Google's Chrome browser might someday offer users the best of the old and the best of the new. As of today, it's simply a browser with some nice touches -- but they're really nice touches, such as stability, friendliness and safety.

Chrome was built from the ground up for today's Web-based applications, which are often more powerful and feature-rich than Web pages of previous generations.

But while that structure will serve it well, it also creates a bit of short-term backwardness -- because the plug-ins required to run many of the applications have not yet been created by Web site operators and third parties.

While I roamed the Internet with Chrome, I encountered a number of Web sites that couldn't completely run on the new browser. Typically they were pages that used Java applets for user interaction. Instead of seeing my usual interface on those pages, I saw an image of a puzzle piece, saying "No plug-in is available to display this content." Yet not all Web sites gave me a lower-level experience. Most Web sites came through nicely, even if they had media or Flash files embedded within them.

Mobile business professionals may be dismayed if they try to use Outlook Web Access (a popular Web-based e-mail software for business people) to manage their e-mail, tasks or calendar -- because only the light version runs on Chrome. You don't see all your mail folders; you can see only one calendar day at a time; and you can't access your tasks at all. This shouldn't impede most people, because they can run Outlook Web Access using Internet Explorer to get full access to their calendar, mail and tasks -- and run Chrome for other Web-based tasks. After all, both browsers are free.

Google has made Chrome very easy to setup. The installation routines allow you to import your favorites, history and passwords from Internet Explorer, and as soon as installation is complete, you're ready to work.

The interface is more sparse than IE -- with fewer buttons and fields. The most noticeable change is the lack of search field. Searches are now done within the address field. Typing shows more than just the addresses you've previously typed. It also shows pages you've viewed that have the typed word on the page, as well as pre-typed searches on your favorite search engine and other Web sites. So far, it seems to add to the richness of the experience, but I'm not yet ready to say it is better overall.

The tabs are far better than current browsers. You can drag them into separate windows or combine multiple browser windows into a single window with multiple tabs -- making it easier to unclutter your desktop. Each tab you open shows your nine most visited pages, those you've recently closed and bookmarks you've recently viewed -- putting a premium on letting you access the pages that mean the most to you.

Encountering a problem Web site is bound to give Chrome users some relief, because, unlike Internet Explorer 7, the tabs run as separate computer processes, meaning you can kill one of them without crashing the whole browser. That happened to me on the Google Web site, when a Flash video became unresponsive. It allowed me to first kill that page, then allowed me to stop running the video without causing the usual havoc I would have encountered with IE 7.

There are plenty of good reasons to test-drive Chrome, which is available now on Google's home page. But keep IE or Firefox available, because in the short run, you'll need them too. The long run, however, might be a different story.