Technical Reviews and Geek Toys

I had heard Google released a new browser but didn't really give it a second thought. I was plumb happy with Firefox and life is just so busy. Well with the purchase of my new netBook, Firefox was just slow so I gave Chrome a try and was very impressed at not only the responsiveness but the features. I wonder how many others have just not taken the time to check it out.

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Google Chrome is free and my main disappointment is that it is only available on Windows Vista/XP SP2. Since it is new I have found it incorporates some features / ideas that just makes sense.

One of the things that I do is Computer Support. I am continually amazed when I see people type a URL into a Google search box and then click on the link that comes up. Someone at Google must have seen this too as Chrome utilizes an integrated search and address bar. "Not a new concept.", you may reply. True. If you type a word into the address bar of IE it will send the word to Google or your selected search engine. Chrome however, will provide "suggestions" as you type and it doesn't need a separate Search text box.

I guess the one feature that I like the best is the ability to create an application shortcut for a web page. An application shortcut will open a window displaying the web page. Application windows don't display tabs, buttons, the address bar, or menus and shows up in the Windows task bar like any another open application.

How often have you had a bunch of tabs open when something loads that crashes the whole browser? Every open tab in Chrome is run independent from another so if one tab crashes it doesn't affect any other. Chrome even has it's own task manager( Shift+Esc )where one can monitor the amount of memory taken up, the amount of CPU used, and the network activity (bytes sent and received). A misbehaving webpage or application may be forced to close by selecting the tab and clicking the End process button. There is a Stats For Nerds link at the bottom of the Task Manager which opens a new tab that will display memory usage of all open browsers. An interesting way to compare the overhead of different browsers.

There are many more interesting features in Chrome but the last one I am going to mention is Chrome's incognito browsing mode. While in this mode web pages that are opened and files that are downloaded are not logged in the browsing and download histories; all new cookies are also deleted after the incognito window is closed.

One thing that could be improved upon in Chrome concerns news feeds. Google has another application, Google Reader that provides this function. I just wish there was some integration between the two. Chrome should be able to recognize a feed and be able to pass the URL to Google Reader.

I remember when Firefox came out and how many didn't think another browser was needed. With all of the problems IE has had in the past I believe the only reason it is still the most used browser is because many are either lazy or clueless. Given time Google Chrome may well earn it's place in the browser war.