So, I downloaded Google Chrome today and was quite shocked. I have to admit, I was expecting simply a new spin on an old theme… all browsers are pretty similar when it comes down to it, and if they aren’t, you can customize whatever’s new on the block to behave just like your old one.
HOWEVER… Google Chrome is a whole new beast. The first shocker is that it looks *so* toned down. I immediately thought “Where the hell’d everything go?!?!” After tinkering around with the settings for an hour, and browsing some Google pages, and reading some random misc posts… I realized that “nothing’s” missing- at least that’s what the Google Developers would have you believe anyway.

Obviously, I need to toy around with it and give it a few days to grow on me or to disgust me before I make any judgments, but so far, I am definitely conflicted.
Since I’m a control freak, I feel like I’ve lost many setting tweaks and am quite crippled and hand-tied into doing it the “Google Chrome Way” (for example, I *need* for my _Refresh_ icon to be on the right hand side of the toolbar… doesn’t seem possible). Also, I had several plug-ins in Firefox that provided a plethora of quick mouse shortcuts, and lots of sparkly, clicky icons all around for me to get quick, one-click access to things like weather or settings or silent-bkgrd-tab-opening or FireGestures.
On the other hand, it *is* more streamlined, cleaner, easier to control (like being able to kill “misbehaving” tabs without killing the whole browser), most likely safer, and quire possibly quicker.

Like I said, I need to give it a few days…