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Google released today the newest browser on the block: Google Chrome. I took it for a spin and here are my initial impressions:

1) Like many things Google, Chrome has an intuitive yet simple, spartan-like interface, which is nice.

2) It’s faster than the Firefox installed in my computer. Probably because it is practically a stripped-down browser. The rationale for this, perhaps, is that once a user gets to integrate more into the browser — such as audio and video, etc. — the leanness of Chrome will come in handy.

3) The “speed dial” feature of Opera that is not in Firefox is here. It’s actually a list (in thumbnail view) of your browsing history. In Opera, you configure your speed dial by listing the sites you want to be in it. Chromes takes this a step further: it lists the site according to how often you visit them.

4) Firefox seems to have a problem with some sites (well, at least in my computer). For instance, I cannot log on at all on Friendster using Firefox. This could be a glitch or a bug in my system, of course, but the fact that Chrome does the job effortlessly indicates that Firefox is the culprit. (Or Friendster, for that matter.)

5) When you right click on an image displayed in Chrome, you don’t see “Properties” as you would in Internet Explorer or Firefox. What you see instead is, among others, “inspect element” that lets you view the various, well, elements of the image — the size, the position, the style, etc. I don’t think the average user would find any of these geek stuff useful but this feature is helpful for developers and webmasters.

6) Chrome imports your bookmarks easily. (Most other browsers do, but it bears pointing out because often, the shift to a new browser depends entirely on the ability to transfer your bookmarks.)

7) The “create application shortcut” feature of Chrome makes it possible for you to launch applications from the browser. I created a shortcut (click on the document icon on the topmost right of the page) for my Gmail account; when I click it, Gmail opens as though it’s an application all its own and not a part of the browser. Apparently, this is part of Google’s strategy to promote cloud computing, in which you run applications on web servers, not on your computer. Microsoft really has a reason to be worried about Chrome.

8. Google promises that Chrome is extremely secure. I can see that they’re serious in this promise: Apart from the usual security stuff that protects you from phishing, malware, etc., there’s a nifty feature called “Incognito” in Chrome. When you click “New Incognito Window” in your current page (click the document icon on the topmost right), or right-click a link and choosing Incognito, you’ve gone incognito. There’s an icon of a sleuth on the top left most corner of the page to remind you of this. “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 window,” Google says of this feature.

Chrome has a simple but intuitive interface

9) When Firefox first came out, I couldn’t log on to my bank accounts because it was not yet recognized. (Even today, some banks, like Metrobank, can’t be accessed online with Firefox.) This is not a problem with Chrome; I had no trouble using it for online financial transactions.

10) Has your browser ever quit on you with your tabs open? Mine has, lots of times, and I tell you it’s maddening. My experience with Firefox, while generally pleasant, has been spoiled by one of its many, should I say, quirks. When I open multiple tabs, which I do quite often, Firefox sometimes just freezes. An explanation for this is that all the tabs are working simultaneously, so that when Firefox is overwhelmed, it just gives up. Or, more accurately, when one open tab hits a glitch, it crashes the whole browser. Well, Chrome runs on what Google calls “multiple processes,” which essentially means that each tab runs on its own regardless of how the other tabs are doing. So when a tab hangs, it doesn’t take down the whole browser, as Firefox does. This could save me a lot of headache, especially when doing research with several tabs open at the same time. (Although, to be fair, Firefox can recover your tabs when you relaunch it but it doesn’t do this sort of thing all the time.)

11) Chrome, like Firefox, is open source. That means people outside of Google are going to be involved in improving it.

12) There are no search bars on Chrome. What it has is the “omnibox,” which is actually the address bar where you type the URL of the website. The omnibox functions both as an address bar and a search field. It is intuitive without being intrusive.

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