We are all familiar with Microsoft's famed Internet Explorer that has been in use for over a decade. Other browsers have come and gone yet Microsoft is still the market leader in terms of number of users. While contenders such as Mozilla's Firefox and Opera have introduced several innovative features that has forced Microsoft to update their own browser, neither of these products has managed to dethrone Microsoft as the king of web browsers.

Now Google has entered into the web browser battle by introducing their own contender which is simply called "Chrome." While this program is technically still a Beta release (that means it is not a final product) it is available for all to download for free... no silly invitation needed. So does Chrome have the firepower to knock out Microsoft from the top position? Read further for more details!

After installing Google Chrome, I was initially taken aback by the surprisingly minimalistic interface. Unlike Opera and Firefox which both look elegant with a hint of flair and customizability, Chrome gives a very lightweight impression. There are no toolbars, and the tabs are located above the address bar and resemble file folder tabs. Even Internet explorer give a more robust and professional feel. It may just be that Google was trying to think out of the box and give a more airy feel to the heavyweight browsers currently available. Or it could even be that I am just too familar with the look of the others but I would say that Google's Chrome is not as impressive as the other offerings in terms of looks.

Google has brought quite a few new features into the browser wars. The most significant of these is the ability for each of the tabs to run independently. What this means is that in case one of the tabs opens a web page that locks up the browser, the other tabs will still keep working. This can be very handy if you surf with multiple tabs open. Another advantage of this feature is that you can simply drag a tab off the tab dock and it will function as another instance of Google Chrome. Very handy indeed.

Another notable feature is that Google Chrome keeps track of your most visited sites and lists them for easy access. This is great if you are on your own personal laptop but can pose privacy risks for those on public or shared computers. I am sure google will eventually allow this to be disabled.

Ok, so the minimalistic design is not necessarily going to kill the big boys on the web browser scene, and the new features are also not necessarily must haves (at least not as revolutionary as the tabbed browsing that Firefox introduced a few years ago) so can the new kid on the block achieve a knowck out with its performance?

My first test on performance was Ram usage. This would basically show the amount of resources that the browser consumes. Each of the browsers were opened with 5 tabs. Opera consumed the most resources but surprisingly Internet explorer consumed the least! Firefox consumed slightly less than Chrome but honestly the difference between the highest Ram user and the lowest was only 10mb.... hardly a significant factor when you consider most computers have 1-2 gb of ram!

In terms of page load speeds, my seat of the pants impression says that Chrome is about as fast as Firefox which I feel is the speed demon between the 4. I have no way to time this (yet) so it is merely a subjective impression.

Unfortunately problems cropped up early in my testing of Chrome. Certain sites (like Hotmail) give warnings that the browser may not perform correctly, and indeed they do not. While I did not have any problems with displaying pages (like Opera sometimes does), I still had a couple of instances where Chrome reported that certain tabs were frozen and it would be better if I shut them down.

This is actually one of the beauty marks of Google's Chrome, for it allowed me to continue surfing in the other tabs without being adversely affected by the frozen ones.

While Google's Chrome is a great first attempt at entering the browser wars, it is hardly a home run. It does introduce some interesting new features but its lackluster appearance, and lack of significant performance gains will not woo current Internet Explorer users. I still think that Mozilla's Firefox is the best browser available with Opera a close second (though more people continue to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer) Despite this tepid first entry, I am sure that Google (with all of their resources) will be quick to fine tune and polish up their Chrome (sorry I could not resist) so the battle of the browsers is not over yet!

You can download Google Chrome here: http://www.google.com/chrome

Mozilla Firefox can be downloaded here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Opera browser can be found here: http://www.opera.com/