Google Chrome - The Google Web Browser

Over the long weekend, Tweets from SEO Tweeters have been passed left and right all about Google Chrome. When I checked my emails, mailing groups are talking about it too, not only SEO email groups but also blogging, web design and other groups I am a member of. Although this is a Google product, this is not just about search.

Google Chrome is a new Internet web browser

After seeing all the tweets, I searched Google Chrome to download and give it a spin. The top results were Google books comic strip and also a blog post by GoogleBlogoscope, the unofficial Google blog. And I just bypassed all information, did not read it right away and just kept searching for the download link and install. I'll just figure out what Google Chrome does after I install it without reading the numerous blog post, features & benefits of the browser. Knowing Google, everything should be intuitive and easy to use, easy to figure out things.

Initial feedback after installing Google Chrome

Good points I noticed right away after I installed Chrome:

• Firefox information imported well and the most visited sites tab was populated right away. This is very useful for visiting the sites I visit so often. No need to type in the address all the time. This feature reminded me a lot of Opera.


• No menu bar on top. I was not sure if there are add-on toolbars, or optional menu and button bars. It looked clean and even if I am so used to having so much toolbars that I toggle on and off in Firefox, I was pleased of having none so there is a larger screen real estate for browsing and viewing pages. This reminded me of IE7 in a way that they took out the menu bar and by instinct, I pressed the Alt button just to see if a menu bar appears. Nothing happened. I then stared at the top bar and noticed the drop down buttons on the right side of the address bar. I think that is a good decision to do. Collapse them so that there is more space for the page.


• The Google Chrome's Omnibar works better than how it is in Firefox 3. What Firefox 3 did was great, when you type in any part of a URL or a Title, recent history comes out of visited URLs with the string you are typing in the box. In Google Chrome, not only that happens, but also options to search for the word, some initial suggested websites (Something like a I'm Feeling Lucky script added on to it) and show Google Suggest automatically too. Type in single general words and you also get Dictionary links.


• Built in Plugins - When even I freshly install any browser, I check right away, the following: Adobe Flash, Java Applets, Quicktime Movies. I noticed that Quicktime and Flash just played right away. But Java Applets did not work. Something I still need to play around with and figure how to get that installed.

Other than that, those were the quick things I noticed right after installation. Now to know more about the official features on what are the real advantages of this, I suggest read the official Google Chrome download site since I myself need to figure this out too.

What is the future of Google Chrome?

Actually I don't know what the future is but many people are speculating. Google already has their web-based applications such as a Wordprocessor (like Microsoft Word), a spreadsheet (like Excel), a web-based presentation software (like PowerPoint), all rolled into one in Google Docs. A calendar (like Outlook's Calendar), web-based email (Why use Outlook?), some 3D software (not quite yet like 3DS Max, Maya but good for basic stuff), and now a desktop application web browser. After making so many tools that are web-based, Chrome is one of the major desktop applications that is slowly inching into the Microsoft market. Are we going to see GoogleOS soon?