So, Google Chrome is out, and I must say, its a very attractive browser.

It also doubles FF3's Sunspider javascript benchmark speed, nearly triples Opera 9.52's, and nearly quadruples IE8's. Very slim browser with an installation routine that is under 500 kb and the whole install takes well under a minute, and installs cleanly -- doesn't ask for admin privledges.



On a technical basis, it has uses a tweaked WebKit renderer (after Safari) but doesn't do Safari's horrible proprietary font-smoothing; copies IE8's tab process isolation (thus, if one tab crashes only that tab crashes, not the browser); has a startup page very similar to Opera's speed dial (but lacking Opera's wand feature and speed-dial shortcuts); largely matches Vista's UI conventions in Vista (big plus); renders SVGs like Opera (see if this will render in your browser, and see what happens when you zoom).



Gotta say, I really like it. We'll see if it becomes browser of choice over Opera for speed, or if Opera will end up winning with its extra keyboard and mouse shortcuts.

Opera really does just rock. In addition to being faster than FF (even on Linux), it is less whiny about Flash all around, the dev builds of 9.5 are rock solid and have scads of great functionality (especially synchronization, which is really good, particularly when I move about computers so much, and do surfing on the phone), and their Lab build also gets a 100/100 on the Acid 3 test. It doesn't pass it yet -- it falls below 30 FPS on a few places -- but it does pass all the actual tests.