Google’s Chrome browser generated a groundswell of attention when it was released two weeks ago due to the nature of both its release and its t’s&c’s on privacy. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, there has been very little focus on the browser’s functionality besides the fact that it apparently “takes Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 head on”.
Apart from how similar the icon looks to a Simon Says machine, the most striking thing when starting up the browser for the first time is its simplicity. Instead of a bulk of toolbars at the top of each window, Chrome only displays tabs and the navigation bar by default and makes for a very streamlined look. In terms of appearance, the Vista version looks beautiful with the Aero theme, any inactive space on the window is transparent, making the browser look even more streamlined than it does by default. On XP, the browser carries a theme that echoes that of the OS’s default Luna theme, but unfortunately the colour of the browser does not change with the other Windows themes.
In terms of speed, loading pages are barely noticeable, providing a generally seamless browsing experience, but as Chrome is still in its infancy, the browser is far from bug-free. Pages heavy on Javascript often freeze and interaction with very ‘Web 2.0′ websites can be rather limited, with various functions rendered inactive.
However, when these bugs do occur, the user’s browsing experience is not totally paralysed as the browser runs each tab as a separate process, so if you run into an error on one webpage, it will not close down all of the others that you have open at that time, a fatal flaw most browsers have currently.
Unfortunately, Mac and Linux users will have to wait to take the browser for a spin, however, since the current version is for XP/Vista only - but Google has assured users that they are working on the cross-browser version, which should be released in the near future.
Chrome is anything but perfect, but in terms of speed and simplicity, the new browser is a step in the right direction.
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One Comment
it’s funny, the more i use Chrome (for windows), the more unstable it seems to get… crashes a lot more, can’t handle sites with flash, hangs every time i close a tab… all that to say, i’m switching back to Firefox