As much as we’ve got used to hear rumors about Google, only a handful of those finally become a reality, from the Google browser, to the Google Operating System (that would rival Windows). When the Chrome browser was unveiled to the public, it really caught everybody by surprise. Rumors aside, it was a very well-kept secret.

But that’s only the beginning of the story. Even more surprising was that Google was able to launch a very mature browsing tool by cutting corners where it could, like adopting the open-source WebKit browser engine, also used by Safari. This meant Google could spend more time refining other areas of the browser, like its highly touted JavaScript VM, an evolutionary user interface, and multi-threaded nature, so that a single tab shouldn’t crash the whole browser.

Chrome was well received by the online community and also got plenty of free publicity from traditional media on the day of its launch, which translated in a very rapid adoption at first instance. As we anticipated however, many of those Chrome installations were based on quick try-outs, where eventually a good share of users would switch back to their usual browser of choice for most tasks. But how about you? Did you ever try Chrome? Are you using it as your primary browser, or is it just collecting dust in your hard drive nowadays? What do you use the most for your Internet browsing needs and why?

Discuss.