Chromed

The moment I heard about Google’s entry to the browser wars, I was somewhat excited and curious to see how they were going to tackle this cutthroat market.

I started up VMware Fusion and immediately downloaded the program. Running Vista under Unity mode, Chrome appears to be performing really well. It lives up to the hype of having really fast load times. I do not expect anything else since Chrome is based on WebKit which for me is still the fastest browser out there. This however is my first time firing up Chrome so I will reserve judgement after I played with it a little more.

The interface

Simple is almost always better, especially with something like a browser since the most important thing would be the site to which you are currently on. I don’t know about other people, but I do kind of like the simplicity in Chrome’s user interface. Tabs and browser controls are easily understandable. Then again, something like that is clearly subjective.

Compatibility

Google’s support for standards allow for the proper display of Websites. Although it has yet to pass the Acid Test, it is getting there.

My WordPress installtion along with the Photobucket website seem to work just fine. For I am currently using Chrome for this entry. The best test after all is actually using it in a working environment.

Features

Although as I said I have yet to fully test out Chrome, I did find one feature I already liked, and that is the display of your most frequently visited sites the first time you run Chrome or when you open a new browser tab.

There is no visible status bar, but every time you run your mouse on a link, a tab-like interface will appear on the bottom left-hand corner of the browser displaying the link information.

Impressions

I personally would like to see all browsers eventually supporting standards and be as quick as or faster in loading pages, flash and web applications like Chrome or WebKit.

For a website developer such as myself, it is a good idea to keep tabs on new players in the browser wars. And if you just like to try something new, then go ahead. Chrome albeit all the buzz around it is still a software in beta form so if you feel uneasy with such things, then stick to trusted browsers until such a time when Google decides its ready for public use.

Related posts:

1. On Google Chrome
2. Browsers are a pain…
3. The third coming

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