Google chrome about pages

Inside the amazing world of Chrome about pages.

The new google browser Chrome, based on Webkit is my own favourite browser right now (for google apps anyway) as it really does go like a rocket. This will probably change soon when it gets bloated with plugins, toolbars and google tie-in. A bit like Firefox, Chrome has a wealth of about: screens you can use to view what’s going on in the browser. Below is a list of about pages Chrome has available, taken from various blogs, blog comments and looking at the DLLs it uses in a hex editor.

about:config

Shows a blank screen for now

about:memory

Displays more information about Chrome and other running browsers’ memory usage than you would possible ever want, unless you’re developing a browser of course.

about:network

Displays some fairly basic information about network performance and timings for page requests.

about:stats

In depth information about the innards of Chrome, timers and counters on chrome events from the looks of things.

about:dns

Displays tabular data about which sites are cached. My list contained mostly google dns entries.

about:internets

The tubes are clogged

about:cache

A list of all items in the cache with a link to each item to view it.

about:histograms

An ascii set of histograms of Chrome events. Load time, dns fetch time,favicon fetching and all kinds of things.

about:plugins

Tabular data about the plugins loaded such as flash, wmp, quicktime.

about:version

The current version of Chrome.

about:hang

This causes Chrome to simulate hanging after a bit of a delay. This then causes a hang dialog to appear.

about:shorthang

Similar to about:hang

about:crash

Causes the current tab to crash causing a sad face to appear.

I'm Chris Small, a software engineer working in London. This is my tech blog. Find out more about me via Github, Stackoverflow, Resume