Google Chrome: it's here and it's fast!

Here we are: the new Google brower, Chrome, is available now ...

Download Google Chrome

A 'best of' the other browsers

Google has made no secret of the fact that it's combined the best parts of other browsers to bring together a new program better adapted to the needs of modern Internet users.  You can see this straight away in the user interface, which is full of the kind of transparent effects we're used to from Apple coupled with the sparse set of buttons found in Internet Explorer.  And the functionality is most reminiscent of Firefox, of course, but we’re not going to go in for a detailed comparison just yet …


Fast browsing

But the really big surprise is just how fast you can surf with Google Chrome: when we tried to load our own site this morning, it felt like it had been on steroids.  We never really thought digitalversus.com was slow, but this is something else. 

Right here, on the computer I’m using to type this article, the difference between Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome is clear, and it’s very much in favor of the new arrival.  The whole surfing experience seems instantaneous, as if our whole site were cached already.  A quick dash around some of our other favorite sites confirms this first impression: we’ve never surfed so speedily.  It’s a surprising effect, and actually a little disconcerting at first, even if you get all too used to it after a little while.  NB: we do have an excellent fiber connection in our offices.

As for the amount of memory it occupies, Chrome seems to have a slender advantage: with the same five tabs open in each browser, Google’s clocked up 47 MB against Mozilla’s 57 MB, although this is obviously something to test in the longer term.

Three other first impressions

• As for the amount of memory it occupies, Chrome seems to have a slender advantage: with the same five tabs open in each browser, Google’s clocked up 47 MB against Mozilla’s 57 MB, although this is obviously something to test in the longer term.

• Google has emphasized a sober design that leaves more room for displaying the website in question.  On our site, for instance, you can see one or two more news articles on the home page than you can in Firefox.

• Finally, the redesigned home page is very practical, and might well change your browsing behavior.  Rather than going directly to one or the other of your favorite sites, Chrome offers a well-designed list, made up not only of your favorites, but also the pages you visit the most frequently.  Apparently, this welcome screen should take a few uses to iron out the sites you actually use, but it’s already started work on ours …

For more of the technical details, you can also see our Chrome preview from yesterday