Google Chrome: geek-only so far
On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 9:46 PM, Jeff M wrote:
> Just wondering – what do you think of the new google chrome internet browser?
hi JM
I see you’re following the tech trends :) I first heard about Google
Chrome yesterday and I read the comic strip made by Google yesterday
and I thought “boy I want to try that browser!”
The most appealing thing is the Google’s approach: let’s forget what
the browsers look like today and build something, like, completely new
that fits into today’s web. There are some features that sounded cool:
independent tabs so if one tab has gone crazy it does not crash the
whole browser; improved JavaScript engine that is expected to run more
quickly; clean and minimalistic UI (let the user do what he wants and
just get out of the way) etc. So it definitely looks like Google is
going to have a decent product that will be a good competitor to IE
and Firefox.
So I installed chrome today as soon as it became available. I was
using it a bit during the day. I can say it is really a fresh look at
the browser and it looks nice and clean. The UI is made by Google so
it has the same elegance that is in GMail, Google Reader, Picasa,
Google Analytics and other Google products.
It works pretty quick but I can’t say it makes difference with Firefox
and IE. It has a powerful address bar that is at the same time a
search bar and they called it “omnibox”. It has good auto-suggestions
and it was intuitive to use for me.
Also, I liked how it imported all Firefox bookmarks so I didn’t really
need to customize anything.
Now the bad part. Many people claim Chrome has problems with
displaying (rendering) HTML content on some pages. So some pages look
good and some look clumsy and broken. Some pages stopped loading for
me in the middle and I had to hit F5 to reload them.
Project tool looked distorted for example although I could post a message OK.
I will keep using it to see what is the usability on the day to day
basis. Some people claim settings are hard to figure out so I’ll have
to try for myself.
So the conclusion would be:
It is a beta version and Google made it clear that way. It is not
quite ready for massive use for everyone. Google fans and geeks will
like it. Firefox addicts say they will wait for a more stable version.
I would wait for some more months for a more mature version and after
reviews are more positive I’d give it a try.
thx
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