Full page zoom, hell yeah! and other web browser thoughts

A slight overreaction there maybe, but still. New Google Chrome beta out today, and oh boi, it's looking nice. I've been following the developer channel release notes but I'm on te beta channel myself so I don't get the dev releases. But now I've got a bunch of them changes right here running. It's for one said to be even faster than before.

I'm especially excited about the full page zoom, which I've been waiting since I first got my hands on the browser, and now it's here. Working grand, the only thing it'd ideally need is an indicator somewhere on how much the page is zoomed in or out. Zooming is pretty important to me with my eyesight, as is the now added mouse wheel click scroll. That was absent earlier too, but now it's there too. There's not much left I'm missing from an ideal browser here, though I can't put my finger on what it would exactly be. I'll know it once it comes around.

Other features this version seems to introduce are exceptions to sites where passwords are saved, full screen mode and browsing history clearing functionality. Sounds all good. There sure is a lot done under the hood, I know from the dev channel release notes.

Funnily, here running XP and Chrome 2.0.169.1, as well as the last stable release of Chrome which's version number I already forgot... 1.0.159.someting or so? Anyway, in both cases here Facebook works just fine. But running Windows 7 and the last beta, which's version number I also have forgotten, it didn't work. I'll report back on what 7 and this beta say.

On a related note, I've been using IE8 out of interest, and it actually is a very decent browser! I can see how all the extra features, Web Slices and such will be useful to some people, but they're not in my way. The zoom there is also very good, as well as the renderer seems to be fixed. I trust it really is as secure as they claim, and thus obviously rivals with Firefox already. Chrome isn't so huge on the extra feature front, so I don't know if they can be compared per se. But sure Chrome is secure, I'm not trying to hint otherwise.

IE8 does boost some nice accessibility features, such as the possibility to override page colours for easier reading. Also the Windows 7 program preview feature for every separate tab is great, but it's a functionality that I think will end up in every tabbed browser once Windows 7 is out, if not earlier. My only gripes with IE8 are the interface, which seems a bit too heavy after getting used to Chrome's minimalism, and the way new window links open in new windows, and not in new tabs. I don't know if it's a beta issue and fixed in the final, but it sure is unpractical. Even more so after the Chrome experience where tabs can be dragged between browser windows or outside of them to new ones.

New Chrome beta experiences in Windows 7 later today, hopefully.