The Conspicuous Consumer

Ok, I know what you’re thinking… The rest of the tech geek world has already used and abused Google Chrome and moved on to the next target. I actually have been toying with Chrome for a few weeks and have had very mixed feelings about this new fangled web browser from the good people at Google.

Most of the time, I use Flock for my personal browsing and Internet Explorer 7 for business (since my corporate intranet requires IE 7, I’m fairly stuck). The reason I like Flock is because of the features and ready availability of Firefox plugins.

The area that Google Chrome truly delivers is in its speed. Man, is that browser fast. I can literally load Chrome, access my email, log in, and read my first email before Flock even finishes loading. That’s seriously fast. I like it’s stripped down feature set - avoiding burdening itself with tons of features, plugins, and graphical whiz bang really lets Chrome fly.

While Chrome’s speed is a tremendous benefit, I have to admit that I do like to have some bells and whistles. For my use, this is where Chrome falls behind. Personally, I’m willing to sacrifice some of that speed to be able to take advantage of the built in social networking features, access to Firefox plugins, and interface that a browser like Flock provides.

Still, for a first foray into the browser world, I have to say that Google did a very good job. Chrome is sleek, slim, and delivers exactly what it promises - fast browsing without a lot of fluff.