After being aware of Googles new web browser (courtesy of El Reg) I decided to give it a look at. Google as we all know are specialists at the minimalistic approach to everything, yet still packing everything that you need! (Gmail anyone?) There’s been a lot of hype about the new browser and after several hours of use I’ve decided that it’s not quite my cup of tea… Yet… Why?
Google Chrome Logo
The browser appears to be based on Apples Safari, a simple, yet effective approach to web browsing that cannot be faulted on rendering speed. It appears to function better than Safari on Windows at least, although a true comparison cannot be made until it is set to tackle Safari on their home turf of Mac OSX, and also it needs builds available on Linux. However, unfortunately it seems I’ll be booting to Windows more often to make use of the software as it is not yet available on other operating systems, which makes my Ubuntu / Vista dual boot lean more towards Vista until a Linux native version is available.
At least Google got it right making it open source, can’t fault them on that, it’s been a staple of Mozilla for some time now.
Anywho… My main gripe with the software (as it is with other browsers) is the lack of useful functions & features. I use Firefox, not only for it’s cross compatibility, but also for it’s massive array of extensions. With a few clicks I can annotate a screenshot, check any mail accounts I wish (when not checking Thunderbird) and my favourite of the moment is PicLens (or CoolIris as it is now called.) Whilst I should not really be comparing Googles latest gem to extensions within Firefox, as with other browsers I’ve tried it just doesn’t offer enough up front to make me want to change. I guess I’m set in my ways and until Chrome supports at least other Google applications I can’t see it taking the default spot on any of my computers!
On a more positive note, it looks pretty sweet. Loads pretty quick and I can imagine it being well used within mobile phones in the future or web-enabled hardware alongside gOS. I’ll keep it running whilst at work today but I think that it’s another browser that just sits there looking pretty on my desktops for a short time at least. I’ll refrain from making this into a review as it is mainly opinion and I’ve not yet covered all the features it does have or what it is really capable of, however it is based on a few hours use, compared to many several years using Firefox… I’ll stick to what I know best, for now at least.
A few screenshots:
Screenshot of Google within Chrome
Glen Barton in Chrome