Why is Chrome so polished?

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

I’ve been using Chrome for a few days now, and something’s been bugging me about it. Nothing immediately obvious, just a vague sense of something being not quite right. Then, as I was tromping into work this morning, munching on bacon sandwich, I finally put my finger on it. What’s bothering me, is that I can’t believe Google made this.

Don’t get me wrong, Google’s muddy size twelves are all over it. The simplistic interface, the lashings of space, and of course, the brilliant search. What’s been bothering me are the flourishes. The transparency when you drag a tab into a window, the fading task bar, the slide away tabs, the cute animations. Chrome is by far and away the prettiest browser doing the rounds, but pretty is not something I associate with Google -which to my mind has always been the most utilitarian company out there.

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