14 DAY TRIAL // Google has released its website optimization tool Page Speed for Chrome after being available only to Firefox users for the past couple of years. The new Page Speed for Chrome extension integrates with the built-in developer tools in Chrome and enables users to measure a number of performance metrics and also get suggestions for ways they can optimize the page to cut down on load times.
"Today we’re launching the most requested feature for Page Speed, Page Speed for Chrome. Now Google Chrome users can get Page Speed performance suggestions to make their sites faster, right inside the Chrome browser," Matthew Steele and Richard Rabbat from the Page Speed Team wrote.
Page Speed has been available for Firefox for quite a while now and it seems like quite the oversight for Google not to offer it for its own browser as well.
It's not that it didn't want to, the problem was technological in nature, Chrome didn't offer the same type of extension APIs to support Page Speed properly. Even now, you have to enable the experimental APIs flag before installing Page Speed for Chrome.
"Google Chrome support has always been high on our priority list but we wanted to get it right. It was critical that the same engine that powers the Page Speed Add-On for Firefox be used here as well. So we first built the Page Speed SDK, which we then integrated into the Chrome extension," the two explained.
Both the Firefox and Chrome versions of Page Speed along with the web-based alternative at Webpagetest.org are all based on the Page Speed SDK.
Finally, Google is able to offer a Page Speed Chrome extension that is on par with the Firefox one. In fact, it trumps it in a couple of areas, the scoring and suggestion order has been improved to make them more relevant.
The second big improvement is that Page Speed for Chrome is available in 40 different languages. Page Speed for Chrome integrates with the Developer Tools, you'll notice a new Page Speed section at the end of the toolbar.
YSlow, Yahoo's tool for website optimization, was also released for Chrome recently.