Well, like most, I downloaded Google Chrome and gave it a whirl. So far, I like it. There are things that bother me - but overall - I like it. Here are some of my likes:
- It is faster. It does seem to deal with JavaScript quite a bit faster than other browsers. Pages load faster than before for me. This is probably the biggest plus of the whole thing really.
- The look and feel of the application is more modern looking (again, from my perspective) and it provides more real estate for browsing by default then other browsers do. Another good thing!
- There is a smoothness in movements that make the application seem less jerky. So, for instance, opening another tab will quickly slide the tab open to the right rather than the jerk of just magically appearing.
- I really like the start page as it shows the top nine sites that you are visiting. Though - be careful of where you are browsing! Don't want Dice.com showing up at work as your top viewed site or anything.
- The developer options are nice - viewing source is a lot prettier than otherwise.
Some bads:
- Probably the biggest bad for me is that this doesn't work on a lot of sites that require some type of login. Funny, a lot of Microsoft sites I need to visit don't work (e.g. MSDN Subscribers). :)
- My Delicious bookmarks don't work as a plug-in as they do in IE. There is a temporary workaround that comes somewhat close (http://fernandoacorreia.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/delicious-in-google-chrome/).
- There seems to be no add-in architecture really discussed anywhere for Chrome. I hope it is easy for third parties to add in their stuff to the browser.
Some quick tricks:
- CRTL + B will make the bookmark bar appear and disappear
- Put your cursor in the Omnibar (address bar) and press CTRL + K. This will cause a question mark (?) to appear which signifies that you are going to want to perform a search.
- Good or bad - it is really easy to see your saved passwords and what they are in your browser by going to Settings (the wrench) --> Options --> Minor Tweaks --> Show Saved Passwords.
- CTRL + SHIFT + N for when you want to surf to sites secretly (incognito). This means that the page will not show up in the top visited sites, no history will be kept, no cookies, etc.
- The Omnibar is great. It remembers where you have been and if you want to visit CNN, just type in CNN and hit ENTER rather than typing www.cnn.com.
Overall - interesting software. Is it Google's attempt to dislodge Windows? That is what Computer World magazine is saying this week.
Update: Another thing not working is my fingerprint reader! This really is not good right now as I use a fingerprint reader on all my sites that require a login. Using Chrome - none of the login pages are recognized as such.