Google's new Web browser, Chrome, is living “up to its hype” and is likely intimidating Microsoft's Internet Explorer and maybe even Mozilla's Firefox 3, PC World reported Wednesday.

Currently available to download for Windows XP and Vista, Google also will expand Chrome for Mac and Linux platforms, but there is not currently a timeline for those releases. Chrome was launched Tuesday.

When downloading, Chrome detects the Web browser being used, and prompts the user through the installation process. When it is first run, it imports all the information saved in the pervious browser, such as passwords and bookmarks, according to the PC World report, posted by the Washington Post.

“This being Google, search is an integral part of Chrome; and Google has added some clever features to make searching easier,” the PC World article states. For example, Chrome shows the titles and thumbnail pictures of past pages, but not a URL, which can make things a bit difficult. “For example, earlier today I read an article on Macworld about an upcoming Apple launch event. To find the article in my browser history, I simply typed 'apple event' in the Omnibar. The resulting list showed every page I had visited that contained the phrase 'apple event'. Conveniently, the Omnibar lets you search not just your history, but Google and other sites as well.”

Google is the default search engine, but users can choose from nine other search engines, or can manually add a search engine, according to PC World. For example, to search for restaurants on Google, the user would type “google restaurants.” To search for restaurants on Yahoo!, the user would type “yahoo restaurants,” etc.

Google has been expected to launch its own operating system, PC World reports, but “Chrome's launch makes one thing is clear: The Web browser is Google's operating system.”

For a previous article on Chrome, visit our partner site, EditorsWeblog.org.