Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Google Chrome: User review day 1

Two words: Get it .

Good: Install was quick with a small file and no restart required.. Fast launch...really fast on launch. Pages load ok, though some seem to take longer (my.yahoo for instance). Tabs work well (of course Firefox users already love tabs), especially the ability to drag them around. Incognito window is swell and certainly doesn;t remember my logins and passwords. Autosuggest is sweet too. I like the removal of the separate address bar...it's now both a search and an address bar...whatever you want it to do. Interface is sleek and, ahem, This...Is...Sparta!

Not so good: I want my Home button. I will get used to life without it, but 15 year's of surfing with it will be a hard habit to break. Imported bookmarks from IE are a mess with duplicates and out of order items...a bit like my phone book being ported from one phone to the other. And when I tried to download the new IE8 in Chrome, well let's just say it didn't...repeatedly. I also don;t like the idea of having to re-install plug-ins, like Flash. Also, and in comparison to the new IE8, Chrome uses more CPU resource than IE8...even when doing nothing. A YouTube video fro instance consumes 15-30% of available CPU resource...and even when Chrome is doing nothing, it pops the CPU for 4-10% for each session.

TBD: Simple Google docs work swell and office docs download easily from within the browser...however, I have yet to experience a process hang, so will reserve judgement on error recovery or use of anything more sophisticated than a spreadsheet or document.

Overall Rating so far: Works as promised. 

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