I started using Google Chrome (hereafter referred to as just “Chrome”) yesterday to see how it compared with Firefox 3 (my current browser of choice).
So far, it does seem faster than Firefox.
I find the user interface to be clean and intuitive. Particularly nice touches include:
- The subtle “do you want to save this password” functionality (probably lifted directly from Firefox 3)
- The default home page (most visited pages, recent bookmarks, recently closed tabs, etc)
- Combination of location and search textboxes
The last of those changes is perhaps the most important one, because the current UI of both Firefox and IE keep page locationa and search separate. While you can enter search terms into the location bar and get either search results or an actual page with both Firefox and IE, you wouldn’t guess if from the interface.
As far as how pages look in Chrome, they look the way they should (at least on the sites I visit regularly). Pages that don’t render properly in Chrome don’t render right in Firefox either.
One thing that seemed odd was how long it took for the bookmarks I imported from IE to show up in Chrome. They didn’t appear right after I was done installing, but later, after I’d done some browsing.
For now, I miss having plug-ins like FlashBlock in Chrome. If I still feel that way after another week or two, I’ll stick with Firefox.