Right up until the end of August 2008, it's a fair bet that most people would have been utterly nonplussed at the idea of yet another web browser being launched. So strong has been the monopoly of Internet Explorer and Firefox (and to a lesser extent Opera and Safari) that few were really crying out for anything different.

Even the notion that Google was behind it wasn't likely to get too many people excited, and yet the furore that surrounded the early September release of Chrome has been as loud as it has been unexpected (Google had said it was working on a browser, but it seems not many people were actually paying attention).

But then there's been some really interesting thinking put into the program, which is a clear attempt to landgrab market share from Internet Explorer and Firefox. After all, not only will Chrome detect you have another browser running, but it'll offer to carry across pretty much everything from it, right down to usernames.

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When you fire up Chrome proper, you can quickly see the Google thinking. For it's managed to streamline web browsing down to the very bare essentials, with the main window offering a content area and an address bar at the top. There's not even the traditional Windows header.

That search bar has hidden powers. Not unlike Firefox, Chrome will pick up whether it's a search term or web address that you've input, and act accordingly. Where it differs from Firefox, apart from being a little clearer, is the browser itself is faster, reminiscent of Firefox before the latter editions bloated it up. Compared to Internet Explorer, arguably Chrome's main target, the difference at times feels really quite dramatic, although when put against the beta of IE8, the gap shrinks considerably.

To present itself in the way it does, Chrome inevitably makes some changes. Drop-down menus at the top of the screen are sacrificed in favour of a couple of icons to the right of the address bar. These icons, when clicked, reveal the likes of bookmarks and history, and you have a fair number of customisation options. One feature that you're unlikely to wish to customise is the start page, which presents thumbnails of your most visited sites. Expect this idea to be photocopied in due course; arguably it's been nicked from Opera, in fact.

Chrome, on the less enthusiastic side, doesn't always run like the proverbial clappers (it made more work than we expected of YouTube, for instance), and its initial minimalist look isn't going to please people who like their Home button to be in place right from day one. Given that it's effectively a beta, too, there's clearly still work to be done, and it has nowhere near the flexibility of Firefox and its abundance of plug-ins.

But it is an interesting launch, and one that demonstrates that there's always room for another product, even in a crowded market. The trick now will be to balance the lack of bloat against the need to cater for an increasingly media-rich Internet. That's the challenge that Firefox has yet to fully meet, and it'll be interesting to see how Chrome progresses from here. For now, it's certainly worth a try.

A fresh, interesting new browser based upon some bold decisions. It's far from perfect, but it does miraculously add some much-needed freshness to the web browser marketplace.