I recently recorded a video talking about Google’s new Web Browser, Google Chrome. I was excited about it then, and I still am. (...)
I recently recorded a video talking about Google’s new Web Browser, Google Chrome. I was excited about it then, and I still am. Google Chrome has set the bar higher for all other browsers, and we won’t allow others to lower it. I’ve received a lot of feedback about Chrome since my video aired. I wanted to share what three people had to say.
From NamelessFragger
I learned about this browser two days ago, only because someone posted a forum thread about it. I read the comic, and was totally thrilled. I then found out that the browser was released the same day.
I normally use Opera 9.52, which is generally regarded as fast. However, if Opera is light speed, then Chrome is ludicrous speed! (Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that my traditional Opera usage has hundreds of tabs open at once, whereas I think I’ve had only ten or twenty Chrome tabs open simultaneously.)
What I also like is how Chrome handles tabs. All too often, I’ve had Opera brought down entirely by one bad tab. While I haven’t had any bad tabs in Chrome yet, the knowledge that I’ll probably be able to close just that one tab while not bringing everything else down is reassuring.
I also like the fairly minimalist interface. It leaves a lot of room for whatever Web page I’m looking at. Oh, and Chrome can play embedded WMV videos without much hassle. IE and Firefox can too, but for some reason, Opera never does so out of the box. (However, I never bothered switching since I liked the rest of Opera too much…until now.)
All in all, it’s just been an amazing experience, and this browser is only in beta phase still!
From Jake
First of all, what you said in the first Chrome video about it being developed on Webkit and being fast is dead on. This thing speeds along. I barely have any add-ons on Firefox, and Chrome just goes 2 or 3 times faster. From screenshots that I saw, I thought the UI was going to look ugly, like a matte blue color and looking like a blueprint page or something. That’s not the case. Sure I don’t really enjoy the light blue color scheme, but it’s not overbearing and it’s easy on the eyes. Having the tabs at the top really streamlines the look in my opinion, as it leaves more room for the actual page. The shortcut to hide the bookmark bar really leaves a lot of room for viewing the actual page. The incognito mode is a nice little gem too. It read my Firefox bookmarks like a charm, and had to do barely any setup.
There are some drawbacks that I saw. My biggest concern is viewing picture links. I searched for a picture in Google images search and went to view full size, and it downloaded the picture to my default downloading location. I could not get the picture to appear in the browser. Instead, it made a bubble in the bottom-left corner that basically opened the picture in the Windows picture viewer. I don’t know anything about coding really, and the options are extremely vague. I couldn’t find any solution to this problem. Another feature that I used sometimes in Firefox (that I found lacking in Chrome) was a style sheet option to show no style, but obviously that’s a very minor gripe and can easily be forgotten.
Other than that, I can’t really say I have any problems with the browser yet. I’d like to see more themes and add-ons. Seems like the browser is off to a great start and hopefully it will get some add-on developers and themes.
From Scott
I saw one of your new videos yesterday about the release of Google Chrome. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that; I never saw it coming. I’m a fan of Google software, so I was naturally excited to hear that they were releasing a Web browser. I’ve been using Mozilla Firefox as my default browser now for over a couple of years, and have never found anything better for me. You name it — Safari, IE, Maxthon, Flock (which may be my next favorite), K-Meleon, Avant, Slim, Opera, Slim — I’ve tried about everything out there pretty extensively. I keep a lot of browsers installed to launch up every now and then.
First, I’ll discuss some of the things I like about Google Chrome. I find Chrome’s launch time to be noticeably faster than Firefox, which is nice (but is probably because I run FF with lots of plug-ins/extensions/themes that it must load up). Chrome’s page load times are very impressive; it’s a bit faster than FF, and perhaps even a hair faster than Safari (which, yes, I’ve found to be consistently faster than FF, even on Windows Vista). I like the “Incognito” browsing feature; I’m not sure I would use that too often, but nonetheless, a cool feature. Another thing I liked in Chrome was the way the “Find” function was designed. They did a good job with that.
Now, for the “bad stuff.” The GUI is, well . . . interesting, but I’m not a fan yet (e.g. I don’t particularly like the tabbed browsing system positioned above the navigation area as opposed to below). It might just be me, but overall, the Chrome GUI reminds me way too much of IE–yes, of course that’s a bad thing. I don’t care for the font system in Chrome, either. Compared to Safari (which I particularly like) and Firefox, it just seems bland and underdeveloped. Chrome seems to be on par with Safari or IE in terms of customization/tweaking; there isn’t a whole lot available to the user. A couple of other things I was really disappointed to see in Chrome’s GUI: The downloads are manage in a new tab? I don’t care for that at all. That just seems inefficient to me. No “Home” button? I hate when browsers don’t include simple, often-used functions *cough*Safari*cough* like the “Home” button. So far, I don’t think it’s possible to change things like that in Chrome. No spell checker in Chrome, either? Wow . . . . lame. ‘Nough said. There’s also some weird functionality things about Chrome that I don’t like (e.g., you cannot open previous pages in a new tab via click the “Back” or “Forward” button in conjunction with Ctrl).
In the end, Google Chrome was somewhat of a disappointment to me (granted, I’m still giving it a shot over the next several days). Yes, I realize that this is just a beta, but from my experience, betas just don’t improve enough to make a difference by the time they are released in their final form. I use Firefox over other browsers for a few simple reasons: It has a proven, sophisticated security system; it’s more customizable than any browser, bar nun, which means you can make it look/work exactly how you’d like it to; it’s intuitive and simple, yet it’s full of useful features that make sense to both average and power users; above all else, it just works. Mozilla’s got it right.
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The Community Speaks out About Google Chrome
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