Google Chrome

I've been using Google Chrome as my "secondary" browser for about a month now and I've gotta say it is a good browser. I won't venture to use the word great just yet. A year from now, I think it's conceivable that it'll be my primary internet browser. Once they've gotten a chance to get some feedback and add/tweak some features, it could become an amazing browser.

One of the things that thrilled me most about it is the way it used the screen. When maximized it even removed the title bar to increase how much of a web page is viewable. It's so subtle and yet so brilliant. One reason I love that "feature" so much is because the browser market is very much a me-too market where everybody copies core ideas from everybody else.

Opera does tabs then Firefox follows suit and then so does Internet Explorer. IE is working on a privacy mode (aka porn mode) and now Chrome has it and Firefox is working on getting it in. The craze seems to be having each tab run in a separate thread so that when one crashes, the others don't and that feature is starting to spread to all of the big browsers as well.

Because the browser market operates that way (and because they're all free), I'm excited to see anybody else jump into the fray if they have a history of making good software. So, Apple Safari on Windows -- bring it on, Google Chrome -- make it happen, I wouldn't be mad if Mozilla managed to jump back into the game with some Netscape love.

Google Chrome is a very impressive first beta effort. A decent browser over all, but needs a little more time cookin in the oven. And I feel comfortable comparing this beta product to the other companies release products because it is a Google product in beta. "Beta" can last an extensive amount of time for them, just check out Gmail (from 2004 until today it has been in varying stages of beta).

Here's to me using the then amazing Google Chrome browser (beta edition) on my computer (Windows and Linux side) and my hopefully Android-powered phone come holiday time 2009!