Google produce applications at ten to the dozen each month, so it’s not surprising that sooner or later, a browser would be on that list. Google chrome does win where the uncluttered interface is concerned so this does make it much more user friendly. Even though Chrome has surpassed the much more stable Internet Explorer 8, it is receiving mixed reviews from the public.
I figured initially that Google Chrome sets a number of possibly pretentious claims though on testing I did confirm:
- Speed and ease of use
- Being able to Drag links to the search box
- Recently bookmarked pages appearing in thumbnail visual form on a tab for easy selection
- Like Firefox, you can drag tabs and arrange multiple tabs
- Warnings if a site may contain malware or phishing techniques
- Bookmarking can be done at the press of a button
- Less cluttered appearance, much easier to use
- Inconspicuous download manager that sits on the bottom of the browser
- Incognito feature for private browsing, remaining anonymous on the web
With different types of browsers comes a new challenge to add value to a user’s browsing experience. Versions for the Mac and Linux platforms are being developed in-house. Increasing security warnings in the browser can help protect PCs that are inadequately protected. Version 2 of the browser brings the claim that it fixed a lot of the crashes occurring in the initial release.
A multithreading feature should make the browser more stable. One aspect that can be annoying with Firefox, Opera and IE is that when one browser crashes – you lose the lot. Ok, Firefox will recover the windows but is still perplexing when all close down. In Chrome, only the tab that crashed will close and not the whole browser so other tabs will be ok.
Phishing and Pop-ups are dealt with very smoothly. Phishing warnings occur in the tab so you can decide if you wish to view the site or not. Pop-ups appear at the bottom of the screen so you can decide if you wish to view them. That is a nice unobtrusive feature.
Some of us like to have a lot of browsers open and if streaming ads are occurring, this can be very taxing to the available memory. I do notice a vast decrease in speed generally on my PC with 3 gigs of RAM and a dual core processor when lots of tabbed Firefox windows are open. However, the same windows did not reduce the overall PC or browsing speed in Chrome.
There is a site offering plug-ins and themes for Google Chrome to create your own versions of the attractive browser at http://www.chromeplugins.org/.
Apart from an initial installation error (solved by simply trying again), all has been fine. Browsing is simple and non-quirky. I can open various web sites and switch quickly. I would be telling fables if I said that I am no longer using Firefox though for web surfers, I would say that it’s worth a look.