Silverlight and Flash running on Google Chrome

Google Chrome is out in the wild as of a few minutes ago and I just finished installing it on my parallels Windows XP "box", and got to say it performs cool enough and its flashing speed is quite welcomed.

My first impressions, lets say after my 5 minute walk I did around it, is that the browser executes really fast and stable under normal use, a couple of times got unresponsive while switching tabs, but nothing you painful enough.

From download to launch it took me around 45 seconds, and the way it configures the browser at start couldn't been better: it recognizes my default settings from the computer and add them to the browser's options.

There is still a lot to cover with this browser, but given that a lot of people will be talking about it generally elsewhere in the days to come, let's cut the chase and let's start talking Rich Internet Applications on Chrome.

Here are some of my first experiences...

The status on RIA

Now, first thing I do as RIA fanatic that I am? I want to give Google Chrome a test run around the 3 main technologies for Rich App's out there, Flash, Silverlight and Ajax.

Flash

Since, along the Webcast they showcased YouTube working happily in Chrome, I knew what to expect, although I also found out that there has been people not that lucky.

For me? I didn't have to install nothing and the site just worked, out of what I had already installed.

Here is the proof (click to enlarge)

Silverlight

After a successful run with Adobe's tech, I went towards Silverlight.net to try one or 2 of the applications been showcased there and see the results, and they where various:

• Depending on the way developers created their pages hosting the Silverlight application,
  1. if the developers followed Microsoft's UX Best Practices for Silverlight, the site will tell you that your browser is not compatible, but...
  2. if the check is not done then browser will try to instantiate the plug-in and run it.

Now here is the catch,

• Depending on the complexity of the application, the execution is going to be painfully slow (wishing that the developer had followed Microsoft's recommendations) and will eventually drain your experience with the browser until you will have to kill it manually... so much for that talking of the multi process execution.

On and all, Silverlight should run flawlessly just a Flash did given that the rendering engine is the same as in Safari - Google is using Webkit as its rendering platform. Although I will the point of the doubt to Microsoft as there could be something in the way Chrome manages the plug-ins for which they didn't account, and yes! Silverlight is still in Beta.

Anyhow, here is how Silverlight looks on Google Chrome (click to enlarge)

AJAX

Now this is probably the instant winner of them all, as the browser itself was tuned to make AJAX-based applications lightning fast when executing.

I tested Chrome of several Google, Microsoft and some other essential Web 2.0 applications that I used, and they all executed flawlessly.

What's to come

I'm sure we are all welcoming Google's approach to the Web, this, as Sergey told the press, is for sure not an OS killer for the Web as many has dared to write, but a good platform to developers to run Web applications in top of.

They see this not as a war on browsers, even though it is indeed, but as a way to raise the bar for the industry as a whole, and as such they invite others to take what they did and get what they feel might be worth and change what is up for improvement... at the end this is a community effort.

In the words of my friend Ryan Stewart

This is a big day for RIA developers because Google started from scratch. They’re building a train that will actually be able to run on the high speed tracks of the Internet. We’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing for a long time, but the browsers just haven’t been able to keep up with demands. Google Chrome should be a big leap forward.

This past 3 weeks will go on into history as the 3 weeks that defined the future of Web 3.0, Mozilla, Microsoft and now Google are teaming up on their own to proof their own version of the future, and as I wrote yesterday, it's is a exiting one and is shapes as the foundation of the commodity of the Web and the renascence of the collaboration of services and a always-on presence of our memories, information and stories... the digital draw of ourselves

Happy testing everyone!

Update: Google just released a new build (1251) updated to improve interoperability with Silverlight and Flash. Check out the info here.

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