Google Chrome - a Blazing fast browser

I've been a die-hard Internet Explorer user for years.   While I used to be a Netscape fan, and loved to hate Microsoft I was won over to the dark side years ago when I had to write comercial web applications and IE is simply the dominant browser in the business world.  Every few years I try a different browser like Safari, or Firefox, but I've never found them a compelling improvement in my oppinion.

Today is a new day.

I discovered "Google Chrome" via Slashdot which was commenting on the novelty of its introduction in cartoon format (http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/).

Reading this cartoon I was impressed with the technical discussions hidden in the cute format.

So I downloaded chrome from here: http://www.google.com/chrome (Beta, Windows only right now).   My first experience is impressive.  It downloaded, installed, and RAN in under 30 seconds. Wow.  And its snappy.  Well it seemed fast but its hard to tell.

So I threw at it a problematic web page which I use frequently.

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-functions/

Try this in IE, I'd love to know your experience.  On My system it takes about 30 seconds to several minutes to load.  And after loaded, its almost unusable.  Page downs can hang IE for several seconds, and clicking on links in the TOC can take 5-10 seconds or more to jump to the right place.  Its not an exceedingly complex document, its big but not like a comercial web site with gigabytes of flash.  Its just HTML on a long page but brings IE to its knees.

Try Firefox.  I gave up after 5 minutes and it hadnt completely loaded and rendered.

Try Chrome.  3 seconds I had the page up, and every user interaction is instant.   There is no delay at all paging, scrolling or clicking jump links.  I'd  have fallen off my chair if it didnt have arms.  Wow.  Have to say I'm vastly impressed.  

There's a lot of other interesting things about this browser and I am anxious to try them, but for performance alone, its incredible.   I've never "recommended" a browser before but now I have to say ... you've got to try it.  I'll probably have to keep IE around forever for the same reason I switched to it, that its still the dominant browser for business, and as long as I'm working on web applications they have to be tested in IE first.   But for day to day browsing ... Chrome is compelling.  I'll definately keep it around for a while.  Hopefully it goes past "beta".