Another change according to the release notes is the popup blocker. Previously the pop-up blocker just minimized pop-up windows to the lower right corner of the browser window, create one ‘constrained’ window for each pop-up. Now, Google Chrome displays one small notification in the corner that shows the number of blocked pop-ups. A menu on the notification lets you open a specific pop-up, if needed.

“The browser wars continue. But consumers already have plenty of choices with IE, Safari, Firefox and Opera. The real question is if Google can get those users to shift. Mainstream consumers are wondering why they need to make the transition,” said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile Relevant Products/Services strategy for Jupitermedia. “Chrome is still a solution in search of a problem.”

The new version a pop-up spoofing vulnerability, enables touchpad scrolling, promises more performance and reliability for Flash, Silverlight, Quicktime and Windows Media plug-in, fixes a “Chrome has crashed” message when closing a tab with an Acrobat 9 PDF and works much better with web proxies now. Also, Chrome no longer stores data from secure web sites.

Lack of Add-Ons – this is the single biggest problem with Chrome and why people just look at it, say “Nice!”, and never run it again after that. For example, it doesn’t have a StumbleUpon toolbar, or AdBlock, or S3Fox, or any number of add-ons and extensions that people have come to depend on.

Integration with Windows OS – there are little bitty things that don’t work:

• Speech Recognition on Vista doesn’t work.
• If you try are trying to Tile Multiple Windows (as talked about here), and one of these Windows is Chrome, then it won’t work (at least on XP).
• Some people are noticing continuous heavy hard disk activity when running Chrome on Windows XP 3.

Privacy Concerns – It’s from Google – most users are vary of the Terms of Service which Google has (and for Chrome these have been revised, but are not much better). There is very little trust, when it comes to Google tracking user data, and from Chrome, it has a license to track everywhere you go. The German Government has actually warned the citizens against using Chrome.

Other Annoyances – There are other small problems that keep the hate going:

• Some users reported that animated GIFs are jerky on Chrome.
• Most sites with Flash on them are in deep trouble.
• Zooming is clunky as compared to FireFox.
• Is not supported on all Operating Systems.
• Many popular sites don’t work on it despite the claims made in the Chrome Comics. (e.g. Facebook Dropdown Menus).
• The back browser button doesn’t have a drop down that lets you jump directly to 2-3 pages back. This is not true – as pointed by Christian, you can access this through a Right Click on the back button.
• I hate the fact that Chrome doesn’t remember entries that I have made in form fields (like FireFox does) and I have to enter complete usernames/email IDs, address info, etc. every time and every place.