I love the Google Chrome browser. I'm currently typing this using the beta version for Linux which was easy to download and install once I figured out where to get it.

For my javascript-heavy pages that I use on a daily basis, it's blindingly fast compared to Firefox. I've only found one rendering "bug" but it's with something I'm doing a bit of non-standard CSS work with.

My only gripe is that it doesn't use the middle mouse button to open links in a new tab. It works great if you middle-click on a bookmark item, but middle click on a link doesn't open in a new tab, and I can find no setting to make that happen.

Surprisingly enough, that's a deal-killer for me. I've grown too lazy to have to right-click a link and choose "Open in new tab." Yeah, that's sad.

**** UPDATE ****
Weird... later in the day the middle-click started working mysteriously. Why?

Google Chrome has a big flaw and I'm not sure Google even sees that fact.

No, I'm not talking about the carpetbomb flaw. I'm talking about something that could curse the browser from day one and is caused by how smart all the guys at Google are.

Yes, I said caused by how smart they are.

So far, all the cool pluses of using Chrome are really technical in nature. All the comics in the world won't change the fact that Jim who uses IE7 really doesn't care if each tab is a process. He probably still doesn't know how to open new tabs anyway. Jim just wants an easy answer that browses the web. If your website doesn't work well with his browser, he's much more likely to browse elsewhere than to replace the browser.

All the geeks in the world (sans Microsoft) can't change the fact that all the coolness in Chrome really only appeals to those who really understand what's going on. Remember Betamax? The general consensus is that it was a better format than VHS but still VHS won out. No consumer cares how technically better Betamax was. Only the A/V geeks cared. If you don't know what Betamax or VHS was, take my word for it. The technically better product rarely wins in the market.

Chrome could easily fall into this trap. Firefox was embraced by Geeks worldwide and grabbed a part of the market, certainly. I would say given a finished product a large percentage of Firefox users would switch. But, those are also the same users who understand on some level what is better about another browser that still renders their favorite websites exactly the same way as their last one did.