So, here is my take on Chrome:
To begin with, the download available on Google site was a stub and not the complete browser. The rest of the package was downloaded after running the stub. The installation was started once missing bits were downloaded. The installation was pretty simple and went without any issues for me. But when installation was done, Chrome started importing my Firefox profile without my permission. There was no way to cancel the “import” operation either. Finally, the browser greeted me with a blank page with no toolbars or menubars except an address bar which is also an overloaded search bar. Tab bar takes place of the window title bar. Overall, the appearance closely resembles that of Apple Safari, which in reality is a foundation for the browser.
Before we go into the detailed feature list, let’s quickly look into the (stolen) building blocks of Chrome. The core of the browser, its rendering engine is Webkit. Yeah, the same one that is used by the Apple Safari. Look and feel is stolen from… again Safari. Even the in-page text search is ditto Safari. The startup page resembles Opera’s speed dial. It shows screenshots of your most recently visited pages along with the bookmarks (in my case imported from Firefox) in the right pane. There is no bookmark menu or sidebar. By default, the bookmark bar is hidden and available using keyboard shortcut Ctrl + B. ‘InPrivate’ mode from IE becomes “incognito” window in Chrome.
And the (missing) feature list is here:
1. No add-ons/plug-ins: Firefox users have been spoilt by the extensive add-ons that virtually make Firefox a full-blown platform in itself.
2. No shortcut to clear private data
3. No Firebug, delicious, StumbleUpon
4. And what about the Themes?
The only plus you notice about Chrome is that it fast, ultra fast. But that too comes at a cost. How did they achieve a good rendering speed? A, they could have used something like “Google Accelerator” to tunnel everything through their servers and caches to improve network speed. But, it doesn’t sound like a viable option. B. Strip-down/off less prominent features. For example, rendering quality
An interesting comparison of the same rendering engine in two different browsers shows that the CSS/Image rendering quality in Chrome is extremely poor.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kurafire/2822606444/
All in all, Google Chrome is ages behind the frontline browsers. Howbeit, I’m sure Chrome will be a super hit browser. It’ll also eat into IE’s market share. It will all not happen because it is a good browser, but because it is from Google. One thing I hate about Google is that, they think anything and everything they do is “cool” and it is “the way it should be”. That is usually not the case. I’m definitely not an anti-Google person. In fact, most of the services I use on the Internet are from Google. But it’s probably the high time when they should know that they can’t do everything. Sphere: Related Content
