Google has released Chrome 1.0, an open source WebKit-based browser for Windows. Annoyingly the website won't let you download Chrome on a Mac. Hasn't Google heard of Parallels, VMWare, and Bootcamp? URIs should not return different content based on the client's platform. Doing so is a major violation of the web architecture. Also, although Chrome claims to be open source (and probably is), there's an annoying page of legalese you have to agree to before you can download it. Would someone please compile it from source and post a no-contract version that can be downloaded on any platform?
On the positive side, Chrome actually asks you who you want your default search engine to be when you start up, something I don't recall any other browser doing. Honestly, this may be going a little too far in the direction of even-handedness. Not all search engines are created equal. By all means let users change their default search engine if they wish, but I don't see anything wrong with simply setting Google as the default and not bothering users about that unless they care. Google's the market leader in search for good reason: they do it way better than anyone else. Choosing the best option for your customers is a good thing, even when the best option is yourself.
