Chrome

It's out now.

Read this comic book first. Screw whitepapers.

update 1 (through Chrome): looks like nothing but a wonderfully simple, aesthetically appealing facelift on good ol' Firefox.

update 2: definitely faster (to load and to browse).

update 2.1: Just read that Chrome uses processes instead of threading that existing browsers do (rumour has it IE 8 also plans on using processes). That explains the speed I guess. Usine processes also provides more security. Since it's one process per tab, once you close it, the entire process gets killed.

update 3: you suddenly realize, you don't really need any menus, buttons or options in a browser.

update 4:
pluses:

• open source (GO baby GO!!!)
  
• much larger viewing space (almost the entire screen)
  
• simple is beautiful
• seamless import from anything Firefox (existing settings, bookmarks, passwords)
  
• the incognito window should be mighty useful
• Google Gears is finally here
  
• the address bar doubles up as your Google search bar (with integrated Google Suggest to go with your history)
• like I've said above, better speed and security because of individual processes per tab.
• advanced javascript engine V8. As someone who worked on JS and co for 3 years, this is good news.
  

minuses:

• the speed and security comes at a price. Since each tab is a process, you effectively end up with as many Chrome instances running on your computer. Not sure how those who don't have 2 or 3 GBs of RAM to throw around would take to this.
  
• mild irritant in having your browsing history displayed everytime you open a new tab - lifted from Safari as it is.
  
• too few is too few - can't really tweak anything unlike in Firefox where you can have things just the way you want.

update 5:

just found out about the task manager and memory diagnostic functions. Are we taking the first steps toward an online OS?

update 6:
curiously, browser identifiers (both scripts and software) are reading Chrome as Safari 5.25

update 7:
Here's the full list of about: pages.

• about:memory
• about:stats
• about:network
• about:internets
• about:histograms
• about:dns
• about:cache
• about:plugins
• about:version

Now you're talking, Google!