Almost a month after the release of Chrome (2nd Sep 2008), I'm sure by now a lot of people have been using it or at least experimenting with it. For those who haven't, you should try it. In my previous post, we've heard of Chrome's tans which exist in their own separate processes and the supposedly faster custom Javascript virtual machine. So here's a little in depth review of Chrome's main features as well as a few that you won't notice when you first started using it. So does Chrome is any good from our paddock? Watch the following video and rundown of Chrome's Ten Temptations!
Watch the above video to learn Chrome's features! :)
Chrome's Ten Temptations:
1~One Box For Everything
2~New Tab Page
3~Application Shortcuts
4~Dynamic Tabs
5~Crash Control
6~Incognito Mode
7~Safe Browsing
8~Instant Bookmarks
9~Importing Settings
10~Simpler Downloads
Here's a how Chrome flaunts it:
New Tab Page
Instead of a plain new blank, Chrome's New Tab will have up to nine thumbnail images of your most visited webpages. There's more: on the left of the thumbnail area, there's a list of recently used search engines, bookmarks and closed tabs.
Dynamic Tabs
Like other browsers, Chrome's interface are similar to the others except for a few noteworthy extras and differences. Instead of being below the toolbar icons, tabs are arranged on top of it. The are 2 simple reasons:
1~Each tab have its very own set of toolbar with other tabs.
2~More viewing area reclaimed by having the tabs at the top makes use of empty space next to the minimize, maximize and close buttons.
Simpler Search
~Some may argue that Chrome's Address Bar is somewhat a clone to Firefox's "Awesome Bar". Well, it might be BUT it's a little shrewder I would say. You only need to type a few letters into the address bar and the browser will suggest the sites you've visited recently or a bookmark that matches.
~There's no separate search window though. So for searching, just type your query into the address bar and hit it. A page of search results will appear. But that's not it : When you have visited a page like wikipedia.org, and then entered a search query into the search bar on that page, Chrome will remember it. Okay, here's the prized catch-the next time you want to search in the Wikipedia page, all you have to do is start typing "wiki..." in the address bar and message will appear telling you that if you hit tab, Chrome will direct your search query to Wikipedia! (Complicated huh!)
Closing Processes
As you already knew, each tab of Chrome opens as an individual process. So you can actually close misbehaving sites loading in individual tab without affecting the other tab pages. What's more? Well, Chrome have its very own Task Manager for killing misbehaving tab. Similar to Windows' Task Manager, you can bring up Chrome's Task manager by hitting Shift+Esc (or clicking the "page" icon and then go into Developer/Task Manager).
Incognito
With Chrome's Incognito, you can surf to your heart's content then just close the tab when you're done without any history, cookies or passwords stored in the browser's cache afterwards. Some might say it's similar to Explorer 8's InPrivate feature, BUT Incognito will only affect the tab where you've turned it on unlike InPrivate that affects the entire browser. So, Chrome came out winner here!
Application Shortcuts
The Create Application shortcuts in the Page menu is a big plus for those who like Google Docs. By choosing this when you have a window open, Chrome will format a special window without the usual browser buttons and create a shortcut to it on the desktop which allows you quick access to it.
Will Chrome dominates the others?
So, that's more or less about this Chrome beta. Surely it still have a few flaws and minor hiccups since it's still a beta. But I must say that Chrome have surely blown the others away! But as far as adhering to web standards, Chromes got 79% in the Acid3 test, a common test for whether a web browser conforms to web standards. I also tested the other browsers with the test: Firefox managed to churn out 71% whereas Opera and IE failed terribly. So are you guys still pondering whether to switch to Chrome or not? For me, I'll still stick with Firefox. But there's no harm trying right?
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