Rating Chrome

So, Google has put out a new browser: Chrome. I won't bother linking to it because if you've used Google in the last week you've had the link pushed at you. I've tried it and now I'm going to inflict my opinion on ya'll.

The Good

The browser is the fastest I've seen. Flash videos even seemed to load and run more quickly. One podcast I listen to even said it tests better than the upcoming version of Firefox. It's pulldown/right-click menus are better than Firefox's; they are laid out more along the lines of Opera's menus.

The Bad

It's a true Beta. I know that Google is infamous for abusing the Beta label, but this time they mean it. Weird things happened when I used cut and paste functions. At one point, I was happily opening a bunch of sites with videos and it rebooted my entire computer. Now, I had both Firefox and Opera chugging along in the background and I've not been able to reproduce it, but nothing else I was running had ever done that before.

The Ugly

Sometimes I think the fine people at Google take their obsession with simplicity too far. This browser is simple looking and simply ugly. Admittedly, I was mostly interested in seeing how fast it would run and testing basic functionality so I didn't look to see if there are alternative skins. Still, it looks like they went out of their way to make this look bad.

Conclusion

After a few bugs are worked out this is going to be the best browser out there. Of course, the others will raise their game as well so everyone will benefit (except maybe Explorer users - I'll believe Microsft can put out a good browser when I see one). For now, I'm sticking with Opera; my bookmarks are all set up with it and I've got everything tweaked the way I want it. It's not worth the hassle to switch to a browser which is still buggy and won't import my Opera bookmarks. However, you can bet money I'll be checking back on Chrome in a few months to see what it's like after the bugs are worked out.