google chrome, the new browser on the block

Following Google's first beta release of its new web browser, Google Chrome, on Tuesday 2^nd September, LEWIS' Digital Designer Stuart McMorris gives his opinion -

First impressions are obvious.  It is fast, functional and light. The lack of functionality is pretty apparent but let's not forget that this release is a Beta version*.

After delving into the menu system, there is a long list of features which this browser doesn't have like a bookmark manager or add-on functionality.  The design itself is free from too many buttons, vacant almost, and it launches into a full screen mode focussing the user's attention on the content rather than the browser. Tabs sit on the top of the window rather below, there are no icon clusters fighting for space and there's not even a home page until the user sets it up!  The double use of the address bar, which Google calls the Omnibox, makes good use of space and is intended to make useful suggestions.  Perhaps this functionality originated from Google Suggest?  The overall appearance is light and fresh and allows content to be king!

Apart from the obvious visual differences, this browser has been built from the ground up which companies like Microsoft should have done before launching Internet Explorer 7.  Its internal engine has been tuned to run smoothly and quickly with complex web applications and services which the browser feeds out to the blissfully unaware end user. It has a unique system of allowing each tab to run on its own so that one of them decides to have a tantrum no other tabs are affected whereas other browsers, like Firefox 3, have built-in session recovery tools.  Google has borrowed bits and pieces from other open source projects like Mozilla's Firefox and Safari's open-source WebKit, and it seems they want to carry this community spirit through by making Google Chrome an open source project.

Overall it seems quite stable and didn't crash in the hour or so I bounced through different parts of the interweb.  There's a huge list of features this browser could have and I hope we'll see them added in future releases.  It will be interesting to see what web communities can add to Google Chrome.   With the download link on Google's homepage, I hope many of the Internet Explorer users who have a Google home page will give the browser a try.

For web developers, it will allow our web applications to work with ease and it's another browser for the CSS guys to test with.  However, for now, Firefox will still be first choice with its stupendous add-ons like Firebug!

*Beta - the version released so that software developers can pinpoint the bugs which will need to be fixed.