Review: Google Chrome 13

The speed of development of Google’s Chrome browser proceeds apace, with Google Chrome 13 [see picture] being the latest version to hit stable status.

One feature that has been missing from Chrome, but which has been available for years in other browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE), is a print preview feature. Chrome 13 rectifies that omission for Linux and Windows operating systems, but not yet for Mac users.

To speed up the browsing experience, Google has introduced an Instant Pages feature that tries to speed up Google searches by rendering pages that haven’t been clicked on yet.

There’s also an improved version of Google’s omnibox – its combined URL and search bar.

In use
It’s nice to see print preview make an appearance in Chrome 13. When users hit the print button, the webpage is automatically previewed with standard options to change paper size, orientation, printer, and whether to print in colour or black and white [see picture].

Instant Pages is a significant new addition. When users run a Google search, the results page is populated with what Google’s engine thinks is closest to what users require.

With Instant Pages, the top-rated search result is pre-rendered, which should cut a lot of time from web browsing.

The feature worked well in our tests: clicking on the top search result when using Chrome 13 brought up that webpage almost instantaneously.

The omnibox, Google’s combination search box and address bar, has also got much smarter in Chrome 13. As you type into omnibox, the dropdown that appears is populated with websites Chrome predicts you might be typing.

In additon to these new features, Google has upgraded Chrome’s Flash player to the latest version – 10.3.181.14.

However, Chrome users still can’t stop the browser automatically updating itself to the latest version, which can be irritating when the feature you’re using has changed significantly and you have to re-learn the workflow.

As throughout Chrome’s history, the browser is available for Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems.

Performance tests
All browser vendors have upgraded their browsers since our last reviews of Google Chrome 10 and Mozilla Firefox 5.

Opera is now at version 11.51 and Mozilla, with its new three-monthly development schedule, has moved on to Firefox 6, while Safari has also been updated to 5.1 from 5.0.5.

Microsoft continues on its much longer release cycle than Google or Mozilla, but did put out a platform preview of IE version 10 in April this year.

We ran most of the tests on an Intel 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo-based system, with 2GB of system memory running Windows 7 Ultimate.

JavaScript performance
We checked JavaScript performance using a variety of JavaScript benchmarks, including Futuremark’s Peacekeeper browser test, and WebKit.org's SunSpider version 0.9.1. We also used two newer JavaScript benchmarks – Mozilla's Kraken version 1.1 and Google's V8 benchmark suite version 6.

We normalised scores from all four benchmarks, with the best-performing browser having a score of 100. Chrome 13 had the best JavaScript performance, coming top in three out of four JavaScript benchmarks [see picture].

Hardware-assited graphics performance
To check the hardware-assisted graphics acceleration and HTML5 functions of the five browsers, we used Microsoft’s IE Fish Tank, setting up a browser window of 1,200 x 600 pixels on our test system and checking the frames output per second (fps) when 1,000, 500 and 250 fish were displayed.

The results show IE 9 coming out as the best performer, with Firefox 6 next, then Google Chrome 13 [see picture – higher frame rates mean better performance].

WebGL performance
Only Chrome 13 and Firefox 6 support WebGL. Writing pages in WebGL, or using WebGL's graphics capabilities, means brands can create more content-rich webpages rendered by graphics-acceleration capabilities.

To check WebGL performance, we used Google's WebGL Aquarium.

Chrome 13 did perform better than Firefox 6, but not by much [see picture].

For adherence to HTML5 standards, we used the Web Standards Project's Acid3 check and a newer benchmark, Browserscope.org's HTMLtest.

With Acid3, three browsers scored 100 out of 100 – Chrome 13, Opera 11.51 and Safari 5.1 – while Firefox 6 and IE 9 scored 97 and 95, respectively.

Using Browserscope's HTML5 test, Chrome 13 came top, while IE 9 was fifth out of five browsers [see picture].

Conclusions
Google has integrated its version of print preview in Chrome 13, and tweaked its omnibox combo address and search bar to improve search performance.

Instant Pages also adds speed to users’ web browsing, with Chrome pre-rending the top search result it predicts you’ll want.

Chrome 13 is still the best browser for combined graphics hardware-accelerated and WebGL performance, as measured by the IE Fish Tank and WebGL Aquarium benchmarks, and still boasts the best JavaScript performance, as indicated by our benchmarks.