Chrome

Ok, here's the first of my browser mini reviews.

The first one I'll tackle properly is Google Chrome.

As I said before it's brutally minimalist, with virtually no controls on the main page apart from the ones you're likely to use regularly on a browser; back, forwards, stop/refresh and the address/search bar. You have to add the home page button by default which I have done on both my desktop and laptop as it's also a control that I use regularly as I have an iGoogle page set up with news feeds and short-cuts etc.

Chrome is a really speedy browser, most pages are loaded quickly and accurately. links are followed quickly too and pages refresh quickly, even on my slow connection at home. The user interface while minimalist is effective with the title bar being replaced with a space for page tabs. These can be dragged about and organised, or dragged to the windows start bar to put it in a new window. External windows can be dragged back in too. The browser window can be customised by loading in google chrome themes, and there are ways of customising the windows yourself.

It doesn't appear to be as well supported as Firefox, for example I struggled to find a web video down-loader, of which there are many available on Firefox. I also get the feelng that the minimalism hides many features that would be far more apparent, again on Firefox.

Overall it has been a good experience using Google Chrome, and it may well be the browser that I settle on once my evaluation if over.