Google Chrome – It’s Finally Here. Will A Revolution Begin?
First, it was the rumors. Then, Google announced it officially. Their very own web browser hits the Internet. Name? Google Chrome. Status? Brand new. Potential? Huge, of course. Why? They “realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications” and that they needed to completely rethink the web browser concept. What’s Google Chrome intended to be? “A modern platform for web pages and applications”.
As they say, “Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.”
Google Chrome’s developers have used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others - and they are making the code open source as well.
On Google Chrome’s download page are also shows some of its main features:
- One box for everything
Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.
- Thumbnails of your top sites
Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.
- Shortcuts for your apps
Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.
Once downloaded, it offers to import bookmarks, passwords and other settings from Internet Explorer or Firefox.
Then you see the real thing - they said it will be simple, and it does truly look pretty simple. Somehow surprisingly, but fair-play actually, it offers you to choose the default search engine right away.
Then you may see that it comes with a “Most Visited” area as the first page, pretty much the same kind of thing as Opera’s Speed Dial. Quick internal links to Google Search or to “View Full History” are also available here.
One of the most important features of the Google Chrome is that every tab you will be using will run independently in the browser, so if one application crashes then it won’t take anything else down. It’s not easy to test this accurately, but anyway, time will tell if it is as they say.
The Address Bar comes to support the idea of simplicity and efficiency. It’s not only a simple, average Address Bar, but it also provides web search, web history, address bar and suggestions as you type, all at the same time. “One unified box serves all your browsing needs”.
The application shortcuts is another main feature of this browser. You may use web apps without opening your browser. The application shortcuts can directly load your favorite online apps.
The tabs may be controlled in a lot of ways. You can drag the tabs out of the browser to create new windows, gather multiple tabs into one window or arrange your tabs however you wish, in a quick and easy way.
An incognito mode for private browsing is also provided. It seems that such a feature is starting to be quite an usual thing when it comes to modern web browsers…
Security is also well represented - Google Chrome will warn you if you’re about to visit a suspected phishing, malware or otherwise unsafe website.
Instant bookmarking and a nice built-in download manager are also available.
Currently, Google Chrome doesn’t support any extensions.
Google Chrome has been added to Downloadtube too. You may see its description, some screenshots and a Flash video presentation of it here.
NOTE: Currently, Google Chrome supports the most popular plug-ins necessary to display the Web correctly, including Flash, Acrobat Reader, Java, Windows Media Player, Real Player, QuickTime, and Silverlight.
Many websites use the Java plug-in. Google Chrome requires Java version 6, update 10. Please note that this is currently a beta version and may be more unstable than some previous version of Java.
Plug-ins are enabled by default. If plug-ins are enabled and Google Chrome detects a missing plug-in for a webpage, it’ll prompt you to install the plug-in at the top of webpage.
