Google says the release of its internet browser, Chrome, is simply to encourage more people to use the web more often, instead of outmoded means of communication such as the telephone.

For that, it says, speed is of the essence, and Google Chrome certainly shines in this respect.

But on first impressions, Chrome lacks that single knock-out feature that one might expect from a browser that has been two years in development at one of the world's leading web companies.

Indeed, many of its features are already available in other browsers – conve- niently packaged into one slick bundle.

Opening regular web pages on Google Chrome is noticeably faster than the most widely used versions of its competitors, Mozilla Firefox 2 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.

Pages load in a heartbeat, and navigation backwards and forwards between previously viewed pages is also smooth.

It does not feel quite the same leap forward as the 2004 launch of Firefox, which was a vast improvement on IE, but back then the browser market had lacked competition for some time.

Chrome's speed gap over the very latest releases of Firefox (version 3) and IE (version 8) narrows, but it has the edge in most cases.

Where Chrome is really designed to improve on its rivals is in showing complex, data-intensive web pages, such as Facebook, Gmail and Google Maps.

Google's own demonstrations of its browser have suggested Chrome is about three times faster than its main rivals at rendering such sites. But to the naked eye, Firefox looks just as smooth when zooming in and out of Google Maps or opening e-mails in Gmail.

Beyond speed, Chrome's main features include anonymous browsing – the very same privacy feature in IE8 that many interpreted as a way for Microsoft to impede Google advertising technology; an opening screen that offers pictures of recently or commonly viewed sites, similar to Opera's “speed dial” design for favourites; and underlying technology that promises to prevent crashes.

Chrome is named after the area at the top of a browser screen that contains the address bar, tabs, settings and navigation buttons.

By “hiding” lesser-used features, this area is na- rrower, leaving more room to show the web page and makes for a cleaner, simpler look.

The address bar and search box have been merged, while personal favourites are also found by googling words here.

This is reminiscent of Firefox 3's new “awesome bar”, which automatically suggests popular, bookmarked or visited pages as you begin to type. Chrome is not perfect in its current “beta” testing incarnation.

But its main contribution to its stated mission of making the web easier to use may be the decision to give away all of the Chrome source code for free. This will allow programmers to improve on Google's attempt at creating an internet browser.

谷歌(Google)表示，該公司發(fā)布網(wǎng)絡(luò)瀏覽器Chrome的目的僅在于鼓勵更多的人更頻繁地使用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，而不是那些過時的通信手段，例如電話。

谷歌表示，為了達到這一目的，速度就成為了至關(guān)重要的因素，而Chrome在這方面無疑表現(xiàn)優(yōu)異。

不過，就第一印象而言，Chrome缺乏一擊制勝的功能。人們可能對這樣的功能有所期待，因為該瀏覽器是由這家全球領(lǐng)先的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司之一耗費兩年時間開發(fā)出來的。

實際上，它的許多功能在其它瀏覽器中已經(jīng)具備——Chrome只是將這些功能打包成一個豪華套裝。

在Chrome中打開一般網(wǎng)頁的速度，明顯快于競爭對手最廣為使用的版本——Mozilla的火狐2 (Firefox 2)和微軟(Microsoft)的Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7)。

Chrome的頁面加載可在瞬間完成，而在先前瀏覽過的頁面之間后退和前進也很平滑。

2004年推出的火狐相對于IE有了巨大的改善，但人們并未感受到Chrome存在相同程度的飛躍。不過，那時的瀏覽器市場已長時間缺乏競爭。

Chrome與最新版火狐（火狐3）和IE (IE 8)的速度差距相對較小，不過，大多數(shù)情況下它都占據(jù)優(yōu)勢。

谷歌真正希望Chrome強于競爭對手的地方在于，顯示復(fù)雜的、數(shù)據(jù)密集型網(wǎng)頁的能力，例如Facebook、Gmail和谷歌地圖(Google Maps)的網(wǎng)頁。

谷歌自己對Chrome的演示表明，該瀏覽器對上述網(wǎng)站頁面的展現(xiàn)速度比其主要競爭對手快3倍左右。然而據(jù)肉眼觀察，當在谷歌地圖中放大和縮小頁面，或者在Gmail中打開電子郵件時，火狐表現(xiàn)得與Chrome一樣平滑。

除了速度，Chrome的主要功能還包括：匿名瀏覽——與IE 8的隱私功能非常相像，很多人認為微軟利用該功能來阻止谷歌的廣告技術(shù)；在起始頁面上提供最近或經(jīng)常瀏覽網(wǎng)站的圖片，它類似于Opera為其收藏夾設(shè)計的“快速撥號”(Speed Dial)功能；以及承諾防止瀏覽器崩潰的底層技術(shù)。

Chrome是以該瀏覽器屏幕的頂部區(qū)域命名的，該區(qū)域包括地址欄、標簽、設(shè)置和導(dǎo)航按鈕。

通過“隱藏”不經(jīng)常使用的功能，Chrome的該區(qū)域變得更為狹窄，這就為顯示網(wǎng)頁留下了更多空間，并使得其外觀更為整潔和樸素。

Chrome的地址欄和搜索框已被合并，在這個欄中搜索關(guān)鍵詞時，還可以找到個人收藏的鏈接。

這使人想起了火狐3最新的“非凡的地址欄”，當你在這個欄中進行輸入時，它會自動向你提示廣受歡迎的、已收藏為書簽的、或者訪問過的頁面。當前仍處于“測試”(Beta)階段的Chrome尚未做到十全十美。

不過，對其所稱的使命（讓網(wǎng)絡(luò)變得更容易使用），谷歌的主要貢獻可能在于，決定免費公開Chrome所有的源代碼。這將允許程序員們對谷歌創(chuàng)造一個網(wǎng)絡(luò)瀏覽器的努力加以改善。