Google Chrome not good enough

The big news this week is that Google have entered the web browser market with Chrome and it is set to kick some ass. Initial reports show that it is “Insanely Fast”, and already there are tips and tricks to get more out of Chrome.

However I feel all this hype is about the features of the browser, and to be honest I'm not really that bothered; FireFox, IE, Opera, Flock etc all run pretty quickly and I've not thought ooh the browser is slow, rather I have questioned my internet connection speeds. But what do all these browsers, Chrome included, have in common? None of them have full support for CSS3. None of them fully embrace either xhtml2 or html5. None of them render a web page precisely how the code I write say it should be displayed.

In fact they've done nothing to help anyone except themselves, they're pushing the Google brand - and fair enough they're a company that needs to make profits, but I just don't trust them. I know they're claiming the software won't call home, but at least with Microsoft you know where you stand... with Google who knows. They already push their products up the results, who's to say they wont continue that further with their own browser? We've had interviews in which we're told their intentions are good and they wouldn't dream of calling home to report what we're seraching for, but you shouldn't always believe everything you read in the news!

Until all browsers display pages the same, and as defined in the various specs, I don't think we should be distracted by shiny new features, or a shiny new browser. The comic they leaked doesn't show a great deal of regard for accessiblity. It is just a big image, no alt information, nothing to help anyone who can't actually see the picture they've put up and it relies on JavaScript to turn the pages, so turn off JavaScript and you'll only ever see page 1, haha haha. That REALLY isn't good enough. They've known for long enough when the launch date would be, they should have put some real thought into this.

Overall, I'm dissapointed by this. I am sure the browser is great, lots of cool features etc, but they've just repackaged what we already had, and they've done it arrogantly. I give it a D-