Google has surprised the world yet again with its very own super web browser’s beta scheduled to be released today. A comic has been released by Google (download PDF here) which showcases some of the features in this innovative browser. Some screenshots have also been leaked which can be found here. I must say that I’m more than impressed by the set of features packed with this browser and can’t wait to get my hands on its beta release. It may be a bit early to say, but I do feel confident enough that I will be switching my loyalty from FF to Chrome very soon. The best part about the browser is that it is OPEN SOURCE!

A brief list of features that I was able to collect is listed here.

• Task Manager like the one in Windows, which can be used to determine which web sites or apps are using more computer/browser resources and hence can easily be eliminated.
• Each tab is treated as a separate process, in complete isolation with the other having its own memory and global data structures, which means that if there is a browser bug due to a certain website, only that particular tab will be needed to close and NOT the whole browser. This has to be awesome! Also, the tabs can be easily detached from the window.
• OMNIBOX. This is the name given to the address bar, which is sure to give a tough time to FF’s Awesome Bar. It offers suggestions, top pages you’ve visited, pages you haven’t visited but are popular (wow) AND a full text search over your history!!
• PRIVACY MODE – You can browse in the so-called INCOGNITO window and leave no trace what so ever.
• SECURITY – Surely, this is the most important issue with all the browsers. They claim to have done enough with SANDBOXING, such that each process is stripped away of their rights and hence can’t right files to your hard drive or read files from sensitive areas. The browser will also warn you of possible phishing. Google chrome is continually downloading lists of harmful sites and a visit to any such site will be notified with a warning.
• Something that hasn’t been mentioned but is obviously apparent that all of the Google’s applications including Reader, Calendar, GMail, Talk, etc. will have some sort of association with the browser and will be easily accessible.
• Memory efficient. There is a great deal of detail of how this is achieved in the comic. A simple example is that when you navigate from Site A to Site B (which are not at all linked with each other), the data stored with the previous site is tossed out recycling the whole process.
• When you open a new tab page, it doesn’t show up as blank. Instead it shows your nine most visited pages. There is also a sidebar that shows the sites you search on most

The download page will be updated anytime now. So the wait isn’t long enough to test-drive all these features, and more.