It seems that yesterday Google leaked information about a new browser named "Chrome" they are building. The blog announcement and comic book with details are interesting. Some of the things I see are also in IE 8 and some seem to be a little different. As both IE 8 and Chrome are in beta it is too soon to start a comparison but here are some of the things I like and dislike about the announcement.

Like:

• Each tab is a separate process so a tab crashing will not bring down the entire browser
• Improved security including a privacy mode where nothing is saved. This will be good for going to web sites that might be legitimate or might be a drive by download site
• Webkit based rendering engine. At least we won't have to be worried about a different way of handling HTML or CSS

Dislike:

• Each tab is a separate process (I know I said I like it above) because processes take more resources than threads. I am not sure I will notice a slowdown switching between processes but that possibility exists.
• New JavaScript engine. I am sure it will be fast and the most standards compliant (whatever that really means) engine out there but it will be different which means one more browser to test on and I am getting lazy in my old age :)

Only time will tell whether this means increased competition for IE, a fragmentation of the open source based browser market, or some combination but I believe that competition will help all the products be better.

Until I see a compelling reason to switch I still plan on doing most of my browsing in IE with FireFox, Safari, and now Chrome installed to help with testing and debugging of pages.