Google Chrome Web Browser (Internet Explorer Alternative)
Written by The Average Windows Nerd on September 4, 2008 · Filed under Software, Tech
I downloaded Google Chrome browser on launch day for XP/Vista (the only version available for the moment, although Mac and Linux versions are to follow) and the phrase “bare bones” just doesn’t quite say enough about this minimalist offering. Those used to IE7 won’t be too disturbed by the lack of a menu bar, although pressing the “Alt” key won’t do anything in Google Chrome. Oddly, the home button is not on-screen by default – You have to enable it in settings.
The only tinkering you’ll be doing is by clicking the spanner in the top right corner, which leads to a VERY basic config menu. With tabs such as “Minor Tweaks” and “Under The Hood”, it isn’t going to replace you installation of Firefox and it’s 214 plug-ins. I don’t think that’s what Chrome is about though, it’s designed as a solid cloud-computing platform, which it is.
Unlike IE8 BETA2, it handles Google Mail and Google Calendar just fine, and I was impressed that it would let me watch embedded Flash video on the first page I chose to visit after installation. There’s a nice feature that lets you search from the address bar as you type a URL (interestingly, you can choose the search engine for this to be something other than Google).
I imported my bookmarks from IE, although Chrome wouldn’t display each site’s thumbnail in the bookmark list until I had visited that site. This might not sound like a big deal, but when you’ve got 50+ sites as bookmarks, the thumbnails make it a lot easier to pick one out at a glance, and visiting each one of them just to get the thumbnail is a daunting prospect. This is just the sort of little annoyance that could turn a person off Chrome in the first 60 seconds of use.
Every site I visited displayed just fine and I was even able to log in to my online banking (I know it’s BETA software, I didn’t get where I am today by being sensible). It also seems to load pages a tad faster than IE or Firefox.
I think the big question here is: Do we really need another browser? I’ve only been using Chrome for a couple of hours, but I’ve been impressed enough to say “this looks like a well made browser” and then think “but so is the browser I used to download it with”.
Therein lies the problem – I don’t think Chrome offers anything new. It doesn’t offer Windows Protected Mode or Data Execution Prevention like IE8 (although it is much more compatible) and it isn’t infinitely customisable like Firefox, although that will no-doubt change – it is less than 24 hours old as I write this!
So should you download it? Sure, Google Chrome seems like a perfectly good browser, just make sure you think it’s better than what you’re replacing it with. For me, I think it’s just another web-app I’ll install and never use. For example, does anyone actually use Star Office?
exactly I am thinking the same. It won’t get the due attention as it seems so. Cause Google just not serious about it as you can see from its appearance. But anyway lets see what will be next
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master dissertation
I’ve been testing out Chrome for a few days now and I have to say that after initially being wary of what information Google might be collecting about my online history, I then figured that it’s not much different from having the Google Toolbar installed in my current browsers.
The real highlights of the Google Chrome browser for me are that Google applications such as GMail, Maps and Calendar work very well with it and are very fast, also each tab runs in it’s own process (listed in the Task Manager) which means that if one website crashes, you only lose one tab as opposed to all your open tabs in your browser. This happens to me quite a bit in Firefox as I routinely have 20-50 tabs open, if not more – I really need to work on reducing those kind of numbers though!
I agree, Chrome is a decent browser, however it’s lack of rss feed support and add ons is atrocious. It will probably experience some competition from the new mozilla browser.
Cheers
I prefer Chrome to IE in Vista as I use two screens and often have many pages (tabs) open and the ability to sort and consolidate by pulling tabs on and off any window across two screens is a huge benefit. As is the ease of zooming in and out and in general the controls feel more intuitive than the Microsoft offering.
As a little update to my thoughts on Chrome, I must say that I was wrong, I do now use it as my main browser. There are still issues with Web 2.0 type activities in IE8, but not in Chrome. I also love the ability to run Google Gears enabled web apps (like Gmail) directly from a desktop or start menu executable, in a reduced form-factor browser window. When you regularly use more than one machine, it really is as good as IMAP and makes you forget you’re using web mail.
By the way, the “separate-process” approach which stops a single tab crash from taking down the whole browser is also a feature of IE8, but not Firefox.
I really do not care for the Chrome browser. People get so hyped about things because they are made by Google and because they are desperate to get away from Microsoft. But Internet Explorer is still the best Browser in my opinion. Firefox is okay but it is slower than IE and slower to start up as well. Plus you cant do certain things with Firefox. Chrome is a distant third for me.
Don’t me wrong, I’m a big fan of IE, but even version 7 still has problems. Apart from Windows Update (for XP users), I really can’t think of anything that Firefox doesn’t do. (?)
If Chrome was all hype, I wouldn’t still be using it and I really couldn’t care less that it comes from Google. In fact, it would be more likely to put me off, considering the awful Google Desktop.
I’m still using Google Chrome Browser now, it seems to be working well for most things, especially now that it is officially out of beta – has a Google product or service ever had such a short beta? – they must be really serious about this!
The speed over that of Firefox (my current number 1 browser) is really good, once they add support for some extensions like Firefox (and hopefully maintain the good performance) it might then become my primary browser!
Although everything about this browser is great i abandoned the use of it just for the simple reason of it CRASHING too OFTEN.Back to Avant which I used to use.