September 02, 2008
Google Chrome is Here!

Google Chrome is up and ready for download. Anyone have any thoughts on it yet?

Update: Couple of quick thoughts after a couple of minutes of use in a Windows XP VMware session (so not full speed or "normal" use):


  • Overall pleasant to use, minimalistic look and feel without missing anything huge for day to day browsing.
  • Some sexy effects, ie: notice the find dropdown when you hit ctrl-f
  • Nice and fast, though some people are saying that images are a bit slow. JS speed reported as uber-fast, but I don't see anything massive here myself in the sites I normally use.
  • Right click -> inspect element is nifty, as is about:memory (notice it'll show memory use from other running browsers.
  • Text entry fields are resizable.
  • Some common plugins are supported (flash, quicktime, silverlight, etc).
  • Flash plugin install happened "in browser" and didn't require any sort of restart.
  • Any page can be turned into an "application" (runs in it's own window without url bar or browser controls) and have shortcuts added to the desktop/quicklaunch bar. This isn't like the mozilla solution for this which lets you run web apps offline.
  • Browser tab dragging, removing, adding, etc all work nicely and niftily.
  • Some obvious deficiencies:

    • Windows only
    • Missing some useful plugins that will prevent me from using it, most noticeable of all is missing Adblock-plus
    • Support for more plugins would be awesome.
    • Smooth scroll would be nice as well.
    • In the minor tweaks department:
    • I'd like to be able to tab down into the awesomebar.
    • If you're really fast typing in a URL and hitting enter you could get the google search option if the "just load the damn url" option hasn't popped to the top of the awesomebar.





Posted by Arcterex at September 02, 2008 01:11 PM