After downloading and installing Google’s new Windows-based browser Chrome – Google already revealed some background info via their comic, like many of you, I gave it a first test run.


On first glance, Chrome feels very light-weight. The tabs are where some other browsers might their title bar, at the top, which saves some space. The status bar is also not visible at most times. It dynamically fades in when you hover over a link, showing the link address, and the loading icon will be shown in the tab above instead. When you enter a URL you’ll see the “omnibox”, Google’s auto-completion address bar with extra functionality (like Google search, site searches, your browser history and more) become active. Alternatively, you can also navigate to some of your recent pages via the “speed dial” browser homepage, which is displayed in tabs by default.

The pages I’ve tested rendered fast – some faster than in other browsers – but only extensive comparisons would show which browser is faster on which pages. The speedy rendering did its part to make the browser feel even more light-weight. Browsing pages and entering forms you’ll notice minor differences in handling to other browsers, but these things often just take time to get used to. Even when Google builds their rendering on the existing Webkit, there still will be some testing needed in Chrome for web developers though – once Chrome reaches a critical percentage in the market, anyway (we’re far from that, though Google does their part today by linking the program from their homepage).

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