Google Chrome: Not just another browser

Google released beta version of its open source web-browser last week. The browser is called Chrome and those interested in contributing to it or having a look at its code can head here.

First thing which I noticed in Chrome is that it is simple and straight-forward like most of other Google Products/Website. So there is no menu bar, no toolbar and tabs utilise conventional title bar area. All this leaves you with more browsing space, which I think is really innovative.

Chrome uses code from other browsers like Apple's Safari and Mozilla Firefox so you find many useful features from other browsers already present in Chrome. Chrome is loaded with many interesting and useful features like:

1. Floating tabs - You can drag and rearrenge tabs, convert tab into window and move tabs between multiple Chrome windows.
2. Tab does not crash Browser - Since tabs run in separate memory process of their own, if one tab crashes, it does not take the whole browser and other tabs down with it. What a relief :-)
3. Incognito Mode - If you don't want to leave trace of your browsing in history, cookies etc, you have the Incognito window to help you out.
4. Application Shortcuts - With the increasing use of many websites as applications, you can create their Shortcuts on your desktop so when you want to open them next time, you can just double-click on their icons and they will open like an application installed on your desktop. You need to try it to really understand how useful this feature is.

For a complete understanding of all the features please visit this link and to read Google's official reason on why they chose to do a browser, click here.

Apple joins Browser War

Apple is going to introduce windows version of its popular browser - Safari. I can see a lot of excitement in store on browser front. Recently Firefox and Opera have been winning a lot of loyal users for themselves. I am sure some of Mac lovers but Windows users will be lapping up the Safari on their windows PCs.

While announcing about Safari for Windows - Steve Jobs made another important announcement that Apple will allow developers to develop applications for iPhone by way of tapping safari, which is a good news but what exactly it means is not yet clear to me.

If it just means that we will be able to only open some mobile web applications and won't be able to run any offline applications from third-party developers on iPhones, then I don't really see anything to be happy about.

Anyway lets wait and watch for next 16 days as iPhone is going to be launced on 29th and we may start getting some more info after that.

Cheers!