Google’s throwing a wrench into the IE vs. Firefox vs. Safari vs. Opera browser dynamic with it’s own offering, Google Chrome. They explain their reasoning behind the project in a very slick comic drawn by “Understanding Comics” creator Scott McCloud, in which they state they’re looking to create a browser for the way people use the Web today - watching videos, chatting, playing games, etc. - uses that weren’t possible in the early days of the Web.
Google has made great strides in creating applications that live on the Web, but the chief problem with that concept is that if your browser crashes (a not-infrequent occurance), you risk losing your work. It looks like Chrome will address this issue by minimizing memory leaks and allowing users to kill processes that hog memory via a task manager.
Of course, the project will be open source. I wasn’t able to find a release date for the beta, but if you know anything, feel free to comment.
UPDATE: Well, that was quick! Google released Chrome about a day after I put this up. Walt Mossberg has the definitive review.
So far I like Chrome. I am still using Safari at home, but at work, I switch between Chrome and Firefox. Chrome seems less cluttered.
I actually haven’t even downloaded it yet, but I hear good things. As a total Google whore, I’m kind of obligated to download it.
I’ve noticed that Chrome has an issue opening PDFs on some websites. I keep getting error messages on sites that I frequently visit. I guess that’s what Safari, Firefox and the “other one” are for.