Put Google Chrome’s V8 Rendering Engine to the Metal & Test the Next Generation of Web Apps

Javascript rendering speed has been the ammunition of choice in the browser wars, but as most users know, the vast majority of Javascript based web applications aren’t particularly taxing. With most having been designed with IE7 in mind, the vast majority of  web apps only scratch the surface of what is possible. But to prove that Javascript is the wave of the future, Google has launched a new site called Chrome Experiments. Using the tag line “Not your mother’s Javascript” Google is showcasing everything from Gravity simulations, to complex Raytracing Canvas’s all inside your browser of choice.

The vast majority of these worked great in my testing with next generation browsers such as Firefox 3.1, as well as Safari 4 & Chrome 2, but IE8 was having a tough time until I shifted it into compatibility mode. According to Google “While it is possible to run these examples in other browsers, the fact that developers optimized the code for Chrome's V8 engine make them run slower (or not at all)”.  The Raytracing test is an excellent benchmark for Javascript performance, and will even give you feedback on rendering time for those who want to do their own browser comparisons. Many of the applications are more proof of concept then useful, but it certainly does give us hope for the future of cloud computing. The more powerful the platform gets however, the more prone to exploits it is likely to become. Anyone else remember how exciting the ActiveX days were until hackers crashed the party?

Do you think the smoke and mirror show will help Chrome’s adoption rate?