Anything with the clout and brains of Google behind it should look good and operate efficiently and, in a quick first look last night, Chrome does. But it is early days.

Key feature

The key innovation is the use of standalone tabs for navigation. Each tab runs its own process, so that each operation, be it search or e-mail or YouTube, works independently. Each tab has its own navigational controls. The tabs labels sit at the top of the screen and it is easy to switch from one to the other. The system is intuitive and friendly. I grasped it in seconds.

Default page

Once you have downloaded Chrome and started using it, the browser’s default start page will show thumbnails of the user’s most frequently visited pages, their bookmarks and a list of their top searches. Bookmarks can be easily imported from other browsers, we were told. In effect, this is an instant home page for every user.

Stability

The theory is that because each tab is independent, if one crashes then the others will be unaffected. This is one of most annoying failings of Internet Explorer — when a fault develops, it often forces the closure of all pages open on the browser. Google promises that the independent tabs will be isolated from each other. If a problem does occur, the tab displays a sad face accompanied by the words “Aw, Snap”, which either will become a new catchphrase or simply be very, very annoying. The tab can then be closed down and started again.

Speed

The browser is written with WebKit, the open-source engine in Apple’s Safari and Google’s Android. It also has a new Javascript virtual machine, V8. In a speed demo at Google HQ in London last night, the V8’s ability to read code was five times faster than Firefox and more than ten times faster than Internet Explorer 8. It looked impressive. All I can say is that Chrome’s tabs loaded very swiftly.

Search

As you would expect from the search experts, Chrome has a nifty new search tool they are calling the Omnibox. This combines the search box with the URL entry field (where you type the website address). The Omnibox, which has autocomplete, works out what you might be after and makes a series of suggestions, both websites and search possibilities, based on your browsing history and search results. So that when you enter “how”, the Omnibox suggests www.howstuffworks.com or a search for Howard Stern. This feature is similar to Mozilla Firefox’s Awesome bar and, as lovers of Firefox will attest, once you have used it, you never want to go back.

Security

Chrome features a special privacy mode that lets users create an Incognito window where “nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer”. This is similar to Internet Explorer 8’s InPrivate mode, which has already been dubbed the porn setting. Once you close the Incognito tab, no trace remains, no history, no cookies, nothing. I had little chance to test it properly but it was intuitive to use.

Google says that Chrome’s independent tabs system lends itself to secure browsing and helps to fight malware and phishing attempts, Chrome constantly downloads lists of harmful sites. Google also promises that whatever runs in a tab is sandboxed so that it can’t affect your machine and can be safely closed. For me, the jury is still out on this one.

Conclusion

Chrome seems to be the first browser built with the idea of running applications rather than displaying pages. Google says that the idea is to put the browser in the background. Indeed, the user interface of the browser is confined to the margins, maximising space for the pages. Google acknowledged last night, in typical fashion, that this is a “test version and there is room for improvement”. It is already an improvement on Internet Explorer, but does not go much beyond the functionality of Firefox. With all the software open source, expect to see other browsers, including Internet Explorer and Firefox, grabbing some of the innovations soon. Which is good news for all internet users. Let the browser battle commence.