User interface

The main user interface includes back, forward, refresh, bookmark, go and cancel options. The options are similar to Safari, while the settings location is similar to Internet Explorer 7/8. The minimize, maximize and close window buttons are based on Windows Vista.

When the window is not maximized, the tab bar appears directly under the standard Windows title bar. When maximized, the title bar disappears and instead the tab bar is shown at the very top of the screen. Unlike other browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox which also have a full-screen mode that hides the operating system's interface completely, Chrome can only be maximized like a standard Windows application. Therefore, the Windows task bar, system tray and start menu link still take space at all times unless they have been configured to always hide.

As opposed to the latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer which allow the user to adjust the display dimensions of a web page completely, Chrome allows the resizing of the text only. Therefore, a web page 800 pixels wide, for example, will still be 800 pixel wide even if the user resizes it. Only the text will be affected by the resizing.

Chrome includes Gears which adds developer features that may or may not become web standards, typically relating to the building of web applications (including offline support).

Chrome replaces the browser home page which is displayed when a new tab is created with a New Tab Page. This shows thumbnails of the nine most visited web sites along with the sites most often searched, recent bookmarks and recently closed tabs. This concept appeared first with Opera's Speed Dial.

The Omnibox is the URL box at the top of each tab, based on the one in Opera. It includes autocomplete functionality but will only autocomplete URLs that were manually entered (rather than all links), search suggestions, top pages (previously visited), popular pages (unvisited) and text search over history. Search engines can also be captured by the browser when used via the native user interface by pressing Tab.

Popup windows "are scoped to the tab they came from" and will not appear outside the tab unless the user explicitly drags them out. Popup windows do not run in their own process.

Chrome uses the WebKit rendering engine on advice from the Android team. Like most browsers, Chrome was extensively tested internally before release with unit testing, "automated user interface testing of scripted user actions" and fuzz testing, as well as WebKit's layout tests (99% of which Chrome is claimed to pass). New browser builds are automatically tested against tens of thousands of commonly accessed sites inside of the Google index within 20-30 minutes.

Tabs are the primary component of Chrome's user interface and as such have been moved to the top of the window rather than below the controls (similar to Opera). This subtle change is in contrast to many existing tabbed browsers which are based on windows containing tabs. Tabs (including their state) can be seamlessly transferred between window containers by dragging. Each tab has its own set of controls, including the Omnibox URL box.

By default, there is no status bar displayed unlike other browsers which display one at the bottom of the screen. However, when the mouse cursor is moved over a link, the address of the link is displayed at the bottom left of the screen.