Today, Google released a new browser called Google Chrome. Essentially, it is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.
If you are interested to learn more about Google Chrome, you can read about it here.
I have been quite curious as to how this browser would render SharePoint sites since I read about it yesterday. So being the SharePoint geek that I am, I downloaded it and tested it on one of my public SharePoint sites, http://spcafe.sharepointcafe.com
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I immediately found 3 reasons why Google Chrome is the next best browser to IE when viewing SharePoint sites:
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It loads freakingly FAST!Not only does the SharePoint site loads faster in Google Chrome compared to IE, it beats Firefox and even Apple’s Safari.
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Crash control is a nice feature.How many times have you opened up a bunch of tabs on your browser, a webpage throws a javascript error and just crashes the whole browser?
Every browser tab in Google Chrome using is run independently in the browser, so if one app in a tab crashes it won’t take anything else down. Reminds me of the application pool feature in IIS 6.0.
Google Chrome even comes with a browser task manager to “end” a browser tab process.
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Easily create and launch Application shortcuts.Very similar to creating desktop shortcuts, Google chrome allows you to create an application shortcut that can show up on your desktop, quick launch or start menu in Windows.
More to this, when you launch the shortcut, the site comes up in a streamlined version of Google Chrome.
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Just like any other non-IE browsers, there are limitations with some functionalities. For example, certain menu items in a list toolbar such as “Actions > Edit in Datasheet” which requires ActiveX control is not available.
SharePoint List Toolbar in Internet Explorer
SharePoint List Toolbar in Google Chrome
Lastly, another limitation (so far) of Google Chrome is that it is not available for the Mac OS yet.
Let me know if you find other benefits of using Google Chrome with SharePoint. Enjoy the rest of September!
The limitations of chrome, ff, safari and other non-IE browsers are in my opinion to big to make a change to something else than IE for SharePoint.
I had to switch back to IE when we rolled out WSS at work so my coworkers could benefit of all the great features (especially those using activeX). But for a public SharePoint website changing to something else than IE should be ok, as you won’t necessary need every visitor to be able to use the activeX controls on it.
Hi, Georges –
I agree. Ideally, IE would be the browser used alongside SharePoint IF you want to fully take advantage of SharePoint – Windows – MS Office integrations. However, even if non-IE browsers are used, users can still leverage the fundamental document management benefits and collaboration benefits of SharePoint.
So if there aren’t much MS Office – SharePoint integration being used in a SharePoint site, then really, users aren’t losing out much if IE is not used.
All the best!
I also blogged about Chrome + Sharepoint yesterday, and I agree with all stated points here. I was impressed with the speed of the browser overall and how well it dealt with certain aspx pages on the first public beta.
I will switch when a bookmark sync plugin is available, like Foxmarks. I sync bookmarks with about 5 machines, and for that reason alone I cannot completely switch. But as I type, I am enjoying this browser!
Woow..very interested.
Thanks for information..