Google Chrome Beta is available for download today. I played with it. I am not impressed at the moment and will not convert from Firefox. I may give it another whirl in a few months.
The strength of Firefox, in my view, is its many available extensions, which practically spoil and pamper me to the point that I do not feel comfortable in other browsers like IE, Safari, Opera, etc.. For example, I have Ad Block Plus. As a result, I hardly see any flashy, scrolling, popping advertisements on any sites, which is almost like a different reality as opposed to IE, Google Chrome, and Safari’s rendering. (Yes, I am aware that it is possible to block those ads in other browsers.)
Another extension that I won’t give up is Vimperator, which uses VI commands for browsing. Closing a tab is a simple press of the letter d. Searching and opening URL can be done with O, o, T, t commands and tab completion, so Google Chrome’s OmniBox didn’t impress me. I even have a little suspicion that Vimperator inspired the OmniBox idea.
This is not to say that Firefox is perfect, mind you. It still crashes once in a while for me, especially when attempting to connect to intranet sites while not on corporate network. But given all its advantages, I feel I can live with it.
It looks Google Chrome has API for extensions and customizations. So Chrome, give me some nice plug-ins, or at least some samples like Ad Block Plus and Vimperator. Then we can talk.
6 responses to “Played with Google Chrome”
Funny, I saw a similar review of Chrome earlier this afternoon. The reviewer had pretty much the same attitude as you, but for different reasons. Apparently Chrome only managed to fulfill 1 of his 3 key requirements for a browser. Think I’ll wait until Chrome starts getting a few positive reviews before I try it, although this does add further weight to my suspicion that Google is the new Microsoft.
I think Google is a little too powerful also.
It’s a little strange. For whatever reason, your comment was marked for moderation this time. Let me know if you have trouble commenting, mate.
Probably because I’m on a Chinese university network. You know all the electronic nastiness that festers on such networks waiting for a chance to spread itself. I don’t mind getting held up for moderation, it’s an unavoidable part of surfing via this network.
Google Chrome seems promising runs pretty fast on my windows-box, maybe because its of its concept or also because its not as bloated with plugins yet(ultimately its a persons choice what he puts adds on like on FireFox) Though theres a few things missing in it for me, to even think of making a switch well the 2 most important would be a port of Google chrome for GNU/Linux, of all the OS’es not to have a a beta of this browser why does it have to be Linux!!! :_( Also the lack of Vimperator functionality/plugin, actually its the very reason why I cant even trade of FF 3.0 for other more stable browsers IMHO like seamonkey cuz of the lack of or not able to use the vimperator plugin of FF.
Yup, I hear you regarding plugin bloat, and vimperator really rocks!
Firefox is slower than Chrome, i realize, but there’s some tab features i can’t do without that only FireFox has