Google Chrome Review

chloeIt’s been 2 months since the launch of Google Chrome, Firefox 3.1 is on the way with IE8 hot on the heels – So what’s the difference? Which is the one for you? Will it finally get the remaining 20% of IE6 users to drag themselves into the 21st century and stop annoying our designers? Well after 2 weeks of posting about pretty gorgeous websites I thought it was time I sunk my teeth into something a little more substantial.

Ok so first things first – why should I use this newfangled Google Chrome? Google’s a search engine, what on earth makes them think they can develop a browser?!? Well they can, and they have, and not done a bad job of it to be honest. So what are the main plus points of Chrome that I miss when using the other browsers?

  • Installation is both quick and easy and with the quick start videos you’ll be ready to go within minutes.
  • Transfer both your IE and Firefox bookmarks, passwords and history with one click. Better than erasing/overwriting them like Firefox did last time I ran an update.
  • Much more than an address bar – Google calls this the ‘Omnibar’ it doubles as a search box and gives intellegent autocomplete search suggestions.
  • Multiprocess Architecture – Nothing’s more annoying than when you have loads of tabs open then one tab crashes and takes down the whole browser – This is no longer an issue when using Chrome as all of the tabs have their own ’sandbox’ meaning that they cannot share information between tabs – so if one goes down you can close that within Chrome and leave your other tabs running. This is also benificial when it come to security – if one tab gets attacked by malware for instance, it will only affect that tab.
  • Speed – Initially I didn’t find much to shout about with regards to the speed of Chrome – definitely not as noticable as the difference between FF and IE – until I tried running a heavey java script site on one tab and my hotmail on the other. Ordinarilly the java would slow down both tabs but not in Chrome thanks to the Sandbox.
The bad points? Well it’s still in its infancy and as such has already had a few security issues and there are still some online services that don’t work with it yet, but I’m sure there are lots of developers out there right now fixing these issues – ahhh the beauty of open source.
All in all I would say that I have been converted, much more so than with Safari (which I used for about an hour then went back to Firefox) and for now Chrome is the browser for me (and for over 3% of the browsing public already!) With Firefox 3.1 around the bend however, and me being a big Mozilla fan, we will just have to wait and see if Chrome can keep my interest after their launch in the new year.

Hello

LucyPI would just like to introduce myself and let you know what this blog is all about. My name is LucyP and I am a web designer working for a digital design agency who create websites, logo designs, digital marketing, interactive media solutions for its range of clients. I have worked as a graphic designer for a few years now and this year I am thinking about submitting my work to design competitions and building a portfolio of my designs.

In this blog we are going to talk about design reviews, helpful sites and good sites.  Any new sites that we find that have good designs – talk about how they achieve their site and the effects.  Any helpful sites including tutorials or advice on graphics and design.  Also, we will be looking at any sites that are just good sites, they can be good because of a certain thing or just good because we like them.

With so many sites out there to choose between for the reviews it will be tough so if you have seen any designs or anything you think is just great post a comment and I will have a look even if it is your own site – post a link to your portfolio and we will have a look.