Google have released their own web browser called Google Chrome. They must have a good PR team here in Japan. Google announcements often make the evening business news and Google is usually compared (or contrasted) to Microsoft somewhere in the feature.
Chrome installed swiftly. I had to close Firefox so that my settings could be imported. The browser certainly runs snappily and in the first few hours I had no crashes. I had no problem with initial browsing, except that the rich post editor in Typepad was not available.
There's nothing really that hugely new for the average web surfer, so it's likely the speed, memory usage, stability and other usability improvements that would get someone to switch. The instant bookmark feature is nice (also found in Google Toolbar for other browsers). Google Gears is on by default if you already have it installed. Entering text in the address bar will give suggested pages much like the address bar in Firefox 3.
The default home page gives you thumbnails of recently viewed pages, lists of recently bookmarked sites and a web history search box (see above graphic).
Browsing through the different options I found a task manager which shows you the resources each page is using. As each page is running as a separate process, if one page crashes the rest supposedly won't. Have yet to 'test'.
The stats for Nerds page leads to a page like the following:
Overall worth trying out. The main advantage of Firefox 3 for me is the add-ons although I also find the browser fast and stable and I love the address bar lookup features. It does sometimes start to chew up memory though. Looking forward I'll evaluate whether there are any add-ons that I really, really need or whether it's worth giving these up for potentiall better integration with Google services and a slightly faster and more stable surfing experience. (Aside: Apple's Safari also has been working well on Windows so that's another option but doesn't have any add-ons).
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