Yesterday, Google released it’s own open source browser called Google Chrome. As today is holiday and got free-time, I have installed the Google Chrome and tested all the features. So, here is my review with screenshots.
Google Chrome’s simple and minimalistic design is really good. It has features same as Firefox along with some other features that aren’t available in other browsers like:
Incognito Mode: In which, the browser does not store any information of the webpages you have browsed in browser history and cookies.
Dynamic Tabs: This is really an interesting option. You can drag any tab from the present window to create a new window or you can drag any window into another window to merge them.
Crash Control: As Google says, every tab runs independently and if a site crashes the browser, only that tab closes and does not affect the other tabs. An interesting mechanism.
Application Shortcuts: Using this feature, you can create shortcuts directly onto your desktop, start menu, or quick launch bar. When you click on the shortcut, it will be opened in Google Chrome.
Most Visited Sites’ Thumbnails: When you open the Chrome, it will show the thumbnails of recently visited sites, recent bookmarks, plus a search box to search your history.
Download Manager:
In-line Search:
Other features that are same in Firefox and Google Chrome are:
- Tabbed Browsing.
- One Click Bookmarking
- Smart Location Bar
- Download Manger
- Safe browsing
- Inline Search and Highlighting
- Keyboard controls like Ctrl+T for new tab, Ctrl+ for zoom out, Ctrl- for zoom in, and Ctrl+J for Download Manager are same for both
There has been a lot of talk going on stating that it is going to be rival for Internet Explorer and Firefox. It may be for IE, but I don’t think that it will cause an impact on Firefox’s growth keeping in mind the huge repository of add-ons, plugins, and themes Firefox have.
I am not going to replace my Firefox with Chrome as Firefox do a lot of things other than being just a browser, helping me in web designing with ColorZilla and MeasureIt, remembering the tasks with RememberTheMilk, managing my bookmarks with GMarks, simple and easy FTP right from my browser with FireFTP, and many more”¦huh!
But, it is a good start for Google Chrome with really interesting and useful features and being open source, I expect a lot of features are going to be added to it. My favorite is plugin support like what Firefox has. I hope soon that facility is added with interesting plugins pouring in.
Additional Info:
- Download Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome
- Chrome Features: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features.html
- Why Google Built A Browser: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/why.html?hl=en
- Chrome Help: http://www.google.com/support/chrome/?hl=en
- Chrome Help Group: http://groups.google.com/group/google-chrome-help