Google Chrome Beta by Google
Features: A web browsing interface in the familiarity of Google's other applications. More independent tabbed browsing which leads to less crashing of other tabbed websites within the same browser window.
Official Website: http://www.google.com/chrome |
Pros
- Easy installation
- Nice GUI
- Quick website loading
- Intuitive
- "Paste And Go" feature is useful
- Works fine on older PC systems (even PIII 1GHz machines)
- Much better presentation of past visited links (i.e., "history")
- Incognito option is handy for reducing history links in Google Chrome, but not much else
- Importing several hundred links from IE favorites went just fine
Cons / Disadvantages
- None observed - it's a Beta
Suggestions
- Offer the option to color-code browser tabs
- Offer browser Reload option of the right-click of a mouse; Have the Reload button movable or able to be positioned on the lower part of the browser
- Have a "Turbo Scroll" for large quantities of bookmarks
- On the Most Visited page, allow for deleting most visited thumbnails of choice
While Google Chrome Beta is certainly not using its complete potential, I like it a lot. It's a powerful web browser, capable of sustaining several web pages in tabs without any hickups. I'm sure someone can make Google Chrome have a hickup, but I haven't.
Internet Explorer 7 does have similar features such as tabbed browsing and thumbnails of most recently visited websites, but I think Google Chrome Beta has a better overall way of controlling the memory my computer uses. At the same time, it appears as if GCb uses a little more memory than what IE7 would, I don't have as many issues. More memory is required for more independent page viewing.
At this point in time, I have several suggestions. Since tabbed browsing is getting more popular as the typical web surger is getting more complicated and analytical, there needs to be a better way to differentiate the many tabs viewed within a particular browser. My idea is allowing colors to identify certain tabs, so you can color each tab for specific subjects.
Having a large amount of links in your Google Chrome Bookmarks folder can be irritating, if you cannot scroll down the list fast enough. I recommend some kind of Turbo Scroll feature, where you simply double-click a mouse when hovering over the arrow down/up icons on the Bookmark list.
Browsing with the Incognito Window is not as incognito as you might think. While great for not having your website links show up in the history section of GCb and deleting cookies for that session, that's pretty much it. Some people might have the idea they are surfing anonymously, and this would be completely wrong. It would be nice if Google actually introduced as much of an incognito mode as possible (maybe allowing special advanced features within the customize menu), but since Google is in the information business, it kind of conflicts with their business model, now doesn't it.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Again, I'd like to stress to DigitalDingus readers Google Chrome is a Beta, and as Google says themselves, is far from being done. Google's software programmers more than likely wanted to get public reaction to the browser, and wanted to know which features are on the top of the long list of requested additions to the browser. So for the moment, Google Chrome Beta is simply a browser, used for surfing, with a few tweaks for the power computer user.
The Google Chrome Beta TOS issue appears to be winding down as Google modified the TOS for Chrome. However, the rather borgish language is still in their other application TOS agreements. I'd like to see Google remove the language as they would be significantly damaged if they were actually stupid enough to infringe on a person's content. I personally don't think they are this stupid. In any case, the chances of them doing this are rather rare, and all I have to say is if you are so concerned about this, you better not even surf the net or have a computer system in your home. For the rest of us who can benefit from Google's applications, life is good.
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