Google announced and released their Chrome browser today.

This post is from Chrome, and it does seem to work on most sites i've looked at - however, there are many rendering issues that aren't issues in Firefox or IE. Some examples can be seen on my LINQ Wiki site (Hooked on LINQ) where the spacing between adjacent span's seems squashed, and the order of table cells seems to be incorrect (OK, different) than the current popular browsers. It is a beta after all, but google have said the rendering engine is closest to Apple's API, and I must admit, my sites are less tested on Safari (in fact, not really at all).

This brings up an interesting Product Management challenge. If peoples first impression is that sites they frequent are "broken" in Chrome - will users persist with that product. Gmail is still in "Beta" which is a bit farsicle given its time in the market, so understanding what Google actually means by "Beta" is difficult to judge - But - Chrome is definately BETA!

What works

- I like the "common pages" layout of a New Tab. Rather than just a blank tab, you get previews of common sites you frequent

- I like the developer javascript and page analysis built-in features (think Developer Toolbar)

What Doesn't Work

- Rendering issues on many sites that I find work in Firefox and IE

- I'm sure this wasn't a high-priority item for Google, but I struggled to get a Silverlight app to run. I went to Hardrock Cafe, and it almost ran (showed images, but couldn't zoom, pan, etc). I think Silverlight was installed OK (no mention of anything being downloaded), but in general - no luck here.

I'm most interested to see how Google will leverage this browser as a runtime for applications. They spend some time saying how they want applications running in Chrome to be more "Desktop Like" - my point would be, why not make them Desktop Apps! Solve the deployment problem, and write well coded Smart Client interfaces.

Troy.