Before you jump in, though, there are some things you should be aware of. First, this isn't any sort of . In many ways, it's barely an .

Second, while Chromium runs and seems relatively stable (though it did crash on me a few times), it's really only usable for basic browsing needs. Want to watch videos on YouTube, Apple's movie trailer page, or any other site? Want to view a PDF? Or access a page protected by Apache's , play games in Flash or Shockwave, or listen to internet radio? If you answer "yes" to any of those questions, then Chromium is not for you--at least not yet.

As of today, Chromium can load Web pages, and JavaScript support is there. Based on my initial testing, though, that's about it--everything else is still to come. (Mike Pinkerton, a Chromium developer, has ; these builds are not yet downloadable.)

The unfinished nature of the browser extends to the preferences, which consist of only a couple changeable items, some placeholders, and one entirely empty tab. While you can add bookmarks, there doesn't appear to be a bookmark manager of any sort, nor can you delete added bookmarks within the browser.

There's a bookmarks bar, but no visible way to put a bookmark on it. There's no way to block pop-ups, control cookies, or do much of the rest of the "routine" stuff you might expect a browser to handle. I also ran into the occasional glitch with an element on a page--a pop-up menu would appear many hundreds of pixels below the button that activated the menu, for instance.