In their latest move to take over the real and online world, Google has launched their own internet browser, designed to give old-hands Explorer and Firefox a run for their money.
Google Chrome (www.google.com/chrome) is the sleek end result. Minimal is definitely the concept as Google Chrome has ditched the entire tool bar and replaced it with drop-down buttons to the left of the address bar. Buttons, like the Back, Refresh and Home, look awfully similar to Firefox 3 (Google sponsors Mozilla, the mother company of Firefox), but Chrome does have plenty of new tricks up its sleeve.
The first, and perhaps the biggest difference, is the fact that the address bar doubles as a search box, giving you a one stop entry point to the World Wide Web. And before you ask, no you are not limited to searching on Google. You can modify the settings to select any other popular search engines such as Yahoo, AOL, and even Wikipedia and YouTube.
Another noteworthy feature is the home page. Every time you boot up it gives you a list of your most visited websites as clickable thumbnails, as well as recently bookmarked pages for easy access. And if you prefer to be a little more old-school then you can set the home page to go straight to your favorite website. They’ve also been smart and kept many Firefox favorites like the moveable page tabs and predictive address bar, which now not only looks through your history but also gives you search suggestions.
Google claims their new baby is faster than Firefox and Apple’s Safari—and it’s true. We tried it with some of the WWW’s heaviest websites, such as Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s Flash-only portal (www.bangkok.go.th) and it loads a few seconds faster than on Firefox 3.
At the moment, Google Chrome is still only available for Windows Vista or XP users; Mac and Linux users will have to wait until next month.
To download the browser for free, go to www.google.com/chrome. You can also find loads more information including some great tutorial comics by checking out www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome.
