If you really want to benchmark Chrome against the other browsers, throw some JavaScript at the browsers and compare that.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10030888-92.html

I think this is a very wise move by Google. Browsers currently break a fundamental assumption of OS: application independence via processes. It’s not just about memory leaks. It about security (cross-site scripting), accountability (which web page is eating my CPU), and developer friendliness. The last one is key for Google for their own internal development in a dynamic wep-app driven world (same “app” for hosting app and coding documentation, tracking resource consumption, and identifying blame on the correct component).

I’ve been griping about this for a while (years?), but nowhere public. In fact, I already use multiple process browser for these issues, albeit by switching by FireFox and Safari regularly. Yes, they are the number two and three icons after the immobile Finder.

These current state of affairs is so bad it has grown past developer and security/administration issues. It is a user issue.

Worse, none of the four main browser developers are addressing the issue. Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, or Opera. The issue has bee ignored as unsolvable (by making invalid assumptions about what a browser is) or too complex for the current momentum.

And while I strongly agree with (almost) all other “improvements” Google made to the browser, I view them as opportunistic fluff added because some things needed to be designed in the process of starting from (near) scratch. It also acts to differentiate the browser during the initial marketing drive (a comic by a well known artist?).

I would argue the marketing is and new browser push are short term pokes to require the other four browser developers to respond. If that was not the case, they would not have done this open source (compare to Safari which is also based on the open-source WebKit). I fully expect one of two results: FireFox doesn’t adapt and Chrome _slowly_ becomes the new default open source alternative. Chrome is a considered a success. Or… FireFox and others do respond, also becoming multi-process based (regardless of other changes), and Google drops its marketing move, leaving the system to be a test bed of Google-specific browser technologies. Chrome is considered a failure. Either way, Google gets what it wants. The latter may even be cheaper, as Google gets to wash its hands of browser maintenance.

Of course, this ignores Android, which needed a browser anyway. I’m actually happy to see both iPhone/Safari and Android/Chrome share a web renderer.

As for Firefox market share: who cares? Yes, the audience for Google Chrome is the same as FireFox, but why should FireFox have this pedestal status among open source browsers as long as there are open source options (for learning, testing, experimentation, decomposition/recomposition/embedding, and deep level trust and authentication).

I aplaud Google whole heartedly.

I’m curious if you agree with this statement:

“Advances in artificial intelligence are going to reshape the world,” Rizzo said. “I think the virtual patient project is going to revolutionize how we do training in clinical fields.”

What advances? Besides better input hardware for things like the DARPA challenges, I haven’t read about anything groundbreaking in this field at all. What have I missed?