[Freddy]

Apparently this new browser is going to be available tomorrow.  From what I read in their comic this looks really interesting, I like the sound of some of the features.  Here's a link to where the newest information will likely appear and there is also a link there to the comic-book explanation I just mentioned.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html

[Maviarab]

*Crawls out from under his hibernation rock*...

New browser?...

Looks interesting..thanks

[Freddy]

I wondered what was under that rock.  Of course, being the roving reporter that I am, I knew about this months ago...erm well early this morning actually (ahem).  Just goes to show that nothing escapes my bloodhound instincts (cough).

But seriously this does look good.  After taking the trouble to read the entire comic I think it does look a lot of good and I will be eagerly downloading it tomorrow at some point.

[Maviarab]

We shall await your roving journalistic reports then

Going back into my dark dreary world until the next exciting thing happens hehe...

[Dante]

I'll take the baton of writing a report, seeing as how I'm using it now

Ok, I went through the info about it and I was frankly amazed, from what I've seen, it sand-boxes each tab, so if one tab fails for some reason, the other tabs and the browser entire are not effected. Plus it also means that my Norten 360 package is frankly; unneeded except in dire situations.
2nd, I feared the fancy styles of the browser would slow down my machine (they do with Firefox) but this was not the case.

The downloader/installer package came in at a smooth 474 KB, the program itself is under 50 Mb, installation was fast.

Comes with a built-in-spellchecker (unlike Firefox, which is a separate download)

I've just run 150 tabs, 13 of which had a javascript item in it, no slowdown at all! Compared to Internet Explorer, which falls flat on it's face at 9 tabs and two Java. Firefox can handle 50. with 4 java items.

I've encountered some bugs, most of which were due to the website being stubborn (MSN Hotmail, for instance, wants me to 'Upgrade' the browser before it lets me in to see my emails, despite the rest of the site having no trouble at all.)

There are a few other bugs as well, YouTube, on some vids, loads the video itself but not anything else.

Also, Chrome failed to pick up my already installed Flashplayer (which I had installed through IE, and Firefox could pick it up)
 Also, as far as I can see there is no 'Save Session' button, which is sorely needed for people like me who can never finish what they started in one session.

In terms of processes, Chrome beats both IE and Firefox (all without any plugins) as well as keeping CPU useage low.

All in all, I'm very pleased with it

[Freddy]

Thanks for that 

First impression here is that it is faster than IE or Firefox.  Every 'normal' web page I have gone to so far displays fine.

I really like the way it handles browsing history, it makes it a lot easier to back-track on something you might have done a few days in the past.  I also like the lack of clutter and generally streamline approach.

Spell checking is a nice touch, though I just noted it thinks 'Firefox' is a spelling mistake.  Maybe that's intentional 

I found it doesn't like the most up-to-date version of Java that I have.  Even so they are saying it needs the newer beta here if you are happy to install it :

http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=95282&query=java&topic=&type=

I haven't done that myself yet.

Other stuff I noted is that it handles XHTML and CSS 2 without a hitch as it really should.

I think I would be happy to use this as my main browser, I guess I will just see how it goes.

[Maviarab]

Downloading now

*Edit*:

Well so far like it a lot

[Art]

I also like the responsiveness and lack of all the bells and whistles that often seem to hamper more than help.

The user interface seems to be more intuitive than reactive. No need for all those text boxes cluttering the top.
I had enjoyed the tabbed browsing with Firefox as I now do with Chrome.

It easily accepted all my current favorite sites and even current passwords...nice touch.

Over all, I've experienced no errors and have no gripes to report. I would like to see a few more features like
PicLens (Firefox) but that's a small issue. Let's hope the final release is every bit as good if not better!

[Maviarab]

And if anyone figures out how the hell you get it to remember what size you want it and where on your screen puhleeeeez let me know hehe

[Freddy]

Hehe okay Mav...

Seems like we've all been converted.  I really like it, but I have managed to crash it lol.  I was viewing a .pdf file and it hung up on me, I couldn't get into any tabs and the whole thing locked me out.  Went to IE and tried the same file without a hitch.  It seemed to get stuck loading the .pdf, but I will try it out again on another .pdf and see what happens.

[Dante]

I'd like to point out it is public beta, I've reported about five problems now.

Another thing I like is the Omnibox, it lets me search Google, type in URL's and knows what sites I'm after if I type in a quote from the page. I would rather it had some ability to sync with google bookmarks. An update to the spellchecker (even google is a 'mistake').

then again, the fact that it incorpates broswer histroy and bookmarks is very good feature...

Download mananger is effeicent, too

[Maviarab]

Would agree there Dante, just downloaded a 75mb file in about 5 mins.

Overall very impressed so far...

[Freddy]

Yeah I like the download feature too.  Dante, I was aware it is a Beta, I was just relating a fault I found.

[Freddy]

Just as a follow up on this thread.  I've swapped totally to Chrome now - I had been using it on and off but last month I decided to switch totally when I got my new PC.  As we said it is so much faster than IE.  I've just installed Windows 7 which comes with IE8 Beta and I chose the 64 bit OS.  To me Chrome is running quicker on XP than IE8 is, even with the 64bit OS.  I'll do a bit more testing to confirm it though.

Otherwise, looking at the statistics for AiDreams and The Chatterbot Collection - Chrome appears to be the third most popular browser:

• IE - 54.4%
• Firefox - 21.4%
• Chrome - 18.9%

Safari, Opera, Netscape, Mozilla all come in at 2% and below.  (Even had a couple of Phone browsers by the way...)

This may serve as a microcosm of what's going on more widely, pretty impressive really.

[Maviarab]

Use chrome soley now myself too....also switched from DAP to IDm as it has full functionality for chrome too (chrome dl manager is nice and quick, but no resume facility).

Have to say I love its lay out, home page (with top sites you use bumber times visited)...easy bookmark system et cetc.

Top marks from the evil that is google hehe