I've spun this off into a separate thread because the previous one got a bit too big, and was also too political. I want a thread talking about technical merits, without the EULA business, IP tracking and so forth. Here are my impressions from using it as my default browser for a couple of days:
* Installation
This went very smoothly, the download was fast and installation effortless. One annoying feature was that it defaulted to Hebrew UI, though it was changeable after installation. I hate Hebrew UI for software. I think Sven said it before in some other thread, but software should go by my existing UI language, not by my regional settings. The safest bet is always to go with the same UI language that the user has proven he can use.
Another (very) minor point is the "Set as my default browser" option. Most browsers pop up the question the first time you launch them, while Chrome didn't. I'd rather it did, so I can tell it No (and "Don't Ask Again") if I want, but wouldn't send me looking for the option in the settings pages later.
* Configuration
The Options screen is divided into three tabs, Basics, Minor Tweaks and Under the Hood. I find this division meaningless and confusing, since what is a minor tweak for one is an arcane comand for others. Division by topic seems a lot more intuitive to me.
* Everyday Use
Chrome really excels in the one feature that's kept IE my favorite over FF in recent years - speed from click to usable page. For some reason, FF 3 takes about 3-4 seconds to start up initially, and this is one only 2-3 add-ons loaded. I don't like keeping browser windows open for a long time, so being to open a new window from scratch at sub-second speeds was my main IE bonus. Chrome beats IE 7, certainly IE 8b2, in that respect.
Browsing speed is very fast, so it seems the DNS prefetch does the trick well, as well as the WebKit parser. Beats both FF3 and IE8b2. Javascript is fast, but very buggy. Most JS-intensive pages break in some way. Trying to mark text as Bold or Italic here on C9 causes the thread to jump back to page 1 for some reason. Lots of other small problems abound as well.
One thing I miss is the bookmarks view. One of the primary feature I use in IE is opening a favorites group in tabs simultaneously. Chrome's lack of a decent bookmark menu is annoying, The "Other Bookmarks" button in the New Tab page, which apparently is supposed to show all bookmarks, is both unwieldy because it's available only in the New Tab screen (or as a toolbar, which I dislike). Additionally, it seems to have imported only a handful of my IE bookmarks.
Visually speaking, I like the minimalist approach very much, but dislike the custom chrome used, especially in XP. As many have said, the fake Aero buttons are annoying, and the custom drawing of the title bar means that custom title bar buttons (such as UltraMon's) aren't shown. I would prefer a minimalist style that respected the host OS, rather than tried to pretend that it's host-agnostic. It doesn't work for Apple's Windows apps and it's what keeps Linux UIs from being annoyingly non-standard.
It is still irrelevant for me for intranet apps, since it breaks our javascript and also doesn't support integrated Windows authentication
* Summary
I may have come off very negative in previous threads about Chrome, but that was mainly to try to balance out some overly excessive praise. I like Chrome. I think its main features are speed and simplicity, and since I don't use Firefox's wide array of add-ons anyway, I don't mind their lack here. From a purely technical standpoint, I think Chrome is a good - though not groundbreaking - browser, with good improvements in terms of speed and usability. I hope they don't muddle it up too much, but I also hope that they don't give us non-technical reasons to avoid the browser.
