Wickham's musings from Chalke

 
Compared with IE8 beta 2 this browser works well. It does seem to load pages quicker than other browsers.

It operates JavaScript by default as it seems to be more totally integrated in the browser operation. I find that I often want JavaScript disabled as it causes irritating effects on some web pages and can make them slower to load. For instance, some forums use JavaScript to double underline and color green certain words and form them into links leading to adverts or other information. So the word "pension" in a post might lead to general inforation about pensions which is out of context with what the person writing the post intended. Some videos or Flash effects can be irritating and stopped when JavaScript is disabled.

Chrome's main feature is the "sandboxing" of windows so that if malware gets into one window and crashes the window or starts malware of some sort like sending data to another person or computer, it shouldn't affect the other windows and Chrome's basic operation. The problem should be stopped when the window is closed. I haven't seen any reports whether this works yet but it will be a very useful feature.

I've noticed that every time I open Google Chrome it makes my computer busy for at least five minutes, I can hear the hard drive working non-stop and the noise stops soon after I close Chrome.

Today I opened Task Manager and Netlimiter and opened only Chrome and watched.

Task Manager showed a steady 2% to 5% CPU with occasional bursts up to 26%.

Netlimiter showed nothing most of the time but at about one minute intervals Chrome was receiving and sending data for about one second.

It varied,
147KBps down and 1KBps up
600KBps down and 14KBps up
374KBps down and 5KBps up
2KBps down and 0.36KBps up

so it's sending data Home. I just hope it is only performance data and not my private data! Edit: it's just updating the program.