Hey techies

I’ve been using Chrome as my default browser since it came out. I like the tabbing system and find it nice and lean compared to Firefox. But a few weeks ago it suddenly got really slow, and started crashing with only a few open tabs. Weirder, when I launch the program to the google home page, the Google app tabs across the top left -- the ones for searching Web Books Maps News GMail More... take three or four seconds to appear, and then they fade in like the opening credits on an art film.

Is this some new Google feature? It’s not my computer -- Firefox and every other program is working fine. Anyone else having this problem?