Google Chrome review

Google has launched its own web browser, in the hope that, in Google's own words, "it will drive innovation on the web". The browser has a very clean, minimalist look, but isn't radically different from Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 3.

The tabs sit right at the top of the screen, which provides more room for the websites you're looking at. A neat feature is the ability to drag a tab off to become its own window. Google has also made each tab its own process, which means each is an independent web browser. This is handy because, if one crashes, you can continue to look at other websites in other tabs, as well as using Chrome's Tab Manager to terminate the crashed tab.

Another space-saving feature is the absence of a status bar at the bottom of the screen. Instead, information pops up when required. In the same vein, there's a single entry bar at the top that serves both as a place to type in web addresses and a search bar. Start typing and it will build a list of possible websites, as well as search results from the default search engine.

The default homepage shows nine thumbnails of recently visited sites, and these appear each time you open a new tab. It really saves time as you don't have to type in a partial address and wait for the full URL to autocomplete, or open your bookmarks and click on a link there.

Despite being a beta version, we found Chrome surprisingly stable and reliable. It also felt faster than IE7 and Firefox when loading pages, and when jumping between tabs. We were slightly surprised by the lack of an RSS reader, but Google's Reader does this job separately.

There are a few problems, however. We've been using Chrome for a few weeks and there are still a significant number of websites that don't work properly or at all. For example, www.mrsite.com refuses to let members log into their accounts, citing that Chrome is not supported. Other websites work, but only partially. Visit Virgin Media's site and you'll find that you can't watch the football highlights as the player doesn't load.

Chrome looks to be a great browser, and it's easy to use. However, until there's better support for it, we can't quite recommend using it as your main browser.