SRM - Google Chrome

Well, I know It's supposed to be movie review Monday, but this week I'm doing something a bit differently: Software Review Monday.


Created by: Google

Features: Multiple tabs, startup page showing your most visited pages, simplistic and "Vista-like" design, user friendly interface, open source code, fully customizable.

Overview: In this fast new Browser from Google has, in my mind, created something beautiful. A simple, easy to learn, and stylish design let you see more of the web page you're visiting, and less of the browser you using to see it. It is in the Google designers terms, the "invisible browser".

Genre: Browser, Beta test, free download

My Take: While no where near Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox when it comes to task bars, search fields, and little buttons with cool icons, Chrome allows you to do everything that IE and Firefox allows and even more. 

At first, I saw it as weak and small, but over time, I have come to know the true potential of this powerful browser. Lets take a look at some features:

Tabs: sure, you may not think that tabs are a big deal, but with Chrome, they are a very important part of your Internet browsing. In IE for example, if you are surfing the web with several tabs open, and you run across a corrupted file on the web page you are visiting and IE crashes, you lose everything you had open, not only the tabs in the instance of IE you are running, but all other instances as well. With chrome, each tab is in it's own little world completely separate from the other tabs, so if for some reason it has to shut down, you only lose that one tab. Also, if you are loading a video in one tab, that loading isn't going to be slowed down if all-of-a-sudden, you have 23 new monsters to kill in the game you are playing in a different tab.

The Search Field: Not only does this bad boy let you search, and type in addresses, but you can chose which search engine you want it to be powered by! Also, when you start typing, it shows you search suggestions, already visited web pages, the most popular searches matching what you have typed so far, and what web pages are in your favorites!

Unrivaled Speed: As you know, IE has been released and re-released over and over again; there are more versions than I can count on both hands! Because of this, it just keeps getting clunkier and clunkier. Also, when the first version was created it was designed for just looking at web pages... people in today's Internet aren't just looking at web pages; they're watching videos, playing games, listening to music, and downloading files. Google Chrome was designed from the bottom up for these purposes in particular, while IE still has code in it written years ago. Because of it's In-The-Now "construction" it features speed unrivaled by any other browser I've seen. It's also a very small, lightweight program that doesn't take a lot of juice to run, making it even faster still.

These three features are only part of the many things you get with chrome, others include the ability to view the source code and even modify it, and HTML and JavaScript editor, and many easy to understand options menus. for example, in IE, the options window has several tabs labeled "General", "security", "privacy", "content", "connections", "programs" and "advanced". In Chrome they are "basic", "minor tweaks" and "under-the-hood". Now which list would you rather have?

Overall, Chrome is better for the average Joe, the techno-peasant, and the computer programmer. I would chose it over Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox any day.

Overall: 10 out of 10

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One more thing, I've been really cluttering the sidebar recently, and I'm getting rid of my "Free Software I Recommend" element, But I want you all to be able to still see the links and short descriptions. Here, in this post, they shall live on in infamy :-)

GTK's GIMP 2.4
This amazing photo editing software, is really quite powerful, and compared to other photo editing softwares, is pretty easy to use as well.

Wisdom-Soft's ScreenHunter
Fast, Easy, and powerful screen capture program offering great quality and 3 modes of capture. Upgradable to "Paid" and "Pro" versions for $20 and $30.

YoYo Games' Game Maker
Although a little hard to get used to at first, this fantastic GML (game maker language) editing software. YoYoGames.com also offers several easy-to-use tutorials!

Google's Google Earth 4.3
If you have used Google Earth before, you will absolutely adore the latest version of it. all new 3d buildings, and you can click on some landmarks for more info! Upgradable to "Plus" and "Pro" versions for $20 and $400.

If you have any cool software for me to try out, shoot me an email or leave a comment with a link!
(it's OK if the link doesn't work, I'll just copy and paste it into my browser)

-Graydon L

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