Google have released their own web browser, Chrome. What's all the fuss about? Should you download it? Read on to find out.

Most of you will have seen that a little while ago Google launched their new web browser Chrome (with this comic book). For those of you who haven't given it a go yet it is definitely worth it, it is pretty snazzy.

What's all the fuss about? Well...

• it's the first browser that Google has made, and Google makes some pretty neat stuff
• it is open source, so if you want to you can download and modify the codebase, and contribute back to the community
• it is billed as a 'platform for web applications'
• it is clean, fast, and works

What's not so good:

• it's still in beta - so will occasionally do something a bit weird or die (but don't let this put you off, it is still pretty solid)
• there is no Mac or Linux version (but they are coming)

Despite these (minor) drawbacks several Orcon staff, and many of my friends, have switched to using Chrome as their default browser. Unfortunately, being a Mac user, I haven't been able to give it a lot of time yet myself. If anyone out there has or is using Chrome a lot we would love you to post your feedback below.

From the time I have spent using it there are definitely some nifty features:

• I love the minamilist interface. The 'Omnibar' is used for typing in URLs and search terms - rather than having two separate text entry fields, which cleans things up and makes sense.
• When you search you search not only the web, but also your history and bookmarks. Nice.
• You can choose to set your 'most visited pages' as your homepage. This displays thumbnails of your most visited pages as well as your recent bookmarks and a text box for searching your history.

If you want to know more about Chrome you can check out the official Google blog, or watch this quick video below for a tour of 10 of the features of Google Chrome:

Alternatively, just head over and download it yourself.