Pros…

* Yes, it’s fast … loads up almost instantly

* Each window/tab residing in it’s own exe/mem space means one stalling out or crashing won’t bring down whole browser … you just kill off the offending one and you’re done.

Cons…

* Each having its own mem-space can lead to mem-hogging … Firefox usually runs me ~20-30mb RAM when opened. Each Chrome instance runs 5-50mb RAM. You get several tabs/windows going, and you could easily eat up 100mb+ RAM. But with systems having GB of ram these days, it’s really a paltry complaint.

* Yes, it follows Acid, etc, but there’s no way to have it override the default font settings of pages! I use an flat panel monitor that has an optimized resolution in the 1600w range. When I open Chrome, most web fonts are so miniscule, like 6pt or 8pt font. I have to Ctrl-+ to increase font size. But that only affects my current tab/window. If I open new tabs/windows…back to default. They let you set options for fonts & sizes, but I see no impact.

* Likewise, how resizing web fonts won’t impact fixed-widths on the web-page, neither are flash pop-ups or movie files. Some pages you can Ctrl-+ to increse the total size of the web page, including embedded movies & flash. But not in Chrome. The font increases only…flash movies or other media do not. SOL.

* Web pages look amazingly crappy when they’re kept to their web programmers constraints. For instance, this blog we’re in right now has some max width setting that only uses 1/2 of my flat panel screen. If I Ctrl-+ to increase font size, the font increases but is mushed inside the same max width the blog keeps for itself. When you combine pictures, ad boxes, etc with text, these fixed-width sites can look down-right atricious when fonts are blown up to a readable level.

* No ad-block, flash-block, content-block. Chrome runs very fast, but not when 15 flash ads hog up the web page.

* Can’t right-click in bookmark menu to select auto-sort. WTH? This is like a no-brainer in all other browesers. You have to manually drag and drop your bookmarks into the alphabetical order you’d like them to be in.

However, keep in mind we’re just using a BETA. I’m sure the Google folks working on Chrome are getting an earful from folks who want all kinds of crap added under the sun, which would defeat the purpose of Chrome to begin with. We should definitely pat them on the back for coming through with flying colors on their initial goals.

Despite their other EULAs, I really don’t trust Google in the long run. I don’t care what they say, I don’t like any process scanning my email (or worse, keystrokes) so I don’t use Gmail.

Then come the nits to pick. No version yet for Linux or Win2K – my stable main systems. What features of newer Windoze did they need to exclude coding for Win2K compatibility.

I hear the ‘mobile’ version of Chrome is out which has an updated EULA, doesn’t put crap in wierd places and doesn’t (?) install background services. You be the guinea pig :-).

No thanks, Google. Stick to your knitting, whatever that is.

It won’t let me download a full installer package, as you said. Instead I am allowed to download a tiny stub that initiates the real download, which proceeds without progress bars or indicators of any kind.

More from curiosity than anything else, I gave in and let it do that, and it installed the program in some weird place in which NO OTHER apps are installed: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data

It also installed a bunch of junk in my PAINT SHOP PRO plugins folder, in a subfolder called GEARS. What the hell?

After install I couldn’t move the program and make it work. I manually hosed it out of the system and stomped the embers with JV16. CHROME was too headstrong and ill-behaved. Maybe I’ll check it out later when there’s a portable version.

GOOGLE is becoming more obnoxious and sneaky by the day.