[1] Most importantly, each page is one tab and process, so if one web-page hangs becomes unresponsive, which can happen for many reasons, bug in javascript. You just kill that tab, it does not affect other tabs.
Whereas if this were Internet Explorer, you would have to kill the entire application, shutting down all open web pages. Today can you imagine how unacceptable that would be ? Since most services are web-based, it is not uncommon to have 20 - 30 tabs open at the same time. Chrome really got it right from the beginning.
[2] Super fast and lightweight - other have already explained this.
[3] Tabs - I think the concept of tab was very new then, you had to have multiple instances of the browser window (not multiple tabs). Your OS was cluttered with too many windows.
This highlighted the fact, even to layman users, that internet browser is not part of operating system. OS can have some default browser just like video player, but it is ultimately the user’s choice.
This was one of the most strategic launch from Google, Prior to that Google had internet toolbar which was not so widely used.
