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Walt Mossberg Posts In-Depth Review Of Google's Chrome

The Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg has been testing Google's Chrome browser for a week next to Firefox and the latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. His verdict? "Chrome is a smart, innovative browser that, in many common scenarios, will make using the Web faster, easier, and less frustrating."

What can I say, I am jealous. Mr. Mossberg gets to play with everything before anyone else does. First there was the iPhone. Then the 3G iPhone. Now Google's freshly available Chrome browser.

I downloaded the browser myself a few moments ago and am still developing my first impressions. Upon set up, Chrome automatically imported all of my Firefox bookmarks and settings. On my crusty, old Panasonic WinXP machine, it is running a bit slow. I blame the PC more then I do the browser in this case. Mr. Mossberg, who was running faster gear than I, blamed the browser. He said, "Despite Google's claims that Chrome is fast, it was notably slower in my tests at the common task of launching Web pages than either Firefox or Safari."

In my first few moments of use, I was tooling around the Chrome-specific Web pages to learn more about it when one of the Chrome pages crashed. I saw an amusing error message that read, "Aw, snap! The web page you were attempting to load is unresponsive." This tickled my funny bone a bit.

Using Chrome will definitely take some getting used to. With Firefox, the tabs are all placed below the address bar. In Chrome, they are all above it. This means extra travel time with your mouse. Mossberg writes, "Chrome does away with most menus and toolbar icons to give maximum screen space for the Web pages themselves. Also, Google has merged the address bar, where you type in Web addresses, with the search box, where you type in search terms. This unified feature is called the Omnibox. One striking difference in Chrome is how it handles tabs, which display a single Web page. In Chrome, each tab behaves as a separate browser. The bookmarks bar, Omnibox, menus and toolbar icons are located inside the tab, rather than atop the entire browser. The tabs appear at the top of the computer screen. Chrome also groups related tabs."

I like that it is fairly simple to create shortcuts to applications, and set up home pages that are built "speed-dial" fashion, showing you a tiled collection of your favorite Web sites.

My favorite activity so far was to "go incognito". When you launch a new incognito windows, you get this message: "Pages you view in this window won't appear in your browser history or search history, and they won't leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito windows. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be preserved, however." Interesting. It includes some warnings, including one that says to beware of "people standing behind you." The incognito browser window has different coloration than the regular window, and has a picture of a be-hatted and be-jacketed G-man character. Nice touch.

How well does it work overall? Mossberg says, "In general, it did well, rendering the sites properly. But I ran into problems with video. Some video sites refused to recognize Chrome, because its development has been a secret." Of course, he includes far more information in his review, because he has had the chance to spend a week with the browser.

As for my own 30-minute analysis? It's a good first effort. I like it more than IE8, Safari, or Camino. I'll have to test it against Opera and Firefox feature-for-feature to see how it rates against the two browsers I use most.

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