Aside from the standard ‘Faster!’, ‘Simpler!’, ‘Safer!’ claims, it looks like Chrome will make each browser tab a separate process, add offline support through their ‘Gears‘ software, be cross-platform, and make it easier to run as an application without a URL bar. Why should you care? This will potentially allow webapps to behave more like regular applications – sitting on your desktop, and working even when not connected to the internet. If an application or site crashes, you won’t lose your other pages, and you will have a better idea what caused the problem.

On the other hand, some might say it also positions Google to become the new Microsoft, with users using a Google browser to access the growing range of Google applications (gMail, Docs, Talk, Calendar etc) instead of the Outlook and Office. We’ll have to wait and see.

…And in the spirit of unfounded speculation, hype, and tinfoil-hat suspicion, here is a classic story by Cory Doctorow about what might happen if Google really became all-pervasive: Scroogled