Chrome – The Browser from Google

Google’s Chrome (Beta) browser is now available here

The highlights:

1. Includes a JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8. Your browser is now like your OS with multiple threads and processes and also a task manager of its own! So next time one tab crashes, you dont have to shut down your entire browser; now that’s cool enough for me to want to switch from Mozilla, much as I love it.
2. The tabs are the most important elements and this design reflects just that. Each tab has its own address bar and menu
3. Auto-completion in the address bar, but this time not intrusive and irritating, but genuinely helpful (Google Search incorporated) while being subtle
4. Your homepage will be your dashboard with 9 previews of your most-visited websites, and on the sidebar you have your favourite search engines, all setup and ready to go
5. An ‘incognito’ mode, where everything you browse,search,do is private
6. Webapps now open in their own windows, without the address bar and toolbar
7. Sandboxing – improved security against malware and phishing

The whole project is open source and described in wonderfully by Scott McCloud. You can read the comic here.

The browser is the OS, that’s what Google is telling the world with comics and backing them up with innovation.

Ofcourse there’s going to be endless debate and speculation about Google’s war against Microsoft and how if this sticks, Google could end up being the new Microsoft.

But Chrome is not exclusively about browser or OS wars. This open source project is about improving all browsers, making them more suitable for applications rather than pages for which they were originally built.

It’s the theory of complements at work. Google lives on the internet. Every application, service and now browser from Google is aimed at improving the internet at large, increasing usage and dependence on it, and thus fostering its core business, Search and Advertisements.

For me, as long as they continue to make my life a tad bit easier and comfortable, I am game.

And how disruptive is Chrome going to be? My guess is very.

Do give it a shot and let me know if it works for you. More on my experience later.