Google Chrome Web Browser

So far I'm impressed with the release version of Google Chrome. While it lacks plug-ins and themes entirely, it has a minimalist elegance, a tiny footprint, loads very quickly, and everything just works with a minimum of fuss. It looks great under Vista's Aero interface.

For the record, I don't care for IE at all, I like Firefox 3 just fine, and never found Opera or Safari to be worth the hassles and incompatibilities. Chrome seems to transcend all that, with the only flaw I've found a glitch in playback of streaming audio from Sirius Radio. I'm seriously considering making this my default browser.

Other than the usual navigation controls, Google has successfully combined the URL and search bars into one. Bookmarking has been seriously streamlined, but works just like in FF3. The number of options and page controls have been minimized, developer tools are included by default, and applications like GMail can be saved to the desktop for immediate access. Tabs are arrayed across the top of the browser and can be dragged out to separate windows and back into the main window freely. The new tab page, accessed via a simple '+' on the tab bar, shows thumbnails of your recent pages to open with a click.