Why Chrome’s more fun without the polish

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

I’ve been messing around with the developer build of Chrome just recently and it’s made my browsing life considerably more interesting – much in the way that bowling hand grenades would really spice up a Test Match.

For anybody unaware of Google’s peculiar approach to Chrome’s development it runs like this: a wild-eyed Chrome developer wakes up at 2am with an idea so cool that in Microsoft’s secret underground lair Steve Ballmer orders half-a-dozen cats to kick out of windows. He doesn’t know why, he’d just knows he’s angry and some kittens will have to pay.

Unfortunately, this idea is also so cool that it could conceivably bring about internet Armageddon. The solution: instead of inflicting the idea on the fifteen or twenty people using the stable Chrome release, our bedraggled Chrome developer sticks it into the developer build where it can wreak havoc without anybody getting hurt. He then pokes and prods the idea until it settles down, accepts its fate in Chrome’s brave new browser world and complies, or else he destroys it with his code voodoo. This is the world of Google; stern but benevolent – to borrow a line from Pinky and Brain.

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