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Google released their new browser today, ironically named Google Chrome, given it’s minimal UI.  In anticipation of the launch, Google released an online comic that details the benefits of this new browser. It is drawn by Scott McCloud in the style of his Understanding Comics books. It’s strange to say that I enjoyed reading a feature set description, but this presentation did a great job of highlighting the key enhancements Chrome offers over the current crop of web browsers.

One of the team’s primary goals was improving performance and stability and I can say that so far they have delivered on their performance promises. I am sorely tempted to make the switch even after putting it through its paces for only a few hours. Everything is more responsive and quicker to load. It doesn’t look like it has improved on the memory footprint much, as all of Chromes processes use a similar amount of memory as Firefox does, but maybe we will see improved memory use over time as promised in their feature presentation.

Unfortunately, I don’t know whether I can live in a world without some of my Firefox add-ons. After spending a month getting used to mouse gestures a few years go, I’m not sure I can ever go back to a browser without them. Every time I use someone else’s computer, I am cursing the lack of those mouse gestures. And as I’m slowly integrating Ubiquity into my usual internet usage, I’d be hesitant to lose that either. I might be able to find a windows based gesture program to replace the first, but the second isn’t easily replaceable. Just writing this blog post in Chrome, there were a few times I would have used Ubiquity to look up URLs without having to load another page.

All in all, I’m pretty impressed with what Google has launched with. If you are using Internet Explorer, or even Firefox without any irreplaceable addons, I would suggest you give Chrome a shot. It will be a faster, and presumably more secure, internet experience.