Google Chrome – First impressions

Web search and advertising giant Google has gone against what seemed to be a foregone conclusion by not only not buying the norwegian web browser development firm Opera software, but also publishing their own web browser, called Chrome. They’ve built it on Web Kit, the same rendering engine used by Apple’s Safari, and added their own JVM (Java Virtual Machine).
 

 
The first thing I noticed when I’d installed Chrome was how shiny it was, how eyecandy-y it was. The second thing I noticed was its lack of a “stop” button. That was it though. I didn’t notice any obvious usability flaws. There were no illogical keyboard shortcuts.
 
Even so, it does seem somewhat underdeveloped. Chrome is a very early Beta considering other Beta projects of Google’s. To me, it immediately felt a bit like Windows XP’s default skin, that is to say, I think it looks a bit like they’ve teamed up with Fisher Price to create My First Browser.
 
Like my conclusions on Apple’s Safari and Opera, I like it, but I can’t really see it substituting my current default, Mozilla Firefox.