poke around in the Feed-Squirrel stats, and come across the OS usage that I am seeing on the site. I’ll tell you one thing, it’s quite amazing what people will be surfing the web on these days (well, different to when I started looking at server logs back in ‘96).
Windows 81.6%
Mac OSX 11.2%
Linux 6%
Playstation 3 0.6%
Symbian 0.07%
SunOS 0.03%
PSP 0.03%
iPhone 0.03%
iPod 0.01%
Goddamn kids I tell you…
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Firefox 2 Beta 1 |
| by Neil Middleton 5:45 pm Tuesday, 11 July 2006. |
Yup, it's out and about. Get it while it's hot.
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About bloody time… |
| by Neil Middleton 12:27 pm Wednesday, 31 May 2006. |
If you've ever been playing with SELECT boxes and Layers, you know about the z-index bug that exists where a SELECT insists on being the highest element. I cannot remember how many times I have had to write code to hide SELECT boxes before showing a layer over them.
Well, it appears Microsoft have finally got off their arse and fixed it in IE7. Well, what can I say, just in the nick of time eh? Just in time for all those developers now thinking about RIA's/Flash/Flex 
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Cleaning up your fox…. |
| by Neil Middleton 1:20 pm Tuesday, 16 May 2006. |
If you're anything like me you tinker with your Firefox nearly every day of the week trying out new extensions, trying new settings and just generally mucking about. Also, you'll find that every now and then your install just isn't as fresh as it once was. Well, I cleaned up my FF profile this morning and started afresh again, making using the browser all nice and shiny again. How did I do this? Well here goes:
1. Find your profile folder (should be in C:\Documents and Settings\#Windows Username#\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\)
2. Make a copy of the profile folder, then delete the original. Also delete the profiles.cfg and pluginreg.dat files in the Firefox Folder (up above profiles)), then run Firefox and create a new profile on prompt.
3. Copy from your original profile folder the following files/folders:
- bookmarks.html (Bookmarks)
- cookies.txt (Cookies)
- cert8.db, secmod.db, key3.db and signons.txt (Saved Passwords)
- search.rdf file and searchplugins directory (Search)
4. Go to addons.mozilla.org and re-install your extensions. You'll probably find yourself installing less that you had before.
Hopefully once you have done this you should have a profile resembling what you had, but without all the clutter. A couple of minor tweaks later on and you should be back exactly how you were.
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