Finally downloaded Google Chrome, and am taking it out for a quick spin. I'm not going to do a full review of it the way a tech blog would. Think of this more like a first date, and I'm sharing the gossip with you the next morning over coffee.
1) Why do I feel suspicious?
Though I'm generally a fan of Google (occasional Big Brother tactics notwithstanding), I haven't made Chrome my default browser. Worth noting: the minute Firefox launched, I made it my default browser. So I'm keeping my distance. I think it's because Firefox still feels like the virtuous little guy. Google -- not so much.
2) Very Windows, surprisingly
The interface really feels like a Windows product to me. The frame of the browser, the tab structure -- something about the little details. Given that Chrome is only available for XP and Vista (nothing for Mac yet, damn them!) that's somehow fitting and maybe intentional. I wonder if the eventual Mac version will have Mac in its genes.
3) Immediately in love with tabs
OK, you got me here, Chrome. You can drag any tab out of the tab bar, and it opens in its own window. Or you can drag a tab from one existing window and move it into a second window. As someone who routinely (and very much on purpose) has a dozen or more tabs open, in two or three windows, this lets me multitask much more easily. Love it.
4) Liking the new window/new tab view
When you open a new tab or window, it displays a half-dozen or so little boxes, representing the sites you visit most often. (Did I mention Big Brother?) Looks good, loads fast, and seems useful. Unfortunaltely, the mini screen grab that shows in the little window is a screen grab of some moment in the past. It would have been super cool if the screen grabs were updated in real time, so that you could see whether your page had changed, and whether it's worth opening it now for new content. I bet they do that in an upcoming version.
5) Love the smart thinking around search
Why do I need one bar at the top of my browser window to display the URL of the page I'm on, and a separate space to enter a search query for my default search engine? I couldn't think of a good reason either, now that the Google engineers have pointed it out. In Chrome you just type your query into what is usually the URL bar. Bonus: as you type, you get suggestions.
6) The boldface in the URL bar
As I type this post, the URL of the page I'm on is http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a-0xxxx-xxx-xa401116---8cxxxxxx970c/post/6a--0xxxxxxxx-xxx0112. Absolutely meaningless to me. So Chrome bolds the bits that are meaningful -- in this case, just www.typepad.com. Not sure how much of a difference this makes, but it's a neat idea.
7) No wasted space
The browser window uses space efficiently. Even though I'm very used to every window of every application having some padding built in, Chrome's frame is thin, and the attention-worthy content goes closer to the frame edge than it does in other browsers.
8) Incognito Mode -- meh
You can go into "Incognito Mode," where none of your browsing activities get saved to your computer. Worth having, but on my Mac Mini, Safari has been able to do this for me since I got it 5 years ago. Although to be fair, in Chrome you can go incognito for a single tab or window, whereas in Safari you're either completely cloaked for all tabs/windows, or completely open.
9) Task manager
Just as you can close troublesome apps in Windows, you can use the Task Manager to force quit troublesome tabs in Chrome. Smart.
10) Not feeling the revolution, but no reason not to do this
This sounds like a "meh," and it sort of is, but I can't think of a reason not to use Chrome so far. I thought the whole deal with Chrome is that it wasn't a browser at all, but really a whole new kind of beast. I was expecting an experience that would be totally foreign, and in some way exciting and revolutionary. But in its own messaging, Google is calling it a browser, and that's really what it feels like. Having said that, it incorporates some really smart features, and I can't (in this very short test) see anything missing here compared to Firefox or Safari or IE.
Final 20-minute verdict: No need to run. But whenever you're ready to upgrade browsers, go for it. Looks like it's another step in the evolution (but not revolution) of the web browser.
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