So I’ve been playing with chrome – google’s new broswser project – and my initial thought is one of yuck.
I’m desperately trying to be impartial but I find it ugly, incomplete (ok, ok so it’s a beta) and too rigid. Call me a stick in the mud but I like my seperate search box, though I can see the ease of use factor for being able to search direct from the URL box.
I’m a lover of firefox and a despiser of IE. If I’m forced to use IE by a site (my bank thinks firefox is less secure than IE – way too funny) then I just use IE Tab to make firefox appear as IE and I’m in. Will chrome have these problems? I love firefox’s tabs, stability, constant updates, support, skins and plugins. I’m sure there’s more as well but I can’t think of them right now. I’m sure chrome will adapt and change and allow 3rd party plugins, etc but for now this is a show stopper for me.
Right now chrome seems dull, insipid and a poor, though much faster at rendering than IE cousin. Though it would seem to currently share IE’s security problems. Have a look at this PC World article.
Also – where’s my status bar gone. I like being able to see – though I accept it is but a poor representation of reality – what is happening to a page load, etc.
Next on my hit list is the lack of integration with Roboform. I guess a workaround will be along some day but I don’t hold my breath for it and if it isn’t, then sadly chrome won’t make it for long on my systems. Robo-Form Blogspot says it best for me.
Finally, for now, I’m not an immediate fan of my history or downloads history being opened in a new tab, but this is a minor issue and just a matter of getting used to it.
Oh, and if you’re still an IE fan, then go take a look see at the Chrome v IE site and cast your votes but please remember that this is not fact just peoples gut feelings being voted on.
I reserve my judgement, but will fiddle some more with it.
Hi Stuart
I do understand what you say about it being incomplete (beta after all). But already it fits a very specific purpose for me. I use Google mail/reader/calendar all day long and the application shortcut function, so it dedicates a window/process to each of these webapps that I use and it works really well for me…..
I really like it because it literally allows your web applications to act like applications. I did a lot of work in years past to bring up the web browser in "chromeless" versions because we were doing all the application development in Flash with remoting calls. This is a welcome departure — even if you just consider it for "mission critical" apps like web apps and then use FF3 or something else . . . but as soon as Chrome is available on Mac/Linux and supports bookmark sync (currently via Weave now) then I'm fully onboard!
Hey Bradley – thanks for the comment. Being an out and out hardware techy I confess I don't get the "design aspect" of things. I guess proof will be in the using – but from a purely aesthetic point of view (mine) it's horrible.
Hi Mike … that’s good to hear.
I’m (not yet anyway) a huge user of reader and calendar and use a combo of greasemonkey scripts and other plugins to easily switch between my multiple gmail accounts. The lack of roboform support and 3rd party plugins is a no-go for me. But I will persist in trying it…
(oops – for some reason I called you Mark and it seems I can’t edit my own comments .. drat).
I'm also a big fan of delicious and have thousands of bookmarks there. The bookmarks system on Chrome is in need of a lot more love. In terms of third party extensions, it's difficult to draw a comparison when there isn't currently an extensions API and Chrome was a secret project until a few days ago… I will do the same as Mike (first comment) and reserve Chrome for Google Apps until it matures.