Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Google Releases their Browser - Chrome

Google has entered the Internet Browser arena and has released their own browser called Google Chrome.  I've downloaded and installed it.  I had it import my Mozilla Firefox settings, bookmarks, etc. and all went flawlessly.  When you first run it there is a tab with several of the new features shown and you can watch a You-Tube video of how each feature works.  I spent about 5 minutes watching the various videos so that I would have some idea of how Chrome works.  So far, it seems to be pretty fast.  And, all my bookmarks imported in just the same order as they were in Mozilla.

If you like Tabs, here are some of the features of the Tabs in Chrome:
  • The tabs are at the very top of the screen - I like this.
  • There is a "+" sign to the right of the last tab.  Click on this to open a new tab.
  • Click & Hold then drag to reposition any tab.  You can change the order the tabs appear really fast!
  • Drag a tab away from the top of the screen and it opens in a new window - COOL!
  • Right-click in the blank area to the right of the tabs and choose "Task Manager" and you can see how much of your memory and CPU resources each tab is using.
I've opened several pages (some that I know are a bit slow) and I swear, it sure seems like it is working faster than Firefox.  I'm listening to my "Beachboys" channel on Pandora radio in one tab while I'm doing all this.  

BACK and FORWARD buttons.  Smaller than Firefox but just "click & hold" on either to see the history.  That's an improvement.  Just one button to access.  Overall the whole look is cleaner and leaner than Firefox. More "stuff" from the page I'm viewing is being displayed on my monitor.

I just signed onto my Blog and it did not even ask for my password (just like in Firefox) so that imported successfully.  I made a modification to my last Blog post and the update was made and displayed in record speed.  I can't get an actual number for the speed improvement but it seems to be 50% faster (at least) in some cases.

Now that I've visited a few web sites, when I open a new Tab, it shows thumbnails of my "favorite" web sites.  At least on the four sites it is displaying, this does not see to be too useful (except it gives me a very fast way to click on a commonly accessed web site.

OK, the "One Box for Everything" concept is going to take a little bit of getting used to.  However, I think it can be another vast speed improvement.  You have just one "Box" to type text into.  This is both an "Address" box AND a "Google Search" box AND a "History" search box combined.  I typed in "WB2D" and after each letter I got pop-ups below the box where Chrome was trying to guess at what I wanted.  When I had typed all of "WB2D" I hit Enter and it took me to the Google search engine with 10 results displayed.  

At this point I'm extremely pleased with Google Chrome.  You may want to download it and see what you thing but at this point, I'm Thumbs Up!  CLICK HERE for the Google Chrome download page.  And, if you just want to watch the You-Tube videos of the various features, CLICK HERE for that.  Oh, it's only available for XP and VISTA at this point.