What’s the most important browser feature for ultra mobile PC and Tablet users? Touch screen scrolling. Grab and Drag is the name of the game and if I can’t have that feature on my browser, I’m losing a ton of capability.

That’s why I’m disappointed with Google Chrome, the new browser from Google. It works well on the desktop with fast speeds and a great ‘most visited’ overview page but on a ultra mobile PC its nowhere near as useful as Firefox 3.

I’ll be testing it further over the next day or so but I’m finding it difficult to tear myself away from Firefox 3.

Other notes:

• No full-screen.
• No grab and drag.
• Text zoom only
• Fast
• Per tab processes should help with page error lock-ups.
• Overview feature very nice.
• Have spotted an Ajax error with the product database here
• Javascript handling seems to be fast
• Incognito mode will be good for certain people!!

Anybody else done tests yet?

Breaking News (Meaning I don’t have much information at this stage!) Google have just posted confirmation that they will launch a new browser tomorrow (3rd Sept.)

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

That doesn’t sound too exciting but if its Ajax-focused, it could be interesting for mobile users. Its a hash of Firefox and Webkit by the sounds of it.

We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others — and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

I’m looking forward to trying it out, testing its capabilities and speed tomorrow. Stay tuned for some UMPC-based Chrome action! Questions to be answered:

• Is it fast for ajax?
• Does it support grab and drag (our fave) plugin
• Is it just a google-focused window to Google apps?

More comment from Matt Cutts (Google.) More official info at the Google blog,

Update: Chrome is now available for download. Have installed on desktop and don’t see any way to ‘grab and drag’ or fullscreen or do any sort of plugin activity. That will kill it for most people I think. What exactly are they trying to achieve with Chrome?