Has anyone got it?

I downloaded it this morning and overall, I'd say nothing to write home about. The interface is exactly the same (not a problem because I loved it the first time round) so Windows 7 users are in luck but XP users are likely to still have that Fisher Price look. I'll test it out on XP later - I've only got it on my WIndows 7 system right now. So, that's the aesthetics covered and although no improvements were made, I don't feel that any needed to be made. Those who hated it the first time are almost certain to hate it this time.

Once you click the "install Chrome 2 BETA" button on the Google Labs site, the installer immediately starts. It then begins to download Chrome 2 which seems to be a very quick process even with my internet connection. I think from start to finish, upgrading Chrome to the Chrome 2 BETA took less than a minute under Windows 7. Before I knew it, a Chrome 2 browser Window had popped up. 10/10 for Google on this one, the update couldn't have been easier.

Next, on to improvements. One struck me straight away whilst typing this mini-review. Chrome now pastes things where you want them and not a couple of spaces behind or ahead. People who used Chrome before the Chrome 2 BETA will know what I mean but it's quite difficult to describe to someone who is not a Chrome user. Basically, when you wanted to paste something in to a web form - let's use making a link in a post on this forum, Chrome would paste it a few characters either way of, usually behind, where you wanted it. I found this to be quite an annoying niggle but I can now confirm with much joy that it has been fixed .

An improvement Google suggest they have made is giving Chrome an injection of even more speed. Initially, I was sceptical, Chrome was like lightning before. Chrome 2 delivered though, it wasn't fast in the same way other fast browsers such as Safari are though, it had a different kind of speed when downloading and rendering pages. When I first clicked the X404 thumbnail on my Chrome 2 homepage, I felt underwhelmed, conned in fact. The circular loading display thing rotated around very slowly, like it does when you have lost internet connection or are visiting a site that's down. Things soon picked up though as after the split second that the circle moved slowly, it began to spin like it used to and the webpage loaded almost instantly. For general web browsing, this is by far the quickest browser I have used and I seemed to notice a marked difference between this and other browsers in terms of speed. You could liken Chrome 2 to a track sprint cyclist, it starts very slowly at the top of the track and then comes down the bank with a blistering display of speed to take the browser speed title. If I boot the Mac up later, I might try the Webkit beta as that promises some real speed too.

Once final but very important improvement I noticed was the random "Page cannot be displayed" errors in Windows 7 appear to have gone. Again, non-Chrome users won't know what I'm on about but I found that Chrome would throw up a random 404 for no reason once in a while. It was annoying but sorted by a refresh. Chrome 2 appears to have sorted the issue out for me.

The three improvements I listed are the ones that struck me, other than that, it just seems to be a slight improvement over previous versions but nothing too radical. As with the interface, if you liked Chrome before, you'll like it more now but if you didn't like it before, Google hasn't really done much that will change your opinion. I give Chrome 2 7/10. It's a good improvement over previous versions and feels more polished but it doesn't strike me as an absolutely Earth-shattering improvement. It's free and only takes a few seconds to update an existing installation so it's certainly recommended but don't expect to be completely bowled over.

Yes I like it a lot and I know what you mean about random 404's they seem to have stopped .

My daughter uses it mostly as it hasn't got all teh plug ins I so rely on with FF.

It has corrupted itself 3 times over the last couple of months though. Strange

ive dled it, yet to use it but if its anything as fast as i was itll be a blinder

not using it primary because a) its still prerelease and b) i love FF plugins

however there are some things on facebook that take an age to load in FF (1000+ post photo comments XD ), and load in about 2 seconds on chrome, so id advise it for any keen spammers looking to increase their PPS (posts per second)

I've heard lots of good things, but I want an OS X port...And a Linux/Solaris port would be really nice...Firefox seems really unstable, and even Camino is a little flakey as of late
Can't wait to be able to use Google's offering

Take a look at this. I've no idea how stable it is as I still can't get that stupid mobile broadband thing working with the Mac but it's only a small download so you may want to try it. There's also a Linux port on the site if you want it.

Cheers, I'll have a look at that when I get a moment

Took the plunge and got Chrome 2.

Honest to god... can't tell the difference.

Maybe i'm just not fussy enough =p

It still doesn't work with our helpdesk software.

The software works with Opera, Firefox and IE8 but not Chrome.

The calls are in a table and when I click the call it is supposed to show some summary info or I can enter the call to see the full info. Chrome doesn't even recognise that the calls are links. It's as though I'm looking at a picture. Can't clicky anywhere.

The BT helpdesk software doesn't work with anything except IE, as far as I can tell. They've compensated for the random IE retardation so the whole thing gets squished up unusable if rendered in a compliant way, although only on the really important page you get to after typing for 5 hours just before you hit the "Go!" button.

Does your helpdesk work with Safari?

Downloaded it, installed it, had 5 minutes and promptly uninstalled and went back to Opera.

I honestly don't see why it's so much better! Firefox just feels more responsive on my PC than Chrome did, and Opera is even better.

I believe Chrome, despite being fast, requires a lot of RAM compared to some other browsers so that could be causing the "responsiveness" issue. Chrome certainly isn't a slow browser.