Google recently released their new web browser, Chrome. I’ve spent the last couple days testing it and I have to say I’m extremely impressed. Chrome was designed around three major principles; sparse user interface, tabs running as separate browsers, and something called the Omnibox. Much like Google’s search engine, Chrome is visually ecinomical. There are just two menus and only a handful of toolbar icons. They do give you the option of adding a Home button. A few years ago, Mozilla introduced tabs with its web browser, Firefox. Google has taken this idea improved on it. With Chrome, each tab is actually running as a separate browser. They can be pulled off of the main browser window and turned into separate windows. This also means that if one tab crashes, the rest will still run. One thing I found really interesting was the ability to make a tab a standalone application that can run from your desktop or Start Menu. Google has redefined the address bar with their new Omnibox. When typing in the box the user will get suggestions based on their browsing history and other popular sites. If the user types into the box the name of another site that includes its own search feature such as Ebay or Amazon, they can just hit tab and search within that site without even visisting the site. This feature is know as Tab-to-Search. With Chrome, Google is truly redefining web browsing.
