Why I switched to Google Chrome
I have been flirting with Google Chrome on the Mac since it’s early developer builds, and must admit that it’s been something of an on/off relationship. In the earliest builds, it’s lack of bookmarking tools made it more a toy than a truly useful browser, but it has been great to witness the (rapid) development of Chrome over the last 18 months.
So just what is great about Chrome? And will ordinary users really feel the difference? If you are still using Internet Explorer on Windows, the answer is a resounding “yes”. But there is something for everyone here…
It began with a comic strip which was largely targetted at developers. Why build another web browser? What would make Chrome different? Back in 2008 Google Chrome promised plenty of technical advantages over other browsers, all of which have been delivered on.
And more.
Chrome has all of the things that a web browser needs in order to be a contender: it can render web pages, handle plugins such as Flash, supports bookmark management, and has a super fast JavaScript engine.
But now Chrome supports browser extensions, à la Firefox, and it natively supports Grease Monkey scripts. Grease Monkey scripts are effectively a range of ready-made browser extensions which work in Firefox and in Google Chrome.
Personally I like to keep extensions to a minimum, so I only use a small number of them; at the moment I use the following extensions and grease monkey scripts:
Greased Lightbox Install this script, and any website that links to images such as Google Image search, gets an improved browsing experience. Clicking on an image will open the image in a kind of popup, often referred to as a “Lightbox”, without leaving the page you are viewing.
AdBlock As the name implies, this blocks adverts. Which makes pages load faster.
FlashBlock blocks Flash. You can enable a Flash movie on a page by pressing the “play” button; you can enable flash on certain websites that you visit regularly. This is an essential plugin if you want a smooth web experience: improper use of Flash sucks, it s-l-o-o-w-s down the web, makes the fan on your computer run like crazy. Flash has its place, which is why you want to be able to enable it – but for adverts, for little animations on the page – its just a CPU hog.
RSS Extension by Google this is essential – it really ought to be built in to Chrome. It simply adds an RSS icon to your address bar if there are news feeds you can subscribe to on a web page… just as happens by default in Firefox and in Safari. It lets you subscribe in Google Reader or in various other web based readers; it should really be able to use a desktop reader too.
For web developers, there are numerous web developer extensions. Plus Chrome comes with the Web Kit developer toolkit, which is similar to Firebug; but it just is not quite as good. So I use Chrome for my general browsing, while Firefox+Firebug cannot be beaten for web development.
Firefox has been my preferred browser for years – but Chrome has finally trumped it. Chrome just feels lighter, it loads MUCH more quickly, and uses far less CPU and RAM (in other words – it runs faster).
Plus a security bonus – Chrome has yet to be hacked, unlike the other popular browsers.
Lastly if you want to see what Chrome can really do – try Chrome Experiments. This site showcases web pages and applications that take advantage of modern web browsers, like Chrome. These do also run in Safari and in Firefox, but Chrome really makes them come alive. My personal favourite is Another World – a JavaScript remake of an old Atari/Amiga game.
I’m a fickle browser user. I’ll probably go back to Firefox or Safari sometime in the future; I’ve dabbled with Opera but never gotten along with it; and IE – the less said, the better. But right now, Chrome is in the ascendancy.