This Week in Lumps
#61 [02/09 - 08/09]
· Last week Google announced yet another invention aimed at belittling Microsoft, with the surprise launch of a new web browser to add to its growing list of applications. ‘Chrome‘ was released worldwide last Tuesday, promoting itself as the future of browsing, with speed, stability and security as its selling point. According to Google, gone are the days of text-based websites and 1990′s style Internet pages, as it’s now evolved to rich, interactive applications such as Youtube, so we should have a browser to complement this. A bigwig at Google was quoted as saying:
“What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.
So, in their attempt to “completely rethink the browser”, have Google found an IE killer, or are they barking up the wrong tree? A quick dissection of what they’re promoting themselves on is in order:
Speed
In early tests by bloggers last week, Chrome performs much faster than all competitors in everyday web browsing, including Safari, Firefox 3 (which itself is faster than Opera), and both IE 7 and 8. These tests, including email checking, and general search engine queries, suit the average Internet user, but for more heavy duty usage, such as uploading photos to Flickr, or browsing videos on Youtube, there wasn’t much difference between FF, IE or Chrome, for me anyway.
Stability
One of the selling points that caught my eye was Googles approach to ‘the occasional crashing website’. They admitted that, yes, websites can crash, but this shouldn’t hurt the whole browser, and they have designed Chrome so that if one tab is frozen, this shouldn’t drag the others down with it. I’m yet to experience this, it sounds like something that could really improve the whole browsing experience.
Chrome also features a process management tool called the ‘Task Manager’ which allows the user to see what sites are using the most memory, downloading the most bytes and abusing their CPU, giving them the option to terminate them if need be.
And because Google likes you to think it’s human, the error messages have disappeared. When a page is broken, the screen shows an unhappy face and the words “Aw snap”.
Security
When someone cheekily asked a Google bigwig if Chrome’s new anonymous browsing option was “the porn mode”, he simply said: “We call it Incognito”. The angelic side to this new feature is that it was designed so others can’t see what sites you visited, for example, buying someone a birthday present, or holiday bookings.
Malicious hackers should find it harder to get damaging code onto computers via Chrome, too, because the programme is prevented from tampering with core parts of other programmes. In common with an increasing number of browsers, Chrome constantly updates its list of blacklisted sites that are known to be “phishing” for private user data. And because it is also “open source”, software developers will offer improvements to its capabilities.
Other Selling Points
Upon opening Chrome, the first thing you see is a handful of web-screenshots of some of your favourite websites (a lot like Opera’s Speed Dial), garnered from your search history. Click and you go straight to them, which is a much better step up from an about:blank screen. There’s also a box enabling you to search your web history just to the side of this. Chrome is also open-source, meaning developers can access and make changes to its underlying source code.
Although Chrome is still a bit light on features and add-ons, it is still easy on the eye, and very moreish. It has an assortment of highly promising capabilities that could influence the future of browser design, which is always a good thing. It doesn’t clutter up the screen with unnecessary options and settings, which are tucked away in a corner,
Early Setbacks
Being excited about something new and fresh only works when one of your rivals didn’t get their first – When you start typing in the address bar, Chrome will offer suggested URLs or offer web searches, sadly for them, this is just like Firefox’s AwesomeBar.
Arstechnica also spotted something I couldn’t find (and the reason why I couldn’t find it is because it’s not there) -
“There are a few key features that seem to have been left out, including the complete absence of support for RSS. Most modern browsers have RSS readers integrated directly into the user interface. Chrome doesn’t even provide any kind of visual notification when the user browses a page that has a feed. I expected Chrome to have some kind of RSS component that integrates with Google Reader, but no such luck”.
Admittedly, yes, there’s a few teething issues that need to be ironed out; Some sites can be a bit unresponsive only in Chrome, and, overall, the browser does not feature anything stunningly amazingly wonderful that will blow the socks off a Firefox user – and persuading the mass of web users, many of whom will be unaware of which browser they use, to go and download Chrome will not be easy, something that Firefox knows all too well.
It’s early days though, and for something just a week old to have impressed so early is a good sign. What I’m more worried about is that Firefox is heavily funded by Google; will this new venture mean they will use that money a little closer to home?
~
· Steve Coogan has had a busy 12 months; he had a role in summer blockbuster Tropic Thunder, he’s writing new material for his return to stand up, as well as gearing up for a role in the film about Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, and as well as all that, he’s also starring in the lead role for what may end up being a unpredicted riot of a comedy – Hamlet 2.
Starring some unknown talent alongside some regular faces, Coogan is joined by Catherine Keener (Capote, Being John Malkovich), Amy Poehler (Horton Hears a Who, Blades of Glory), and David Arquette.
The hapless hero of our story is Dana Marschz (Coogan), a failed actor – his credits include an ad for a herpes treatment – now working as a high-school drama teacher in Tucson, Ariz. He has only two students, the uptight Rand (Skylar Astin) and Epiphany (Phoebe Strole), until he’s inundated with a bunch of apathetic students whose other electives were canceled. Meanwhile, Dana and his shrewish wife, Brie (Keener), are desperate to conceive a baby, but they’re also broke, so they take in a boarder (Arquette).
When the school’s principal (Marshall Bell) tells Dana the drama program – which up to now has produced Dana’s lame adaptations of hit movies, such as “Erin Brockovich – is to be shut down, Dana launches a last-ditch plan to save it. He plans to write and produce a musical sequel to “Hamlet,” undeterred by his limited writing talent, an obsession with his father’s disapproval, or the fact that almost everyone in the original Hamlet dies.
There’s two reviews I’ve recently read that sums up the general feeling of the positive reviews so far:
“Coogan’s unique delivery and wit is something you’ll either embrace up like Jesus’ love – Coogan, after all, does play the messiah in “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” – or, like pleated khakis, it may not be your particular style.”
and
“Anyone who has ever been involved in amateur theater or, for that matter, has been involved with anyone involved in amateur theater, will applaud “Hamlet 2.”
Hamlet 2 has been in Cinemas for about a week or so now, grab it while it’s hot.
~~~
That was the week in lumps, a week in which: the man behind the end of the world used to be in D:ream, Ghostbusters 3 is in the pipelines, Facebook is binning the old and sticking with the new (albeit with a few tweaks), Jon Stewart obliterated McCain’s acceptance speech, Gavin and Stacey looks set for a 3rd series, Stop washing that earwax out, and email is as addictive as slot machines apparently.
whilst on the subject of Hamlet 2, here’s some other Shakespeare Sequels from Cinematical.
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