Google has introduced their new web browser, Chrome. I spent some time playing with it recently and figured I'd pass on the results of my experiment. Nothing formal, or even all that prolonged, but I have at least started to poke around.
So here goes: It's not for me (yet), but it might be for you.
I say this because what they do, they do well, but they're not yet letting anyone else tinker under the hood. They've got tabs down. They paid attention to what everyone else was doing with tabs and learned from it. The search bar/address bar combination is brilliant and intuitive. Bookmarks are easy and they take full advantage of the tagging concept to really make them useful. All three of these things are positive iterations of what Firefox has been doing all along (and what Explorer has been attempting to copy). There are also upgrades to the download process, the url display, and numerous other tweaks and improvements
It's actually not a significant leap from what Firefox 3 does. It's tighter and cleaner in several places, but in general both Mozilla and Google seemed to have spotted the same opportunities for browser improvement. If I were just using Firefox 3, I'd make the switch because there are enough little improvements (from my perspective) that it would be worth the cost of transition (and absolutely make the switch if you're still using Internet Explorer).
I don't just use Firefox 3, however, I use Firefox 3 plus Add-ons. See Mozilla is open to improvements, they let users create content that improves or adds to the existing functionality of their browser (crowdsourcing is a fascinating topic for another time). I've mentioned several of the ones I use before. Chief amongst these is Delicious which introduced the whole bookmark-tagging idea that Chrome so effectively emulates (and which Firefox added to their arsenal in 3). The difference, as it applies to my browser use, is that I surf the web on at least three different computer systems (my home PC, my work laptop, and my classroom system). Delicious lets me keep the same set of bookmarks across all three systems and, as you'll see if you visit, I've built up quite a selection. Firefox lets me use those bookmarks directly in the browser thanks to the Delicious addon. Chrome does not yet support such cross-machine interaction (as far as I can tell). So to use Chrome, I'd have to start my bookmark setup all over again, without the benefit of importing things, and I'd have to do it for each computer that I use. That doesn't sound like much fun.
Additionally, I have an addon that blocks advertisements pretty effectively, an addon that automatically copies whatever text I highlight, and a more recent addon called Better Gmail 2 that improves the interface for my email. Some of the options are superfluous, but there are a few (like the one that lets me see what type of file is attached to an email before I read it) that are pretty handy.
If Google ever permits an addon structure with their browser, I'll revisit it. Were I to switch to Chrome at this point, however, I'd have to do without a great deal of the functionality I have come to depend upon in Firefox.
Also, Firefox's addon feature means I'm not missing much. There are already addons that imitate (or, in some cases, inspired) much of what Chrome does, right down to the look.
Final recommendation:
If you haven't added anything to your existing browser, check Chrome out.
If you're using addons, however, you should probably wait until Chrome let's you bring them over.
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