Chrome Experiments - An Overview

Chrome Experiments - An Overview
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Chrome Experiments

Google jumped into the browser wars a few months back with the release of Chrome, its new light and fast browser. Chrome has been doing pretty well and has been lauded for its low resource usage, fast loading of web pages, sandboxing of web applications and snappy overall performance. One of its strongest points is its extremely fast V8 Javascript engine. It arguably offers the best performance when it comes to core Javascript applications.

As a promotional move, Google launched Chrome Experiments on March 19, 2009. You can visit it at <strong>www.chromeexperiments.com</strong>. It is basically a collection of small Javascript applications and games. All these games and applications ideally work with all browsers, but to the heavy use of Javascript, tend to perform best only on Google Chrome.

Chrome Experiments was initially launched with 19 applications which has grown to 44 currently. All these applications have been created by external web developers and aim to showcase the power of Javascript. Most of the applications are practically useless, but they do highlight the future of web application development using Javascript. First time visitors can easily spend about an hour playing with Chrome Experiments but it turns boring after the initial excitement. If you are a developer, you can also submit your own Javascript creations to the site.

Some of the interesting experiments are

1. Google Gravity - Browse Google in a gravity enabled environment where you can throw page elements around and watch as they bounce off the browser walls. It’s fun, and if you get bored, you can simply start searching.

2. Monster - Demonstrates what can be done with browser web standards (non Flash). A square turns to a cube, a sphere, and then into a monster. You will be amazed to see this done using just Javascript.

3. Browser Ball - Play around with a ball, throw it around with your mouse and see how it follows the laws of physics. You can also create new windows and see how it moves from one window to other without breaking motion.

4. Wavy Scrollbars - Move your mouse over the scrollbars to create waves.

Other than these, there are many other interesting experiments like JS Fireworks, Browser Talk, Solitaire, Google Sphere etc. It’s definitely worth a visit in your free time.