Yesterday marked another first for Google. The folks over at google have been working on this project called Google Chrome. It was finally released yesterday.
Google Chrome is a web browser similar to Firefox or internet explorer. It is open source just like Firefox, which means that anyone can get the code and edit it or play around with it.
From what I am understanding from Google, the purpose of Chrome is to create ideas that other web browsers can implement.
Now as many of you know, I run some websites. The first is for my company which is Simtek Fence. The other one is my GPC site. So I wanted to make sure that my sites work with this new browser, so I downloaded it. Luckily both my sites work fine.
But since I did download it, I thought maybe I would share some of my thought about it.
At first glance, it looks a lot like IE (Internet Explorer) with one notable difference. The tabs are on the top. Now you know I don’t like IE at all, so naturally I would of stopped here, but I love google, so I decided to explore a little. It has quite a few features that IE does not have. For instance, free tab browsing, and the “omni bar”, the bar that suggests where you may want to go. I also like the new tab page which looks a lot like Opera’s Speed Dial Page. It has a few features that allow developers like me to see what is going on, like a JavaScript Debugger, and a memory usage area. It also is set up to where it show your most used sites. In Google’s words “when you start a new tab, you want to go somewhere”, usually that place is one of your most visited sites, so right there on your new tab page is your most used sites.
Chrome also has a nice download feature, and the google team is set on giving you as much room on your screen as possible, so everything you are use to having like that status bar are invisible until you need them.
Now for some of the things that I do not like.
I am a avid user of Firefox. And I will always recommend it. Google chrome was created with help of Mozilla, but it is not quite the same. Even thought Chrome has the JavaScript debugger and the memory usage thing, it lacks on the ability to be customized. It is one color, and is not change able, just like IE. It also has all of the menu features hidden on the side under a little wrench button. I like to have the menus up on top. It is also in Bata right now which means that there are errors.
I think that once they get all of the features rolled out, and get everything fixed, it could be my favorite browser. Right now it stands at second.
Out of all of the browser out there, here are the ones I prefer in order from best to worst.
(If you would like to try any of these browsers you can click on the link.)
Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome
Apple Safari
Opera
Internet Explorer
