Several weeks ago I wrote about having gone to the dark side in my latest choice of “favorite” internet browser, Firefox (mozilla.com). Don’t misunderstand me it is still my favorite … right now. However, last Tuesday a new browser became downloadable that not many people even heard about until the day before. That browser is called, “Google Chrome” (GC here to save a little space) at www.google.com/chrome.
If you are a regular reader of this column you realize that I am a big fan of Google. I like everything that they come out with. Well, OK one exception in Gmail but more on that another day. I’m looking forward to liking GC in the future but not yet.
Last Monday rumors started to hit the net about GC. Many people, including yours truly, at first thought it was a joke which Google is well known for. The reason the joke rumor persisted for a while is that they were advertising it through a ’60s styled comic book that was very, very simple (google.com/googlebooks/chrome). Later that day the “buzz” turned real and everyone started talking about the new browser.
It became downloadable in the late afternoon of Tuesday and here are some of my first impressions.
It is fast, really fast starting up and opening websites. One main reason for its speed is that it is very basic without many frills added yet. It is in Beta so it will change overtime but note; Gmail continues to be in beta since it arrived several years ago.
The new layout with the tabs at the very top of the window is very nice, I’m not sure why but it just works well.
An unseen feature — each tab is engineered to be a separate browser window so that if one site you are on crashes the other tabs stay open and just the “bad” one shuts down unlike other browsers who totally collapse. Another neat characteristic is that you can right click on its tab bar and see what browser processes are running and shutdown a “stuck” one. Although that hasn’t happened to me yet.
According to some news reports GC took 1 percent of the browser market in the first few days it was available, which is phenomenal. Internet Explorer is said to currently have 70 percent, so Chrome has a way to go to get to the top, but ask again in five years.
It is interesting that MS just came out the week or so before with MSIE 8 (www.microsoft.com) which is also a beta version. Note that if you install MSIE 8 it will remove any previous versions. I have included links for all three major browsers so try them and see what you think.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 6:15 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
