Google Chrome Browser Review

September 2nd, 2008 by Peter Glaeser | RSS feed for comments on this post | TrackBack URI

Google’s new internet browser went into public beta testing today. If you haven’t downloaded it and want to give it a try, go here: http://www.google.com/chrome/

Installation

I can only speak for my Windows Vista machine. You download a small executable file which then loads more data from the internet. What I didn’t like is that the damn thing attempts to install an autostart routine on your computer. Thanks to Spybot that didn’t happen to me. However, it managed to place an icon on the desktop and the taskbar without asking me. Looks like Google are using double standards to push their own product.

Rendering

Even though it uses a different browser engine the appearance of all sites I’ve checked so far hasn’t changed. I also have the impression that pages are rendered and displayed even faster than on my Firefox 3. JavaScript works fine and Flash objects played without any problem. But Java applets didn’t load. I’m told to install a plugin. Seriously, most people would give the browser a miss here.

Plugins

Speaking of plugins, I can’t find how to install them. Apparently they’re not part of the beta release yet. I’m interested to find out whether we will be able to use our beloved XUL-based Firefox plugins.

User Experience

It’s modern and minimalistic, something that’s generally good. However, Chrome got rid of the traditional “File, Edit …” menus and offers very few buttons. There isn’t even a print button. I don’t have a problem using the good old Ctrl+P but I think a lot of people will struggle here. Conservative users will also have problems creating and accessing bookmarks.

Conclusion

The current version is nice for geeks to play with but nothing for the majority of Google’s user base. Firefox still rules.