The beta of Google’s new ‘Chrome’ browser was released a few days ago. I heard rumors of it a while back, but now that it’s out I have become very interested in it. I am using it right now.

The biggest draw for me is that each tab (tabbed browsing) is it’s own process and shows up individually in the computers process manager (ctrl-alt-delete). So if one window freezes up for any reason, the whole browser doesn’t need to be killed. 

Also, it is extremely light weight. By which I mean it uses minimal system resources. Each tab I have open now is running about 18,000Kb of ram, less than half of what is used by a tab in Firefox, Opera, IE, or Safari. (BTW – does anyone else not like FireFox 3? I find it to be extremely slow, a resource hog, and I’ve had it crash regularly – no good.)

So far I am really liking Google Chrome, though I am a bit concerned with how it may be used to drive targeted advertising (like all other Google Products and Services). I haven’t seen anything advertising related yet, but I’m sure they have a comprehensive plan to monetize this product through ads. 

add more google to your google with google chrome

One other feature I like is the hot-links on the dashboard. This feature has been standard on Opera browsers for a long time and is one of the best features. Google is somewhat kidnapping it but bases the thumbnails on your most frequent page visits rather than your bookmarks. 

google chrome dashboard bookmark-icon-tab-thingies

After I do some more extensive testing through my daily routine I’ll report about Google Chrome’sreliable, rendering, and overall performance.