Google's Chrome Browser: First Impressions

Here are my first impressions of Google's new Chrome browser. In short, it's a shiny ball of fun which is also wonderfully useful.

The first thing that hit me was the cool, shiny-looking Chrome logo...a round ball made up of the distincting bright Google colors. I like the way they gave it a 3-D and realistic look.

Once the browser installed, I thought the translucent-looking borders were cool.

- Most visited sites: Then it told me it would create a "most visited" area: The "Most visited" area shows the websites that you use most often.

After using Google Chrome for a while, you will see your most visited sites whenever you open a new tab. You can learn more about this and other features on the Getting Started page.

Following the Getting Started link, you are prompted with "What makes Google Chrome different," including that it will give you suggestions for both search and web pages as you type in the address bar.

If you want more differences, you can click "view all features." Google famously keeps its information coming at you minimal, so you can choose what you want and only get more when you have the time.

- Easy, "Instant bookmarking."

"Want to bookmark a web page? Just click the star icon at the left edge of the address bar and you're done. Learn more."   I like that. I hate having to click something and then monkey with a drop-down menu as well to bookmark something. I just want to click once and be done with it.

- Cool comic book. A comic book available on the Chrome dashboard explains the story of Chrome and why it was developed the way it was, for today's more application-based web use. I love that they documented their story of such a modern, cutting-edge tool with one of today's most popular formats, the graphic novel or comic book.

I went to three sites at first -- 3 of my usual stomping grounds -- eBay, YouTube and AOL. Then, next time I fired up my Chrome browser, they were right there in neat little boxes, awaiting my click.

So far, for me using the browser, it's a great start. Google has created a browser which has taken into account the way we use the web today and given us many conveniences.