Wow. Google is supposedly releasing their own open source web browser sometime today. It's called "Chrome". This could end up being either really cool or a real nightmare for web developers.

About Chrome itself.

Edit: Download Chrome from here.

Articles about the implications (some with screenshots):
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9113939&intsrc=hm_ts_head

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9114004&intsrc=news_ts_head

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/09/google_to_launc.php

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-01-n47.html

it' s a nightmare, all my sites look different, little things but different, droped loads of my faves, text boxes expand instead of scroll

I gots it...haven't played around with it much yet.

if Splodge says it's a nightmare......it's a nightmare.........

and that's good enough for me....

With all due respect to splodge (and his undeniable awesomeness in other areas); Splodge likes IE and IE is one of the worst browsers out there. If you only code for IE then of course your sites will look odd in a standards-compliant browser.

I've downloaded Chrome and it imported all my Firefox bookmarks without a hitch (after I shutdown FF that is).

So far all my sites look the same and this browser is FAST. I'ma keep playing with it.

It looks light and very impressive

Loving it. definitely faster. great rendering. only oddness I notice is pages made in frontpage seem to have doublespacing between lines of text.
The loading of each element separately is incredible, the proof of which can be seen here.
Firefox cannot open completely http://www.venicegov.com/latest_news.htm
Until it loads fully in IE and is in cache can take up to a minute http://www.venicegov.com/latest_news.htm
In google Chrome- almost instant http://www.venicegov.com/latest_news.htm
For dial up users there should be no question- this is what you've been waiting for.

so far, I can say Chrome is looking like a good choice, all slick and fast, and linked well together, and this is beta, not too bad.

Cool trick number 1:

Click and drag an open tab to open it in a new window.

spooge

The Google Chrome Task Manager gives you an overview of the currently running tabs and plug-ins just like the Windows Task Manager. You can kill any running process at any time from this window.

Password saving in Chrome looks and acts very similarly to the new password handling in Firefox 3.

Turn any webapp that you keep open all day long (like Gmail, for example) into a separate application through the tab drop-down menu next to the "omni-bar." When you create a new application in this way, it prompts you to create shortcuts on your computer through a Google Gears prompt. The resulting webapp has its own shortcut, its own item in the taskbar, and an even more consolidated browser window—lacking a location bar, search box, or any of the traditional browser tools.

And now...the fun stuff:

Google reserves the right to automatically update and install Chrome.

Although you retain any copyrights to content you own and use in the browser, Google says it has a right to display some of your content, in conjunction with promoting its services.

huge thumbnail pages open faster,
http://www.hallcross.co.uk/images/H2H_2008/index.htm
flash movies seem to load faster,
very strict coding though, no more colored scrollbars or any other IE trix

CSS?

Scrollbar colors are only an IE thing.

No Mac version

Download mac version here.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/03/google-browser.html