I have been using it for almost a year, but not as my only browser. It is probably faster (for me) than IE, FF, or even Opera. Opera is still my favorite.

I'm using Chrome's 'cousin,' Iron by SRWare. It's only about a half-step behind Chrome in terms of updates/version, etc. I find it very fast and a 'happy medium' between FF (which I rarely use) and Opera (my generally preferred browser). For some sites I visit (Hulu, YouTube, some of my webmails, etc.) Opera 10 isn't compatible and FF is slow. Iron/Chrome is nice and speedy. :-)

Iron doesn't have mouse gestures yet natively, so I'm using Gmote (for that and FF). But Chrome's themes do work in Iron !

A new version of Iron will be out soon -- it's already in beta -- based on Chromium 4.0.

SRWare (based in Germany) also has its own forums with an "English board" for Iron users.

Here is a link that might be useful: Iron vs. Chrome

hmmmm... I probably should have prefaced my post by saying I know just enough about computers to be dangerous - I get in there and do things but can't always fix it if I screw up!

not2bright - thank you , but most of your post reads like Greek to me ;-) I think my computer needs and uses are far more basic than yours!

Let me re-think this and figure out what I really need to ask. I could certainly stick with the herd and keep IE7 (have not accepted 8 yet) but if there's a better option I'd switch. I just have to determine what my 'needs' are and what I have trouble with. Then I can ask the right questions and not have anyone going in circles trying to help me.

Was a faithful IE user but it was crashing a bit too much, but now use Chrome almost exclusively for the past 6 months or so. Love it, it's fast, easy to find things, and not too much of a learning curve. There have been a few sites I've come across where Chrome wasn't compatible so then I use IE.

My fave browser is Firefox simply due to the vast array of add ons which make my life so much easier, I don't know what I would do with out them. Only use Ie if I have to go to windows update site period.

Another lite one you may want to consider would be seamonkey it is similar to the old netscape, has email client built in and a Rss reader etc.
The SeaMonkey project i

I tried Chrome did not care for it at all.

You should definitely have at least 2 browsers on the pc however just in case your IE should fail then you still have a backup. just download and install a few and try them out to see which you like best, no problem doing that if you don't like it remove it.

I just downloaded chrome and have a couple observations:

1) First, it incorrectly copied my homepage from Firefox, which happens to be google! For some reason it added a couple ransom characters onto the address so it didn't work. Not a good first impression. No big deal but I had to figure out to set a homepage, which is is a bit different in chrome.

2) Bigger problem is that pages load a split second slower compared to Firefox or Explorer (which are immediate). It's akin to the delay you may have seen when using a new format vs. classic in Yahoo mail, Hotmail, etc. if you know what I mean. (Maybe it has something to do with java.) Btw, I have plain vanilla DSL at home, which is affordable, reliable and plenty quick enough.

3) Do they really need the "manila folder look" up top? Kind of boring, (even for my boring self).

I was feeling a bit unfair with my last post since I only tried chrome for a short while. So I made myself go back and play with it some more.....and I've had enough after a few more minutes....bleah! Slow!

It seems they're idea is to keep the graphics as simple as possible to get more speed, but it still fails miserably. I couldn't even write this follow-up in chrome since I didn't feel like wading through plain text bookmarks (few icons).

The "fade-in" of each browser panel as it opens is the worst. It's the browser equivalent of "almost there".

question for ravencajun --

I used IE until I finally gave in to the many raves about Firefox. FF is so much faster for me and, as you said, has a number of helpful add-ons.

So help me understand, why is it that you didn't like Chrome? (I like to know as many points as possible before I jump in.)

(Have Verizon FIOS and Windows Vista)

Chrome had some security issues early on and that was a concern to me and I just was not impressed with it in general, I guess it would have to really be impressive to me to win me over from firefox and my add-ons and it just was not. Does not mean it would not be fine for someone else however.

Downloaded and used on my iMac for a couple of days. For my purposes, no big deal. Seems a bit more cumbersome than Safari. I've read it's supposed to be faster/fastest but I don't see it in my activities. It is easy enough to download and use, but I don't see any particular advantage.

Am I missing something? Maybe other folks do things where it shines and I'm just unaware.