Chrome Rims

Google today launched it's newest weapon from their war chest, Google Chrome. I installed it over Parallels today, since there is not a OS X installation as yet. As it turns out, the installation was light-weight and simple.

Firing up Chrome, my first thought was "cartoon" like. The color scheme threw me off a bit, but given my design background, I'm probably a little more sensitive to that sort of thing than the average person.

The second thought I had was "lawsuit." The home page looked amazingly similar to the Opera "Speed-dial." I suppose plagerism errrr imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The third thought was, I found it interesting that Chrome is based on Apple's "Webkit." the reason that I find it interesting is that Apple releases almost nightly builds. The browser is always in a perpetual state of motion and iteration. With Chrome, average users probably won't be too happy to put up with that. Actually it's almost an act of God to get average users to update their Antivirus correctly.

All of the above said, doesn't mean that I don't like Chrome. In reality, I think that Chrome 's very cool (except for the suck color scheme). In the interface, I do like the tab positions. I also think it's smart that an individual tab might crash but the other tabs are in separate threads if you will and can remain working. That in and of itself is awesome. Also a nice little touch is that when you type in the address bar, it dynamically lists URL's, offering suggestions. Kinda web 2.0 feel to that little trick.

In all, Chrome shows real promise, offering a modest alteration to your normal web browser paradigm that will be east for most people to pick up on. It will be interesting to see how people take to it, especially since it contains Googles usual minimalist approach. If you've downloaded and tried Chrome post back and let us know your thoughts.

~ Jaye

Posted with LifeCast