Google Chrome
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
Well it appears that every blogger and his dog will be writing and reviewing the latest addition to the Google monopoly - Google Chrome which is the latest browser boasts to offer a no frills, back to basics experience feature the most commonly used Apps. So here is my opinion on the whole thing:
- Interface - the style and layout of the whole thing really appeals to me. It shows that a lot of thought and consideration has been pushed towards a more refined user. Everything is out of your line of sight, which is good as it reduces distractions and allows you to focus soly on the content in which you are viewing. The only down sight to this, is having to place the tabs in the impromptu place of the top of the browser - they’re the only part which I think were an afterthought.
- Usability - I found it to be like Firefox mainly. Easy to navigate, and configure - it also does imports all your bookmarks, your history, and passwords from Firefox. The only thing that in my opinion will make it the underdog to Firefox will be the plugins - my Firefox is laden with essential plugins, such as Twitterfox, some cool one that if I type in ‘flickr’ it automatically directs me to ‘www.flickr.com’ same as ‘google’, ‘ebay’, etc. I don’t think many developers will take to this, which means I don’t think I’ll take to it if I can’t have my array of plugins!
- Features - like every browser out there it is feature packed. Google Chrome has some great features though, such as a splash page with Tabs featuring your most visited websites (very cool!), and widgets for recently added bookmarks and recently closed tabs. Also another great feature is incognito mode, which enables you to open a link without it going onto your browsing history (for those ‘inappropriate’ sites!).
- Reliability - I have a few tests to test whether a browser can withstand the heat of my abuse. So I direct it to websites which set Firefox off in spasms and to be fair it held up well. No tantrums, no haste, it just got on with it - which is reassuring!
Overall I liked the layout and features of Google Chrome. It’s nice and easy to use and is definitely back to basics. But to be fair I can’t see myself retired my Firefox just yet. Mainly as Firefox is too homely for me, with my plugins and knowing that most sites will work well with it. I will have to wait to see how Google Chrome fairs out in the next few weeks. Google Chrome book thingy.
