Sure Google Chrome is made by Google (All hail O mighty Google!) but does that make it a good web browser? I Don’t think so. Google Chrome seems to be a very simple web browser, and I personally don’t like all these new applications and their lack of the typical menu bar containing the “File” menu and such.

When you open a new tab you are presented with a neat page that displays your”Bookmarks toolbar, Most visited websites (along with a image preview of the page) for quick and easy access, and a search bar.

The bookmarks bar is similar to that of Mozilla FireFox although it is only accessible from new tabs and disappears once you navigate away from that page. This is both good and bad as you save some extra screen space ad don’t accidentally click a bookmark when you go to enter a URL but do you really want to open a new tab every time you want to use your bookmarks toolbar?

You are also able to quickly and easily move tabs around or move a tab to a new (or existing) browser window simply by clicking and dragging it.

When you are typing in a URL the web browser uses Google’s database to predict what website you are trying to access. (Security risk? As it is sending your typed URL’s to them I don’t see why it’s not)

There is an “incognito” mode which allows you to surf the web without leaving traces on your computer, nothing in the history. It seems like this mode doesn’t try and predict the URL’s you are typing either. When in incognito mode it opens a new window with a slightly different theme, it is a darker colour with a picture of a spy in the top left corner of the window. It also deletes the cookies after you have closed that window although bookmarks you create and files you download remain on your computer.

When downloading a file a neat little download box appears at the bottom of the browser window to show the information regarding the download, it saves you from opening a separates download manager.

Google Chrome has (just like Mozilla FireFox) warnings about suspected phishing, malware or otherwise unsafe websites. It is just like what FireFox does so nothing new here.

One of my favourite features is one of the things the average user might not even realise untill something goes wrong! Every tab is run as a separate process, so if one tab crashes then the rest of your tabs can stay open and be saved. (although if you’re like me and usually have 50 tabs open, your process list will be full of chrome.exe’s)

Oh and just a little side note… Does anyone else find it a little funny that all the videos that are on the official Google Chrome website are “no longer available”… I thought that if they are on YouTube (which they own) they would remain available, but maybe that’s just me.

My final verdict: Google Chrome is Stylish but has no plugin support and alot of the features can be replicated on firefox with existing plugins.

-Hintswen