Surfin on Chrome

This past week, Google unveiled its latest product; Google Chrome. Google Chrome is a web browser that was designed to “add value for users, and at the same time, help drive innovation on the web,” according to an official Google announcement.

There’s no doubt that Google dominates the internet with a 60% share of all web searches. So it is only natural for Google to make its way into the web browser arena. Google chrome is going up against some pretty tough competition, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox (the main competitors). Currently, Internet explorer is the leading browser capturing approximately 73% of all browsing activity. In second place is Mozilla Firefox powering the browsers of about 18% of internet users. Will Google Chrome, make a dent on the browser market share? It is a little too soon to tell, but the early feedback on chrome seems to be positive.

Here are some cool features that stand out:

Speed Dial:
One of my favorite features is the home page display. When you open Chrome, your 9 most requested web pages are displayed as small thumbnail screen shots; making it simple to navigate to your favorite pages.

Auto Completion:
In Chrome’s search and address bar, there is a feature called omnibox.  Omnibox offers search suggestions, you’re most visited web pages, and pages you don’t visit but are highly viewed by other web surfers.

Load time:
The browser loads super quickly. Double click and boom, there it is!

Tabs:
Yes, all browsers now have tab features. Google switched it up a bit and put the tabs on top of the address bar. So it appears like each page has its own address bar, as opposed to one for all tabs.

Incognito:
Incognito is Google’s new “privacy mode.” Incognito allows you to surf on a “secret” window that does not log any of your browsing activity on your computer. Google cited an example use of this for keeping a surprise gift secret.

Keeping Your Computer Healthy:
Google Chrome is constantly downloading lists of harmful sites to protect you against malware and phishing attempts. If you try and visit one of these sites, Chrome will flash a warning and advise against visiting the page.

This is just a short list of features. Visit the official Google Chrome page to learn more. Keep in mind, Google Chrome is still in beta. There are many more features to come and many things to be improved upon. Stay tuned and in the meantime happy surfing!