If you've been using Internet Explorer for 10 years, its time to give something else a go!!! (Google Chrome)

Member Name: djwhite1982

Product:	Google Chrome
Date:	18/08/09 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick, simple layout, useful "incognito" mode

Disadvantages: Takes a little while to get used to new layout of tools

Before you go any further in this review, I feel I should warn you, I have a very basic, what I would call "normal person" level of IT knowledge. This review is going to be based on simple practical use of Google Chrome and any technical information will be, well non existent. This review is mainly aimed at people, who like myself probably never really cared that you have a choice in internet browsers. Unfortunately I haven't used any internet browsers other than Chrome and Explorer (other than very occasionally) and so I can only really compare Google's Chrome to Microsoft's IE - which is exactly what I'm going to do!

I've been a loyal user of internet explorer for basically as long as I've been surfing the internet. This is not because I particularly like Internet Explorer, and is based on the fact that as far as I'm aware it was the first real mainstream browser and so I use because of ease and familiarity. I'm used to the IE icon and find my eye is drawn to that when looking at a desktop to access the internet. However, having recently read a few reviews about other options available for internet browsing I thought I would give Google Chrome a try.

I downloaded and installed Google Chrome within about 5 minutes, and it was up and running straight away. It was all very simple to do and I can't envisage anyone having troubles with this, as it basically does everything for you. Whilst downloading Google Chrome, it will also imports your favourites and any internet history from Internet explorer, so you don't have to waste hours setting all this up again. Very handy.

The first thing I noticed about Chrome, is that the pages were loading noticeably faster than IE. This was the main reason I had decided to change my browser and I was extremely happy to find that the increase in speed when using Chrome was true. Now granted we are only talking a matter of seconds, but if you're doing something that involves flicking between lots of pages thins can start to make a big difference.

As well as the key feature of it being faster than IE, there were also a lot of other small features within Google Chrome which I quite enjoyed. The browser allows you to drop links to your favourite websites on a toolbar at the top of the page, which makes it fractionally easier to get onto your favourite websites and is a nice little touch.

The address bar at the top of the page doubles up as a Google search box, so you can either stick in the web address straight away or just type in your search and you're off. This saves the hassle of having any additional toolbars set up on your browser and means less icons and menu's cluttering up the page, which is always a good thing!

As with the latest version of IE, Chrome allows you to use tabs to open up new web pages as opposed to a new window each time (although this option is still there), and it even has the added little feature of you being able to drag the tab away in order to create a new window, which can be quite useful.

One of my favourite features of Google Chrome is the incognito mode which it offers. This allows you to select an "incognito window" which will come up slightly darker in colour with a shady looking figure I the top left so you know you are incognito. The benefit of this mode is that it allows you to search the internet without any of the info being stored in your history, or storing any cookies. This is especially useful at work if you want to get on website that technically you shouldn't be on (such as dooyoo), but then don't want to have to delete your entire history to cover your tracks. Very useful. As far as I'm aware IE doesn't offer this facility, however I'm not exactly up to date with all aspects of IT so I could be wrong.

Touch wood, in the last few months I have had no real problems with Chrome. Very occasionally it has crashed whilst I'm using it, but I would say this has happened a lot less that when I was using IE. I haven't as yet found any features (well certainly any that I use) that you get in IE that have been missing from Chrome, and I've been really happy using it. Thank you dooyoo reviewers for finally convincing me to try a new browser!

Summary: Definitly worth giving it a go.

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