Google Chrome 4: Yes, it's fast, but is it usable?

Shelving basic functionality under "Other"

That the Google Chrome user might only keep eight or so Web sites on her New Tab page, plus a handful of "Other Bookmarks" in a menu that should never grow large enough to have to be scrolled; that History is a separate page and not a function you can use side-by-side with other pages; that Chrome lacks the ability to even add the searching, researching, and translating functionality that Google makes for its own Toolbar for IE and Firefox; and that the button for the home page is a new feature that's just now being tested, are all indications that Google only projects its browser will be used lightly and occasionally, by folks who'll do a Google query, read the result, and come back to Google. If that's truly the case, one wonders why Google actually bothers making its underlying JavaScript engine as good as it is -- effectively mounting a V8 engine to a tricycle.

In fairness, Mozilla Firefox also lacks that functionality. But Mozilla knows how to help users make Firefox more functional: through a wide array of add-ons, along with a developers' community that's nurtured and educated in the ways of making proper software without so much initial trial-and-error.

Plug-ins and add-ons to Chrome do exist, and forums such as this one have cropped up in anticipation of a burgeoning market in these things at some future date. But for now, the theme of these sites appears to be stuck with themes. Even now, when skinning of some applications has become an art form that has brought forth its own grass-roots competitive "Olympics," Chrome themes are a throwback to the Netscape Navigator era, sometimes comprised of celebrity photos cropped so that their faces fit just inside the tab area, decorated like the bedroom of some Disney Channel star.

Tell me you'd actually intentionally make your own Web browser look like a just-fertilized lawn.

While Internet Explorer is dog slow, and now slower by the month, version 8 has functionality and, for the first time in IE's existence, a reasonable degree of versatility. It also is relatively stable -- crashing is not its problem. Crashing is a Firefox trademark -- to this day, the "stable" version crashes on average 1.5 times per day for me, a fact which this "Firefox user" is not proud to share.

Yet even though it does exhibit greater stability, Chrome lacks the functionality that makes it adaptable to users' everyday purposes, and that enables them to take it beyond the realm of "general purpose" into "heavy duty." Google's complete inability to make that jump, to get the clue, to provide evidence of having listened to the smallest portion of tester sentiment, bewilders me completely as to whether the company has any realistic notion of what "beta" means anyway.

With Mozilla, the newest code is developed under a private track, which only means that the developers aren't taking comments from the public about it, even though it's publicly available. When it's developed enough to demonstrate in public, then it enters the "beta" track, which Mozilla code-names "Shiretoko" for 3.5 test code and "Namoroka" for 3.6. When Mozilla delays the rollout of a new build to the stable channel, it gets groans and moans from folks like me...but it's generally because real beta testers have found real problems, or have advised some really good ideas.

A full-featured browser chassis capable of running thoroughly debugged JavaScript add-ons that won't crash, and that contain the basic functionality that Microsoft and Mozilla discovered as far back as 2005, coupled with the proven superior V8 JavaScript engine, would clinch the alternative browser market in maybe one year's time. But that year has already passed for Chrome, which is already gaining a reputation as a browser that makes up for its performance superiority with slow and cumbersome functionality. As long as Google continues to not get this message, then we all need to face up to the fact that Google isn't exactly open, is it?