Chrome

First impressions of Google's new browser, "Chrome", are pretty good.

Things I like:

• Tab management.
• Clean look, like Firefox, but easier on the eye.
• Quick page loads.
• Add a new tab to get thumbnails of recently viewed pages.
• 'Incognito' mode.
• Less user interface, more web page.

Things I don't like:

• Double clicking the tab bar 'restores down' the window.
• Dropping text links onto the tab bar does nothing (FF will open the text link in a new tab).
• Opening the Options dialog has always caused Chrome to crash. (My work machine, XP 64 bit).
• No home button.

Allow me to elaborate.

Tab management is very neat. Like IE and FF, tabs can be rearranged so that relevant tabs can be grouped together. As well as the underlying functionality of this working very well, visually the process is well represented, the tabs gliding and snapping smoothly into place.

This clean visual style is carried throughout the rest of the browser window. The navigation controls are simple to understand, although the lack of a home button is a mild annoyance. Moving the tabs above Chrome's Omnibar (that's Google for address bar) is a stunningly simple design, representing the idea that each tab has its own address and properties, something which is true even 'under the hood', as a tab can be dragged away from its native window into an entirely new window instance, complete with history and other properties. Compare Chrome's presentation of tabs to IE's and even FF's tab and address bar layout, this is a revelation and visually more representational.

Pages load (or, probably more accurately, are parsed and displayed) noticeably quicker. On my local work's intranet I could almost hear an audible 'snap' as pages appeared.

A better implementation of IE's thumbnail view is revealed on opening a new blank tab. Rather than a blank page, you get a bunch of thumbnails, your recently visited sites. Also, a neat bookmarks section is displayed to the right below a Google search box which will trawl your history.

A new browser would be incomplete without some kind of 'secret browsing' mode. Both IE and FF have recently introduced features which Chrome calls its 'Incognito' mode. Right clicking a link and selecting 'Open link in incognito window' opens the linked page in a separate browser window with a darker shaded border and an icon top left, like a cliché of a Private Detective dude, complete with hat, high collar and shades. Pages viewed in this window won't store your history or temporary files like cookies and whatnot, a plus for those concerned about online privacy.

The lack of a menu bar and status bar (by default. Other browsers do allow you to turn these off) means that, 'out of the box', this browser steals the least screen real estate from your web site. At the bottom of the window, the web page ends, and your Windows task bar starts within a pixel or two. However, hovering over a link or loading a page brings up a semi-transparent status bar which promptly disappears when no longer needed. Neat.

Another neat feature is that, if you happen to click a link which takes you to a series of pages, you won't have to click back through all of the pages before you finally reach the page which referred you to the series. Right-clicking on the back button brings up a familiar history but at the bottom of the list of pages you've just clicked through (a photo gallery, for instance) you'll see the page which referred you to the site, maybe 15 or 20 clicks ago. Smart.

Some people may whinge about the absence of RSS functionality, but the major downer for me, besides a few personal annoyances, is that I could not access any of the options on a Windows XP 64 bit installation. The application bailed messily and without warning whenever I tried to access this most important of features. To that end, I have absolutely no idea how customisable Chrome may be and it is the one thing that I have to say has genuinely spoiled my first experience of this otherwise easy to use and nice looking browser.

Having said that, it's a beta, people. It's not really officially launched as a working browser. We've been publicly invited to Google's unveiling of a new piece of software. They've lifted the cover on their creation and said, 'Everyone, excuse us, and, you know, don't take this too seriously, but look at what we did!'

And I have to say I'm looking forward to the finished product.

Get it here.