Google Chrome is the newest addition in the world of web browsers which was once dominated by Internet Explorer. It is an open sourced project based on the WebKit rendering engine. For those that might not know, this is the same engine used by Safari, the standard browser for Mac OS X. It also includes a version of Google Gears, a plug-in which allows your browser to rich platform for many web applications. It also stores data in a way so that you don’t give personal information to a website, but that website may still access the information through Gears.

Another great thing about Chrome is the address bar doubles as both an address bar, and a search engine. If you type an address directly into the Chrome address bar, you’ll be taken to that website immediately. However, if you type a few random search terms, such as “IM Clients”, you’ll be taken to a google search page with the results of your search.

Chrome also features a homepage which remembers your browsing history and keeps your most accessed sites on the front page in the form of a thumbnail. You can easily access these sites by clicking the picture on your homepage. In addition to this sort of “speed dial”, Google Chrome also keeps track of your bookmarks, your recent searches, and your most recently closed tabs.

For those that might worry that the speed dial method of keeping track of visited websites is a bit scary on shared computers and such, Chrome allows you to create a tab which can then be designated as “Incognito.” Any website that you visit in this tab while it is in incognito mode is not recorded on your computer, any where. This is great for keeping surprise purchases and other things from loved ones whom you might share your computer with.

I think Chrome has a great future as long as Google won’t go on the “don’t be evil” route as they did in Knol’s case and several other times. Obviously they’ll have to keep on improving as there is still a big difference between Chrome and the other two giants : IE and Firefox.