Chrome
Being the geek that I am, I've installed Google's new browser, Chrome, on my work PC here on XP. It's not too bad. Although as I'm typing this, it seems to think every single word is misspelt - I'd better go and sort out the dictionary!
It's also imported all my Firefox bookmarks, but I doubt it interfaces with Foxmarks, which is the main reason I won't be swapping from Firefox - I need the ability to synchronise my bookmarks across the various machines I use. Perhaps it will add that functionality sometime. There Google bookmarks I suppose - maybe I'll look at that. But I don't think it works quite the same way.
In terms of looks, there is only one (Google's trademark blue) but it's quite clean. I would perhaps make the top stuff a little smaller though, given the chance. There are no customisation options in that respect. There is no bottom bar however, which is good - it only appears as necessary, such as downloading or opening a page. A nice touch.
It also has a nice little feature of allowing you to create a desktop application for things like Calendar or Google Mail, running them more like computer-based applications rather than web-based applications - they appear in a minimalist verion of Chrome, with no top or bottom bars, and are independant from the main browser window. I might use that for email at home, where I use Google mail through the browser (I find their web interface nicer and handier to use than an actual mail client, now that it's my primary email). But I use Outlook at work and Google mail is blocked, so it won't be necessary here.
I've also noticed it handles some Flash-based media better than Firefox - some things show up in chrome that don't in Firefox. Work intranet is a little better too - it's horrendously uncompliant to standards and doesn't generally work outside IE (but that's work's fault). Hmm - no Adblock though. That's a drawback. Mind you, Google are based around advertising, so perhaps no surprise there? Although their adverts are generally unobtrusive.
Finally, it is still a little buggy - but it was only beta released yesterday to be fair! When I first installed it, it wouldn't load any pages, but it sorted itself out after about 5min. There are also occasional random failures, but it seems to have settled down a bit.
In conclusion - nice piece of software, and I'll use it at home for more steamlined Google applications (docs, mail, calendar) but I'll stick to Firefox for most purposes, mainly because of Adblock and Foxmarks.
It's also imported all my Firefox bookmarks, but I doubt it interfaces with Foxmarks, which is the main reason I won't be swapping from Firefox - I need the ability to synchronise my bookmarks across the various machines I use. Perhaps it will add that functionality sometime. There Google bookmarks I suppose - maybe I'll look at that. But I don't think it works quite the same way.
In terms of looks, there is only one (Google's trademark blue) but it's quite clean. I would perhaps make the top stuff a little smaller though, given the chance. There are no customisation options in that respect. There is no bottom bar however, which is good - it only appears as necessary, such as downloading or opening a page. A nice touch.
It also has a nice little feature of allowing you to create a desktop application for things like Calendar or Google Mail, running them more like computer-based applications rather than web-based applications - they appear in a minimalist verion of Chrome, with no top or bottom bars, and are independant from the main browser window. I might use that for email at home, where I use Google mail through the browser (I find their web interface nicer and handier to use than an actual mail client, now that it's my primary email). But I use Outlook at work and Google mail is blocked, so it won't be necessary here.
I've also noticed it handles some Flash-based media better than Firefox - some things show up in chrome that don't in Firefox. Work intranet is a little better too - it's horrendously uncompliant to standards and doesn't generally work outside IE (but that's work's fault). Hmm - no Adblock though. That's a drawback. Mind you, Google are based around advertising, so perhaps no surprise there? Although their adverts are generally unobtrusive.
Finally, it is still a little buggy - but it was only beta released yesterday to be fair! When I first installed it, it wouldn't load any pages, but it sorted itself out after about 5min. There are also occasional random failures, but it seems to have settled down a bit.
In conclusion - nice piece of software, and I'll use it at home for more steamlined Google applications (docs, mail, calendar) but I'll stick to Firefox for most purposes, mainly because of Adblock and Foxmarks.