Google Chrome, the new browser announced Tuesday, is available for download at www.google.com/chrome. The beta release is Windows-only right now. Here are some screenshots:
This shot above is what you’ll see whenever you open a new tab after running the browser for a few minutes. Each of your most visited pages shows up in its own tab, complete with a thumbnail. You also get a search box and a list of your recent bookmarks. Also, notice the tabs appear above the address bar, not below. Bookmarks, options and other controls are out of the way. As a result, the interface is stunningly — and refreshingly — simple.
No problems playing back video content in Flash. We tested Vimeo, YouTube and Google Video.
Ajax-powered web apps are ridiculously fast in Chrome. The secret is Chrome’s unique rendering model and it’s new V8 JavaScript engine. Check out our in-depth look at the new browser for details about this. Not surprisingly, Gmail is more responsive here than in other browsers. Other Google office apps like calendar and docs were faster to update, as well.
Here’s another real world example: the drag-and-drop Ajax interface in Yahoo Sports. No hiccups, smooth sailing.
A peek at Chrome’s advanced settings show features like SSL certificate management, an option to use DNS pre-fetching to load pages faster and pop-up blocking. There’s also the option to auto-correct commonly mistyped URLs, one way to prevent a user from accidentally interacting with a bogus site.
More settings here. You can set tabs to open at start-up, and even pick from a list of your most-visited sites.
Chrome’s password manager lets you toggle the “Remember this password?” feature. Also, you can delete certain passwords from the browser’s memory after the fact, or have it show you a password in case you’ve forgotten one.What are you experiences with Chrome? Anything else you’d like to see us test? Let us know in the comments.
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