There’s been more than enough hullabaloo about Google Chrome lately. Hell, Michael Arrington even thinks it’s a “Microsoft Killer” and is “nothing less than a full on desktop operating system that will compete head on with Windows.” Oh wow.

If Chrome is so great, then how is it that K-Meleon beats the pants off it in all my testing? Even as I compose this post in Blogsmith I notice the difference. For one, all my WSYWIG buttons appear. Chrome can’t manage that.

For starters, you’ll only be downloading the K-Meleon install file or a 7-zip archive (yes, it’s portable!). There’s no updater/downloader/manager application that does the isntalling for you. K-Meleon launches fast, renders pages quickly and accurately, and uses less memory with a half dozen tabs viewing the exact same pages as Chrome.

It’s also got a built-in RSS reader, excellent (and extremely configurable) privacy options, built-in support for mouse gestures, integration (not importing) of favorites from IE, Opera, and Netscape, and built-in flash and CSS ad blocking.

It also natively supports themes and plugins - again, Chrome falls short. K-Meleon even has the ability to remember up multiple (you choose how many) previous browsing sessions. How cool is that?

My only real complaint about K-Meleon is that it’s default look isn’t that great. Somehow I’m not that concerned. This browser does so many things well that I can very easily overlook something like its aesthetics.

Chrome isn’t going to kill my OS: it can’t even make me switch from browsing with Firefox, for crying out loud. K-Meleon, on the other hand, I can utilize without missing a beat.

Want to give it try? Download K-Meleon, and share your thoughts. How do you think it stacks up to Chrome?
Source: feeds.downloadsquad.com