Google Chrome is seductive. Based on the same super-simple mindset of the search engine itself, it allows you to get right down to the business of browsing and think of nothing else - that can be a good thing.
Chrome, being based on Apple's open-source Webkit, is what Safari on windows SHOULD have been, IMHO, especially considering the iron-fisted way Apple foisted Safari onto iTunes users. Chrome feels like a completed application, even though it is in Beta. As Paul Thurrot has noted, Google avoided a lot of issues by simply avoiding features that may be buggy or incomplete by leaving them out all together, and producing a product that feels like it does everything it should do completely and efficiently.
For anyone comparing it to IE, it is definitely an improvement. I would install this and make it default on computers for users who will not be interested in taking the time to learn enhanced features or customising their browser.
However, for my own browsing, it has a few lacking bits that I can't overcome.
1) No add-ons! Since it is open source, this may be solved at some point, but don't expect Google to clone FireFox and provide official support for any kind of vibrant add-on community. Partly because addons would provide a solution for #2:
2) No AdBlock. Yes this is harped upon by many, but I shall harp more. People don't leave the default of IE to lose features. You can have ad blocking in IE simply by using IE7Pro, which is a very nifty add-on to IE that really makes it act a lot like FireFox with the most common addons. In Chrome, I miss a lot of ads because I use the MVP Hosts file, which blocks ads at the OS level, and the browser never sees them. But I still get ads that can't be blocked by a host file, and there are a decent number of those.
3) No FlashBlock. If you look at the release notes for the last several versions of Flash, you'll see that Flash is typically full of holes that allow full remote code execution at escalated priveledges. One issue even with Google Chrome is that the Flash plugin executes all instances with a master process (this is the non-technical way of explaining it I'm sure). The gist is, however, that Google couldn't sandbox Flash the way they did everything else. Flash can still bring down more than its fair share of resources, therefore. Additionally, many pages use Flash to load undesirable elements (Myspace, I'm looking at YOU). I simply WILL NOT browse without FlashBlock. I whitelist a few sites, and the rest, do not get to execute Flash. No exceptions. I have landed on a random stumble to a Russian webpage with a bug-ridden Flash based exploit for the LAST TIME.
4) No GreaseMonkey/Stylish. I'm not a programmer by trade. I dabbled in the past, but my skills don't allow me to write my own scripts. Yet there is a very active community of web programmers who have tweaked and "fixed" a large number of website issues using these two tools. Ever landed on a website that decided that DARK PURPLE looked good on BLACK? No more squinting! I just apply my "Simpify" Stylish setting, and all of a sudden I have black-on-white text, easier to read elements, etc. I have to use this on many gaming forums. There's no way in Google Chrome to override a webpage's bad formatting decisions. Hard to read webpages are hard to read, no matter what you do in Chrome.
5) No full-page zoom or Image zoom. I browse at 1600x1200 on a 21" Trinitron CRT. Most pages are easy to read for me (or I wouldn't use this resolution). Sometimes, however, someone with their display at 1024x768 decides they want their webpage to use small fonts, not realizing that what they think is small on their gargantuan pixel size is really microscopic on screens belonging to those of us who don't use bifocals. Both IE and Firefox now implement FULL-PAGE zoom, which increases the size of ALL elements on the screen in proportion. Chrome only implements Text Zoom, which leaves images at their default size. Admittedly, this is a minor issue, but when the competition does something better, and you're trying to enter the market, you need to consider this.
Chrome doesn't seem to offer anything except a theoretically more beautiful under-the-hood concept, whereby each tab is its own process. This does lead to higher memory consumption, but having 3GB this is not a problem for me. Apparently, IE8 in its latest Beta does the same thing. As far as Firefox, I don't have it crash often at all, and if it does, session restore works very well. Yes, I have had a single tab freeze the entire browser at times (more often than an outright crash honestly). Yet, having this one issue improved is not enough to make me switch.
In the end, there's nothing Chrome does that you can't do in Firefox. Very little that you can't do in IE or Opera, either. In many cases, features it contains are not default in those browsers, but can be added. And that's the biggest problem - which I addressed in point #1. Without add-ons, you must include every feature in the browser or leave it out. If you included every feature, you become bloated. If you leave them out, then there is no way for users to add the feature they want. Firefox's model of addons is the best solution. Features that the majority of users will want (tabs, privacy) go in. Features that only a select portion of users will want stay out (speed-dial, minimalism), but are easily added in.
My firefox interface is quite simple. I have the menubar reduced to a single button, which honestly I think FF 3 should have done. IE does this now, and so does Chrome. But in FF I was able to do this despite its being left out officially by using an add-on. I can search from my addressbar. Additionally, LocationBar2 gives me breadcrumbs and a hilighted domain, as well as other features. Other than that, back and forward, and a single stumbleupon icon, the rest of my UI is my bookmarks toolbar and tabs. That's it.
Chrome has a long way to go before it will ever be the browser I choose first.
