Google Chrome Review

Google’s chrome hit the web just before 1900UTC today… 

The first page you’re greeted with is a home page is a list of your most visited links with thumbnail screenshots of them. I haven’t used Opera in years but I think this is an Opera-ism.

There are no standard menus (File, Edit, etc.). I was a bit stumped at first at how to get to the options. I liked the home page so much I wanted to see if I could get a “Home” button on my top bar. The only two menus available (I suppose they could be deemed “page” and “browser” menus) are accessible via icons to the right of the “omnibar” (FF3 wins here: “awesomebar” is a better name). 

The interface and UI deviates greatly from the standard XP look which I deem as bad form. A UI should be consistent with the other programs. Further, the theme is very Vista/Aero’esque but I run XP with the classic theme and Chrome sticks out like a (colourful) sore thumb. I find the tabs at the top of the window means that on a window full of tabs my eyes need to dart over my bookmark bar and the URL bar to see the title of the page I’m at. It doesn’t seem to save any real-estate either.

Conclusion:

Likes:

• “Most visited” home page
• (Attempt at a) simpler design
• Happy to see the browser market shaken up
• Pages are rendering well (which is to say “as I expect them to”)
• You can grab tabs and drag them off the window to start a new window (I can’t say how many times I’ve tried doing this with Firefox only to remember it doesn’t have that feature. Thank you Google!)
• Good import of Firefox bookmarks during install
• Browser specific “Task manager”  with interesting “Stats for nerds” link for each page

Dislikes:

• UI doesn’t blend in nicely with the rest of my (XP) OS/programs
• Tabs at top seems pointless and makes me move my eyes and mouse further to switch tabs (and is another OS deviation)
• Very simple and unscientific javascript test did not compete with Firefox3
• Lack of configuration options is going to be an issue very quickly (but it’s the first beta so they have an excuse)