Things I Like and Dislike About Google Chrome

The Google Chrome beta for OS X is out and I've been using it for a few hours - here are some of my thoughts:

1. Dislike: Not being able to see the full page title is annoying

In all other browsers the page title is shown on the top bar of the window, this isn't such a problem for sites such as ImAFish where the title doesn't change but for Google Mail for instance the title changes when you have new mail.

2. Like: The speed is awesome

The whole experience in Chrome feels fast, pages load quickly and the interface is snappy. Compared to Firefox this is a huge improvement (scrollbar lag has been driving me crazy recently in FIrefox), the speed seems to be on par with Safari.

3. Dislike: No status bar is annoying

When you mouse over links in other browsers you can see almost the full address of where the link is going in the status bar. However in Chrome you just get a little box appear at the bottom which shows you a truncated version of the link. Again I don't see what Google hope to gain by not showing the whole link.

Above: When putting your mouse over the title of the article only part of the URL is shown.

4. Dislike: Tab Mess

Often at work I will have at least 15 tabs open with various projects on the go - Google Chrome makes it very hard to distinguish between them when you have a lot open.

Adding in lots of tabs doesn't scroll them or add them onto another line - you just get lots of little tabs.

5. Like: Maximum Real Estate for Web Page

By removing titles, the status bar and other parts of the browser it does mean you have the maximum amount of space to see the actual web page, though as I've pointed out this does have its downsides.