What I like about Google software is its design simplicity. You cannot beat them at that point, after releasing Gmail a couple of years ago, Google maps, Google Calendar and Google Analytics, you just cannot deny the fact that they make cool and super simple (design wise) software. Now with the new Google Chrome they did it again. Creating a nice piece of software that has only the basic needs for everybody, of course today is a bit too early to judge the capacities of the new browser, but as our website and online applications run on it without any issues, I’m pleased.
Now let’s look at it a little more in detail.
This version has different nice features; one of them is the incognito window. There were different rumors that IE would have it in one of the next versions, but it’s cool that Chrome already has it. It allows users to navigate websites without leaving any personal traceable details. Cookies, browsing history etc won’t be saved to the computer. It will be a great feature for those who want to visit adult sites without letting the boss know about it, or for the kids to go around the porn blockers dad and mom installed on IE on their wannabee porn-free computers.
Just like Firefox, Chrome delivers a nice bug fixer (JavaScript console). Not a lot of differences from the Firefox firebug add-on here, only a more user-friendly layout in the resources tab. Of course, on this point my knowledge about Chrome isn’t that detailed, but it seems to be a very good help for developers.
The nicest feature of them all is, in my opinion, the task manager. You can easily see the memory, CPU and network usage for each tab you opened in the browser. Hopefully they expand the view of the memory usage even more, as they partly did in the ‘stats for nerds’ part.
The Doctype website already is a great step in the right direction for developers and designers. A good reference and managed by developers for developers, just like on Wikipedia this should keep the whole Doctype site up to date.
Let’s see where Google is heading with this browser in the future, for now I will stick to Firefox. But that is simply because I don’t like the fact that one monster company has all the power on the internet. Maybe my colleagues’ opinions are different; let’s see about that…
See you next time with more news…
