However! Before you rush off to download and install the latest combatant to enter the browser wars, you might want to have a look at my first glance review!

If I can summarise this beta experience in one sentence, it would be: "looks nice, plays nice with websites, nice security and privacy features ... but seriously, why?" In fact, "why?" summarises quite a few things to do with Chrome, such as:

• Why does it take such a friggin' long time to install?
• Why does the installer keep connecting out to 'look for updates', even though the last check was only a short while ago?
• Why has the package been placed in my local settings vs. user-defined install directories?
• Why has the browser gobbled up over 70MB of virtual memory when I've only been using it for 5 minutes and have 2 tabs open!
• Why does it have text-zoom, when everyone knows how lovely and broken this makes websites look? (this is something they put right in the latest Firefox -- full graphical zoom, not just text!)

Perhaps I'm being a little harsh, its late... I've run out of coffee... yes, I think possibly I'm being a little harsh. Right, lets look at what this thing has to offer feature-wise.

The first thing you will really appreciate is the interface and window management. Not only does the minimalistic look make things easier to locate, but it also vastly reduces the load time for the application itself.

The new incognito mode allows you to browse in a more private manner, by removing the URLs and searches you make in a session.

As a general security feature, Chrome operates as 'threads'. You can see this in effect by right clicking the menu bar and choosing task manager. This is particularly useful for shutting down malware before it becomes malignant and affects other aspects of your operating system.

The last thing I looked at was the process memory menu; by entering about:memory into the address bar, you'll be presented with a description of the memory allocation - not only for Chrome, but also (cheekily) Firefox and Internet Explorer too!

This has been my first glance of the Google Chrome Beta.

Get the Google Chrome Beta from HERE.