chromeWay back when Google first came onto the scene I was blown away with what they’d been able to make happen with search. Needless to say I’ve become somewhat of a Google junkie, willing to try everything they’ve come out with. I’m got my love it – hate it list (reader, voice, gmail, definitely love it; docs definitely hate it), and was willing to give the chrome browser my full attention when it came out late last year. I immediately downloaded the software and was wowed by the interface but went back to Firefox out of familiarity. Around 4 months ago I decided to give it another shot and can honestly say that I love the browser and have been a pretty hard core convert based on three key features: the omnibar, the interface and the speed. Let me tackle them in reverse order.

  • The Speed: You never know how much you appreciate speed in a browser until you don’t have it. The start-up is blazingly fast. I click on the logo and within seconds I have a window. Not something I can say for Firefox which takes for-e-v-e-r to load. The handling of pages in Chrome is much faster but I’m not sure many users will see the difference.
  • The Interface: Nice and clean. I like how the browser gives way to the content, no clunky toolbars, no excess of icons, it’s all content. On the downside the lack of buttons can make it difficult to find some features (bookmarks are complicated to access).
  • The Omnibar: Simple innovation. I’m not sure why this hasn’t happened before but the idea that you can use one entry field for addresses and search certainly simplifies the navigation experience. Now that I’m chromified I find myself trying to use Firefox and Internet Explorer the same way – completely frustrating.

Now on the downside it is a beta (or at least the version I have installed) and tends to crash on some pages. I’ve also found many pages that just weren’t built to the HTML standards that Chrome supports, so there is some loss of page functionality. While publishers are quick to fix their code to make their sites functional in Chrome, there are still bugs the crop up. More recently I’ve found that button images disappear from many sites I use making it difficult to know what you’re actually clicking when they button has no alt text. This is especially true for WordPress which I use to author this blog. Since editing this blog is near impossible on Chrome (even the stable versions), I’ve been using Firefox to do my writing. Oh my goodness how I miss my Firefox addins.

I’ve been back in Firefox for 2 days now and I love being able to customize my browser, I’m in addin heaven. I would imagine everyone would want to read CNN while TwitterFoxing, listing to Foxytunes, blocking ads with Adblock Plus, VideoDownloading, tweaking pages with Greasemonkey all on a designer inspired browser persona. Now I face the ultimate dilemma, stick with Chrome or move back to Firefox. Hmmmm.

  • Share/Bookmark