Thread: Google Chrome

I think I am too old and crumbly too not be skeptical about having the same company run too many things. So OS and IE... shudder. But I don't like browser and search engine the same either so it would take something special to make me change from firefox right at this point.

Javascript VM.

Or maybe they've come up with a better Java VM as well? Maybe, but I doubt it.

I'm pretty happy with Safari, but with an average of 15 or 20 tabs gradually leaking memory, I am interested in the multi-process design. The system usually does a better job handling memory fragmentation between processes than most apps do internally.

I'll have a look when the mac version comes out. By that time the user-experience should be richer anyway.

Originally Posted by su_liam

Javascript VM.

Or maybe they've come up with a better Java VM as well? Maybe, but I doubt it.

my bad...

-Rob A>

If you follow the link I posted it takes you to the "comic strip" that walks through all the features and reasons for everything they are doing. It is really informative.

Regarding Safari, you'll notice that Chrome is being built using the same toolkit that Safari is built with...

Originally Posted by RobA

I think the big changes are under the covers.

The "big deal" is two items:

->the new java vm - much faster

->each page/tab runs in its on instance of the browser in its own thread.

-Rob A>

Hmm having each tab as its own process is a huge benefit imo, but well I guess it wont take forever to get that for the fox as well

Originally Posted by Sagenlicht

Hmm having each tab as its own process is a huge benefit imo, but well I guess it wont take forever to get that for the fox as well

Unfortunately I do not believe it would be possible unless they rewrote FF from the ground up. At least that is what it looks like when you go through the Chrome comic strip to see how they were able to implement that.

However, the great thing is that FF's community is awesome and certainly capable of doing something like that, but I doubt it would get done as quickly as the various "fixes" for Chrome to make it like FF. It will definitely be interesting to see where this leads to say the least.

Would somebody explain why having each page run in its own process as opposed to a separate thread is a good idea ?

Ok so I thought what the heck lets have a little read about whats new in this thing. Here is a version of the google comic which seems to try to explain why they are doing it the way they think is best.

http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/google-chrome/

The problem I have is with each page I read all I can think is - thats bollocks... yeah and thats bollocks too. For example. They say that having each tab in a process means you can zap the process and get total clean up. OK agreed. But the reason why they seem to need that is because they say that opening and closing tabs in threads leads to memory fragmentation. No it doesn't - at least its no worse than memory fragmentation via threads. And leaked memory ? Get a memory leak checker ffs. What the argument boils down to is this:- A crap implementation in a process space would be better than an equally crap one implemented as threads. The idea that if implemented as threaded means that a bad tab locks the browser seems nonsensical to me. A runaway memory hog thread is no worse than a runaway memory hog process. The only advantage you have is that you can force shutdown a process from the process manager and keep the other browsers open. But you could just as easily implement another thread looking for shutdown requests and force close a thread too which amounts to the same thing with the OS + process explorer being that extra thread. The only genuine advantage I can see from using multiple processes is that from a security point of view you might possibly be able to find out what memory locations another threaded tab is at within the same process and look at it. Slightly more difficult with a different process. Using separate processes is not a bad thing its just not the panacea that they seem to be extolling. End of the day I doubt anyone will notice any difference because of it.

Originally Posted by Redrobes

Would somebody explain why having each page run in its own process as opposed to a separate thread is a good idea ?

AFAIK, (but IANAE) 'cause if you have a poorly behaved page (nasty javascript, etc) that makes synchronous calls, or even crashes, the open pages will not be affected.

-Rob A>