I've been using the Google Chrome browser for about a week now. The look and feel of Chrome is quite similar to their search engine website (www.google.com), which has been minimized on most people's internet browsers by now at this point in time as a toolbar. Thusly, with the rolling out of Chrome, Google has put in your face (yet again) a full-sized graphical user interface, this time providing the additional functionality of a clean and generally well organized open source browser.

I like Chrome and would recommend it to most people; the remaining people, let's be honest, I just don't like. When you first install the Chrome program (a free download), it gives you the option to import bookmarks and cookies from your default browser and asks whether you wish to designate Chrome as your new default browser. One of the cooler features is a "Bookmarks bar" (for your favorites, presumably), which can be separately managed from the bookmarks saved in the folder denoted "Other bookmarks".

If you want to have multiple "instances" of a particular webpage open at the same time, simply right-click on the tab and Chrome presents a menu option that allows you to Duplicate the webpage.

You can also open up "incognito windows". According to Goggle:

Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito won't be logged in your browsing and download histories; all new cookies are deleted after you close the incognito window. You can browse normally and in incognito mode at the same time by using separate windows. Browsing in incognito mode only keeps Google Chrome from storing information about the websites you've visited. The websites you visit may still have records of your visit. Any files saved to your computer will still remain on your computer.

Probably the most important feature of Chrome is that each tab represents a separate process. A benefit of Chrome's approach to running multiple processes is that if one tab -- I should say process -- hangs up (I've never seen this happen yet) the browser doesn't need to be restarted. You simply close the tab that crashed and continue working and/or goofing off.

Another benefit of Chrome's approach to running multiple processes is that it results in greater browser speed under certain circumstances. (For my purposes, I find Internet Explorer to be sufficiently fast, that is if you make the effort to disable extra garbage add-on's that tend to accummulate. All things being equal, Chrome feels slightly faster overall.)

If you are curious about the technical details of Chrome memory usage, the preceding link will point you toward a decent discussion. If your geekiness transcends closing the bedroom door to read Wired, you have probably already (just for sport) set up Chrome to run in a single process mode, e.g., for the purpose of drag racing with other browsers configured to process in a similar fashion. Maybe humans, as a species, do indeed need a good swift kick in the nuts.

That said, you should know that the Google Chrome team even arranged to have a comic book style tutorial put together -- perhaps to make the information delivery vehicle seem more fun and accessible. A sign of our post-literate times, I suppose. Come to think of it, all books without pictures should be made illegal. By Executive Order, I decree that all such disseminators of sorcery and technological chicanery shall be collected and burned forthwith!

You should also know that the Clear Browsing Data feature conveniently facilitates key-word searching within your Search history. If only, with similarly blazing speed and perfect accuracy, I could key-word search for and retrieve thoughts from my own Thought history.