Chrome

My son suggested that I try using Google's new browser called Chrome. He found it very fast. I have not long moved over from Internet Explorer to Firefox, and now he wants me to try yet another browser! I suppose though that I ought to. The browser is probably the most heavily used piece of software on the computer, so that improvements here are very significant.

I have only just downloaded it and my first impression is that its GUI is very different to that of Internet Explorer or Firefox, and it will take me quite a while to get used to it! The most striking and immediately noticed difference is the appearance of the empty Chrome window. It is extremely uncluttered and gives an impression of simplicity just like the traditional google.com search page - just one box to enter your data. And, what is new is that the data can be the sort of data that you would put into a search box or the sort of data that you would put into a browser address bar. Chrome guesses what you want as you type, and as most requests are repetitions of requests previously made, it guesses right pretty quickly.

The second thing noticed almost immediately is that when you request a new tab, the tabbed window opens with thumbnails of the most recently visited pages and with bookmarks rather than being empty. So you don't need to go to history or bookmarks to find the page you want. However, despite the deceptive simplicity of Chrome's GUI I now have to get down to actually learning how to use it!

There are a number of videos which describe various interesting features about Chrome. There is also a long introductory video giving the background to the development of Chrome and explaining the technology behind the scene. Most impressive is the multi process structure of Chrome making each tabbed window a separate process so that if one locks up the others are not affected. This would appear to be my most immediate benefit.