Over the past year I have switched from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox to Safari for Windows and now to Google Chrome.
All these browsers have their respective advantages and disadvantages of course, but the standout winner in terms of "speed" is Google Chrome. Chrome starts up blazingly quick and it renders pages just as fast. What I really like about Chrome, aside from its speed and simplicity, is that it has no problem handling 25+ open tabs at once - which I use on a daily basis. The "beta" label has recently been removed from Chrome which should suggest that it's now officially ready for primetime. Chrome currently sits in 4th place behind Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer, with a market share of 0.83% (Source: Net Applications).
A few issues I have noticed with Chrome recently involves Windows Live Hotmail and popular download manager, GetRight.
As of the latest stable version of Chrome, 1.0.154.42, nothing happens when you click on a message in your Windows Live Hotmail inbox, try to delete a message or use the left navigation buttons (Junk, Drafts, Sent, etc). I noticed this same issue in an earlier version of Chrome but it was fixed in a subsequent update - the issue is back now. Windows Live Hotmail functions properly in all other browsers, including Safari for Windows. Microsoft may be to blame here in not properly recognising Chrome.
When you attempt to download a file using GetRight, instead of pushing the single file to you, multiple instances are pushed causing you to cancel all but one. This may be a compatiblity issue with GetRight working with Chrome as this does not occur with any of the other browsers.
Let's hope these issues are resolved soon.
Google has said they are working on an add-ons platform so developers could write nifty plugins, toolbars, extensions, etc - and we are certainly looking forward to that.
UPDATE (10/01/09) - A dev release of Google Chrome 2.0.156.1 is now available and the same problems persist with Windows Live Hotmail, as tested on multiple computers using different Operating Systems and at different locations.
UPDATE (28/01/09) - Stable version 1.0.154.46 has been released with a specific fix for the issues with Windows Live Hotmail. As tested, this new version works fine now with Windows Live Hotmail. Microsoft has a team in place to permanently resolve these issues with Chrome.
