Chromium is a fast browser--sure, some of that is because things like Flash ads can't load. But beyond that, page loading times are good, and moving back and forth between pages is nearly instantaneous. The page rendering (HTML and CSS) seems to be all there, as pages look the same in Chromium as they do in Safari (barring omitted Flash imagery, of course). The (which only works on Intel Macs as of now) is speedy; I ran Apple's , and Chromium (my build, anyway) was about 12 percent faster than Safari 4 Beta, the previous speed champ on my machine.

The tab interface worked well in my testing, and there are some unique features to be found in Chromium's implementation of tabs. Like most other tab-based browsers, you can drag tabs around to rearrange them, drag a tab off the tab bar to create a new window, and merge windows by dragging a tab from one window to the other.

As expected, based on what we saw in the Windows version of Chrome, Chromium's tabs are at the top of the window. However, unlike Safari 4 Beta, Chromium does this well--the tabs are at the top, but a thin strip of window still resides above the tabs, making it clear how to drag the window around. (It's not a full-height window frame, though, so there's no room for the page title in the window header area.)

As you look at the above screenshot, notice there's no Google search box. Google searches are run by simply typing in the URL bar--type and press return, for instance, and Chromium brings up the results of . This works in Firefox, too, but in Chromium, it's the only way to run a Google search (without loading Google.com, of course).

The other thing about tabs in Chromium is that they handle other duties. Choose Show History from the History menu, and a new tab opens, displaying (in a very nicely formatted manner) your browsing history. The same thing happens when you select the Downloads "window"--it too is a tab.