Crystal blue persuasion
Sat Mar 27, 2010 22:58 (UTC -5)I’ve been an avowed Firefox user since 2004, and I intend to stay that way. But I feel constant pressure from all sides to adopt or at least try out Google Chrome as my browser. Reasons for trying it include that it’s fast and that it’s by Google. That’s about it.
First of all, I don’t get all the Google idolatry. It’s just as bad as the hype surrounding Apple’s products. (These two companies could make the bubonic plague trendy and popular.) Within days of Chrome’s release, it had accumulated more users than Opera had managed to scrounge up in 12 years. No, I don’t have a citation for that, but I remember reading it somewhere. In any case, Chrome is now the third-most popular browser out there.
I also don’t like the user interface. It probably does make sense to have the tabs above the address bar, but they shouldn’t be where the title of the window is supposed to be. An application’s look and feel should be consistent with that of the operating system on which it runs; anything else is the result of either ignorance or sheer arrogance. Firefox can fit right in with GNOME and other Linux environments.
Google Chrome now supports extensions, a feature that Firefox users had been asking for. I depend on a lot of extensions (currently about 30) to make my browsing more convenient, and I doubt that most of them have been implemented for Chrome. In particular, NoScript, which no web surfer (has anyone said that in the past ten years?) should be without, cannot currently be made to work on Chrome.
Finally, there are privacy issues. I use Google for searching the web, but I don’t want to trust one company with that and my browser, e-mail, news, RSS feeds, documents, photos, videos, DNS service, operating system, cell phone, voicemail, web hosting, instant messaging, social networking, electricity, advertising, stats tracking, and Internet connection. And that’s just what I could think of off the top of my head. It’s just too much for one business to potentially know about me.
Advantages of Chrome over Firefox include faster JavaScript performance and keeping separate processes for separate tabs, but Firefox developers are working on those features.
TinyOgg converts Flash-based videos to the patent-free Ogg format.
For my fellow Beatles fanatics: Charting the Beatles, a series of infographics relating to the Beatles’ music and career. (Via J-Walk Blog)
More fun uses of Google’s search suggestions: What boyfriends and girlfriends search for on Google. (waxy.org)
Filed under Computers, Internet, Music, Musings and Observations, Stuff
6 comments
#1 by Andrea: Sat Mar 27, 2010 23:16 (UTC -5)
I use google chrome- after a very hesitant switch from my beloved internet explorer :D I have no complaints!
#2 by Kate: Sun Mar 28, 2010 03:50 (UTC -5)
Since I tried Chrome 1.5 years ago I never switched back to Firefox. Some of his main advantages for now: Chrome itself doesn’t take a lot of screen space unlike Firefox or other browsers (I don’t have any idea, for what a window title and text menus are needed… no sense for me); so called “Omnibox” is very convenient, I don’t need a separate search bar. There were more features which Chrome had first and Firefox added later. I had a complaint that Chrome ran an additional process GoogleUpdate, which probably used internet (I couldn’t afford it at work) and I couldn’t turn it off, but now there are no such a process. I still have a complaint about Chrome: it doesn’t keep keyboard layout individual for each tab (IE does).
But Firefox is also pretty good. Alternatives and competition should exist.
#3 by Peter: Sun Mar 28, 2010 09:59 (UTC -5)
I just started using Chrome two days ago after switching from an Opera that couldn’t handle some JavaScript properly.
Contrary to popular belief, Chrome actually doesn’t feed your entire browsing history to Google for ad purposes.
If I was running Windows, I’d stay with Firefox, but I’m on a Mac now (because I got it for free!) and Firefox runs very slowly on Macs, so I started using Opera, but then switched to Chrome.
That’s my life story.
#4 by Kirsten: Sun Mar 28, 2010 15:33 (UTC -5)
I use Firefox, and despite all the hype around Chrome, I am very happy with Firefox and see no reason to try out other browsers.
#5 by Keith: Thu Apr 08, 2010 09:32 (UTC -5)
I’ve never tried Chrome (though I’ve definitely heard mixed reviews). I’m not particularly pleased with Firefox either (I stayed with the Mozilla Suite until they ceased its development and then went to SeaMonkey when they took over its development). Firefox took out too many features that I loved and added the extra search bar that’s nothing short of a nuisance. I’ve read that Firefox 4 is getting rid of it; I guess they’ve finally realized that adding it was a bad idea.
I find the unity between the OS and the application overrated. My favorite SeaMonkey theme is Modern, which has a look all its own. I think it would get boring if the whole OS were themed like that, but just one application is cool.
The newer Firefox versions use the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. Is Chrome still faster? I think the one thing missing from that paragraph is a link to recent benchmarks.
#6 by Jordon Kalilich: Thu Apr 08, 2010 11:01 (UTC -5)
I think Chrome’s JavaScript engine is still much faster. Here’s one recent comparison I found from a quick Googling.