Chrome? What's so shiny?

I was avoiding Google's Chrome for a long long time, but this Chrome topic reached such a level that I thought, "Ok, let's check this s**t out afterall". And I downloaded it. After some minor troubles with the download, I got it started. The look was good. Simple and plain and everything about the layout reminded me of Google. The New Tab option is kinda weird. Instead of a blank tab, we get a whole bunch of thumbnails and links and history and everything. It's good for a few and bad for a few (like me). Moreover, every tab can become a new application with a 'smart' drag and drop. Now I don't know how that's going to affect the memory.

There's nothing special about the "Google Search Bar + URL Bar". It's total crap if you ask me. Unless you type the ".com" part, you can't directly open the website you want. You'll simply end up in Google's Search Engine in which you'll have to click on your website (it's a process i hate). Firefox's URL bar is ten times more efficient than that. Type 'orkut' and it goes directly to the website, type 'google map maker' and it goes exactly to "www.google.com/mapmaker". Also, if it doesn't find the exact website, you still end up in the google's search engine. So basically, Firefox has been doing what Chrome is now boasting about and it's doing it way better that Chrome.

The History/Saved passwords/Private Data part is a bit annoying. This is entirely a personal opinion. I like all the stuff like passwords/cookies/cache to be cleared once the browser window is closed. But apparently Google Chrome doesn't do that. You'll have to manually clear the data/cache/cookies or whatever you want. Firefox for me comfortably clears all this and keeps my system fresh after every close. This is particularly useful if you have all members of the family logging into their own accounts in their own websites. And this opens in another annoying tab for Chrome!

The 'Options' tab 'looks' promising with stuff like 'Minor Tweaks', 'Under the Hood', etc, but there are hardly any tweaks available. I didn't like this 'Option' at all. Cool names aren't enough. Google seems to be obsessed with cars, like 'Chrome' and 'Under da Hood'.

The Task Manager is actually cool. It's letting me know what tab is using how much of memory and this is pretty useful for me personally. The fact that a corrupted page can be gotten rid off easily without closing the entire browser is another cool thing I found.

There are many more slight ups and downs here and there. But this is only a Beta Version. And things can always improve over time. As of now, my favourite browser is Firefox (i love it!!) and it has been so from the past 2-3 years. It might continue to be so unless Chrome comes out with a 'Killer Shine' and some serious 'Power Under the Hood'. Goodbye Chrome, I am uninstalling you.