Smartalyx Computer Musings

I have been using Google Chrome web browser about three months now. I split my time between Chrome and Firefox almost equaly. Firefox still has more tools and add-ins, so I go there when I need specfic functions. Generally speaking either browser works well. Google Chrome has a better feel though. I am nto sure why, but when I jump back into Firefox it feels dated. I know I can change the look and feel with themes (a nice plus) but most users won’t do that.

I have yet run into many sites that do not work with Chrome. Or if I have they are so few and far between it is minimal impact. I do know some sites still do the “Browser check” and say you need IE 5 or better or Firefox, but those sites are slowly catching on that if they keep to web standards that check is becoming less important. I am not a web designer so I cannot say whether the recoding is cumbersome, but I would think not. Day to day, Chrome works well. Well enough I could comfortably recommend someone give it a try.

Onward with my exploration of Google Chrome. I haven’t had any problems running Chrome in my day to day. Have I heard of problems? Yes, in fact there have been a couple of security related items that have surfaced . Will I hold that against Chrome- no. No more than I held Firefox 3’s flaws and shortcomings when it was still in Beta. And I won’t hold similar flaws against Internet Explorer 8 either as long as it is in Beta. read more »

<UPDATE> Spending more time with the product and it still is pretty solid- except with some embedded video. About half the time I need to launch a second browser to see the video. Investigating specifics. Also, some sites are not seeing Chrome as a valid browser- this isn’t Google’s fault, just what I would imagine as non-standard programming or sites trying to be “cutting edge”. In fact one site told me I needed to change my browser to see a “Comments” section. That didn’t make any sense to me!

<UPDATE> Did not get to spend as much time as I would have liked with Chrome- will update as weekend rolls through. I am torn on the whole “each tab is a separate process” bit. It allows additional functionality, sure, but it also burns memory  and CPU cycles which could cause issues.

I downloaded and installed the beta version of Google’s Web Browser called Chrome. Here are some initital thoughts/observations.

Quick download- 475 KB

EULA before you download. Refreshing, haven’t decided yet?  I don’t recall being asked again. Just a couple of dialog boxes to get started. First one is whether I want to import anything and also whether to make it the default browser. Chose “NO” to default browser, but I did want customize import options. I asked it to import from Firefox- it noticed Firefox was open and asked me to close and try again or cancel. Closed Firefox- import worked quickly. It seemed to pause with no indication it was doing anything, but not too long. Soon it was up and running.

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