Google announced the release of its new, home-brewed Internet browser, dubbed Google Chrome on Sept. 3.

This seemed a bit strange because Google backs Firefox, one of the more popular browsers on the Web today. So why the sudden desire to make an Internet browser of its own? Is it even all that special?

As always, curiosity got the best of me, and even though I’m running Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari, what’s one more browser? So download I did – on the day it was released, no less.

It’s important for everyone to realize this is a beta release, meaning it’s in the testing phase and only released for people to give Google feedback. Since it’s based on open source code, it can be edited by anyone.

In other words, expect to see tons of third party add-ons and fixes for it in the near future and for the rest of its lifespan.

First thoughts: Great install; quick, easy and painless. The installation allows for easy importing of bookmarks and even quick buttons from Firefox and Safari, while providing the option to keep your original default browser instead of Chrome taking over.

Aesthetically speaking, it’s nothing special – except for a few features that caught my eye right from the get go.

It was meant to be simple, and Google succeeded again.

The search bar and address bar are one in the same, saving plenty of space for the hundreds of buttons and links that don’t yet exist.

The search/address bar can be configured to be run by whatever search engine Chrome supports. So if for some reason you don’t like Google (even though you’re using their browser) and you want the search bar to be a Yahoo! search bar, you can have it.

Interestingly enough, the tabs feature provided is set up opposite of the standard tabs view for, let’s say, every browser known to man.

For example, Firefox’s tabs show up under your toolbars and just above the actual site you’re viewing. However, Chrome tabs are at the very top of the window above the toolbar, address bar and quick buttons. It looks great, and makes navigation much easier.

The default homepage is a nifty little combo of your search history and, of course, a Google search bar (or whatever your default search engine is).

The page displays your top six (why six? I have no clue) most visited pages in thumbnail form, which is aesthetically pleasing. The home page also provides you with a most recent bookmarks section and a ‘show full history’ link that allows users to view everything they have ever possibly viewed on Chrome.

You can change the default homepage, however, a ‘Home’ button isn’t on the default toolbar and has to be enabled, which is a serious negative.

To make up for this flaw, Chrome allows you to program tabs to open up to any sites upon launch. In other words, you can take your favorite sites you visit all the time, and when you load Chrome, it opens them all in separate tabs, and it does it FAST.

And now for the technical jargon.

If you’re easily confused, please look away now.

Previous browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer have had problems with memory allocation for their tabs. In situations where multiple tabs are constantly being opened and closed, the memory usage for the tabs that are closed becomes fragmented and can no longer be used again, creating an unnecessary buildup of memory.

To solve this problem, Chrome went a step further and made separate tabs act as though they were individual windows or tasks.

Once closed, the tabs end all memory they had been taking up, and allocate it to the rest of the tabs to eliminate any excess memory dump.

This is very similar to how applications work within an operating system such as Windows. In doing so, not only does Chrome take up less memory usage, but tabs open and close much faster and the speed of browsing within each tab increases dramatically.

Although innovative, this is nothing spectacular, and it still has a lot of bugs to work out.

So why even bother making this browser if others have defiantly made progress already?

It’s simple – Internet browsing isn’t what it used to be. When Internet Explorer and Firefox were founded, surfing the net was much more simple. There were fewer applications and many more Web sites.

In creating Chrome, Google wanted to simply allow for change.

It made an open source browser so average people with their own ideas could edit it and make it grow – a similar concept on how the Internet was born.

A fantastic idea, some may say.

However, it still has a long way to go before it’s number one.

Matt Bellezza is a senior information management and technology major. His column appears every other week in The Daily Orange. He can be reached at mlbellez@syr.edu.

Published on September 7, 2008 at 12:00 pm