Google Chrome

昨天 Google 发布了 Google Chrome，一个网络浏览器。Google 会发布浏览器，是很奇怪。也很奇怪的是中文名称就叫作“谷歌浏览器”。同样奇怪的是一天内使用量竟然超过Opera……

Chrome 的意思，是指浏览器的界面。Google Chrome 的界面非常细致。它巧妙地使用了 Vista 的 DWM Aero 玻璃效果，给人轻快的感觉。似乎就是为 Aero 观感 度身定做的。同时标签栏放置于地址栏上方以及没有菜单栏也使得界面比其他浏览器都简洁。这样的界面挪到 Mac OS X 或者 GNU/Linux 的话怎么实现呢？特别是类似于 Compiz 的合成桌面管理器的情况下，Chrome 究竟是会利用系统的透明支持还是设法融入系统？另外 Chrome 的微妙的动画效果感觉也很有趣，人性化的色彩。特别是读取时的指示器，连接的时候是逆时针转，读取数据的时候是顺时针转。

Chrome 和 Safari 一样，基于 WebKit 渲染引擎。不过不像 Safari 使用自带的文字渲染，Chrome使用 Windows 本身的 ClearType. 一方面这避免了 Safari 经常搞不清楚应该用哪个字体的问题 (Safari 渲染中文经常一会儿黑体一会儿宋体)，但另一方面ClearType 对字形的变形有时对字形设计师来说是个麻烦……

不过 Chrome 也有自己的字体问题：Chrome 默认无衬线字体是宋体(有衬线的)，而衬线字体却是黑体(没衬线)！更夸张的是默认是中易宋体和中易黑体——两个都是等宽字体，不适合显示拉丁文档。微软雅黑就在那里，难道没看到吗？

最后手工设置字体为 DejaVu Sans 和 DejaVu Serif。就算这样，Google Chrome 在英文的Windows下也能够显示中文界面，而Safari只有英文界面。既然 Chrome 同样基于 WebKit，应该可以把 Safari 请出去了——哦等等不行，Safari 的 JavaScript 引擎和Chrome 的不一样。T_T

Chrome 和 Internet Explorer 8 类似，都是使用多进程的架构，不像 Firefox 一个 JavaScript 可以把整个浏览器卡死。不过，和IE8 每个标签页一个进程不同，Chrome 是每个网站开一个进程。毕竟同一个网站有很多数据是通用的。……在Windows上启动进程要比创建线程慢，不过似乎感觉不出区别。

Chrome 对 SVG 的支持……和 Safari 一样。能够显示，但是 Chrome/Safari 不能滚动，较大的 SVG 图片就无法察看了。另外和 Safari 一样地不支持模糊滤镜。一般图片显示和 Safari 一样，靠左上显示，除了鼠标光标改变以外没有提示是缩小还是放大。这点上卡库尔比较喜欢 Opera 将小图片居中显示的做法。

Chrome 还有几个有趣的地方，例如新建标签页时会显示最常访问的网站和最近关闭的标签页 (事实上从图形界面没有其他办法恢复标签页)，可以查看其他网络浏览器的内存使用情况(Firefox用了200MB, 不过主要是因为我书签很多——Places数据库用了100MB)，还有在浏览器的角落里有一些字符串明显是繁体转简体的 (剩馀時间)……

Yesterday Google has released Google Chrome, a web browser. It’s strange for Google to release a web browser. It’s as strange that it’s Chinese name is simply “Google Browser”. It’s even stranger that its usage has peaked over Opera in one day…

Chrome means the interface of web browsers. Google Chrome has a polished interface, which uses Vista’s DWM Aero Glass effect to give a light, airy feeling. It’s as if it’s made to fit the Aero Aesthetics… (And it does this better than IE7+.) At the same time, putting the tabs above the address bar and a lack of menu bar makes Chrome have a cleaner interface than any other browser. How would such an interface be implemented if it’s ported to Mac OS X or GNU/Linux? Especially under composting window managers like Compiz, would Chrome take advantage of the system’s support of transparency, or would it try to merge in? And Chrome’s animation effects are also quite interesting, with a dash of humanistic. Especially the throbber which turns counter-clockwise when connecting and clockwise when loading. Cute!

Chrome, like Safari, is based on the WebKit rendering engine. But unlike Safari which renders its own text, Chrome uses Windows’ built-in ClearType rendering. On one hand this avoids how Safari can’t seem to be able to decide which font to use (Safari often mixes Ming type with Gothic type when rendering Chinese), but on the other hand the mangling of font outlines by ClearType could be a trouble to typeface designers…

But Chrome has its own font problems too: Chrome’s default Sans-serif font is a Song (a Chinese typeface type aka Ming… with serifs), and it’s default Serif font is a Black (aka Gothic, nope no serifs) one! What’s more it defaults to ZhongYi SimSun and ZhongYi SimHei – both monospace fonts, not fit for displaying Latin documents. And Microsoft YaHei is just over there… don’t tell me you didn’t see that…

So I had to set the fonts to DejaVu Sans and DejaVu Serif manually… But Google Chrome can display Chinese interfaces under an English Windows, and Safari only has a English one. If Chrome is also based on WebKit, why not shove Safari out – oh wait that doesn’t work, Safari has a different JavaScript engine than Chrome. T_T

Chrome, like Internet Explorer 8,  uses a multiple process architecture. Unlike Firefox, where one JavaScript could hang the whole browser. But unlike IE8, Chrome opens a thread for every website. A lot of common data across one site, after all. … starting a process is slower than creating a thread on Windows, but in web browsing, not much a difference.

Chrome’s support for SVG… same with Safari. Can display, but Chrome/Safari cannot scroll SVG so bigger graphics cannot be viewed. And just like Safari, it does not support blur filters. Display for raster images is identical to Safari too, aligned on top-left, and with no indication of being zoomed in or zoomed out sans the mouse cursor. For this one, Kakur likes how Opera centers small graphics better.

Chrome has a few more interesting places, like it displays the most frequently visited websites and recently closed tabs when creating a new tab (in fact this is the only way to restore tabs from the GUI), the ability to view other browsers’ memory usage (Firefox uses 200MB, but mainly because I got a lot of bookmarks – the Places database took 100MB), and a few strings that are obviously converted from Traditional Chinese lurking here and there…

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好饿！好饿！好热！好热！先去吃午饭了。还是很需要窗帘和风扇。

So hungry! So hungry! So hot! So hot! Gotta have lunch. Still needs curtain and fans.