What is Google Chrome Experiments?

Overview

Google web applications such as Gmail or Google Docs - which rely heavily on Javacsript - have become extremely popular. By releasing Google Chrome on September last year, Google aims to control the user experience by providing not only the applications, but also the browser where they run.

Among other differences with browsers as Firefox, IE or Opera, Google Chrome features a powerful Javascript engine called V8. Google claims V8 is much better than the engines used by other browsers and Google Chrome Experiments serves as a showcase for applications running on V8.

Chrome’s Potential

The site doesn’t have the typical Google look but it is quite simple with the home page listing all applications. Most of the applications include videos and screenshots. To start an experiment, click ‘Launch Application’ and it will open in a new window.

There are currently seventy applications, most of which provide pointless fun while showing Chrome’s potential. Among the featured apps are Browser Ball, Google Gravity and Ball Pool which are physics demos for some gaming fun.

Under another category fall Starfield, where the browser takes you to space, Depth of Field, where you can see 300 spheres move to form different shapes and Canopy, a fractal tree zoomer.

For the more artistic is Bomomo, an application to create drawings which replaces the conventional brush with interactive patterns. Another interesting application is Wavy Scrollbars, a wave simulator which can come in handy in Physics class.

Conclusion

Google Chrome Experiments is not intended for Chrome only as it can be used on other browsers. However, after trying some of the experiments on Firefox and Safari I am pretty sure Chrome outperforms them.

In the end, Google Chrome Experiments is a proof that Chrome is the most reliable browser for Javascript applications and probably the future of web apps.