Google Chrome: is it actually any good?
By Sarah Dobbs in Editorial
Posted in Google on
The short answer to that question is: yes, seems to be!
Like everyone else, I downloaded Google’s new browser yesterday and set about playing. Thus far, I’m finding it a marked improvement over my previous browser, which was some iteration of Firefox 2. It’s speedy and doesn’t leak memory - and, most importantly, hasn’t crashed at all yet. Each tab in Chrome is a separate process, so if one tab goes down it won’t drag everything down with it, but I’ve not managed to cause a single “sad tab” yet. (Only a matter of time, I’m sure.)
While one day isn’t really enough to test drive a browser, I’ve stumbled across a few little touches that I’m really enjoying - like the way you can grab the corner of a text input box (e.g. the Wordpress box I’m typing into right now!) and resize it. So, instead of just being able to see a small section of this post, I can make the box big enough to display the whole thing. I don’t actually need to do that, but, um, well… I might? At some point?
I like the way you can drag separate tabs out into their own windows, too. And I like that all my bookmarks and settings have all been copied straight over. I like the idea of a home page that displays all your most-visited sites, so you can jump straight to them, and I am loving the intelligent address bar. The ability to browse “incognito”, so that Chrome doesn’t store the sites you visit in an incognito window in your history, is potentially quite useful, and I’m loving how clean and tidy and aesthetically pleasing the browser is. I’m sure I’ll run into some problems at some point, because nothing’s ever perfect, particularly in its first iteration, but so far, I’m a Chrome fan.
Not convinced? You can read about the joys of Chrome via the medium of webcomic here. Even if you don’t end up downloading the browser, the comic’s pretty…
Rated: 60% (2 votes)
Loading ...Comment by KL - September 4, 2008 on 11:22 pm
The most Chrome’s most visited websites is just a variation on an innovation that Opera introduced a while back called Speed dial….only Opera’s speed dial is better because it allows you to choose your favourite 9 sites.
Chrome is okay but pretty bare bones basic compared to “out of the box” Opera.
Also be wary of Google’s license agreement allowing Google ownership of anything that you put on Chrome, though Google have now backed down due to user protests it still something to be wary of.
Also If you installed Chrome then you also installed the Google Updater which runs silently in the background each and everytime you run your computer regardless of whether you have Chrome open or not.
The issues I have mentioned above have led many myself included to uninstall Chrome.
Comment by Matt - September 5, 2008 on 7:36 pm
Not another background updater!
The only things entitled to have background updaters are Windows (because Bill G says so), and antivirus/antimalware type stuff that has daily updates.
Everything else should stick to manual or “update after X days” oiptions within the program, and should preferably ask if it is convenient to do so.
I’ve just crossed Chrome off my “to do” list, and may not even reconsider it when the webkit engine is updated to fix the vulnerability.
Comment by KL - September 5, 2008 on 7:59 pm
Yep I’m afraid so Matt.
Google have slipped in their generic Google updater into the Chrome installation.
It will attempt to update all your Google applications on your PC not just Chrome.
My favourite security tool WinPatrol spotted it and gave me the option to block it, which I did, Comodo firewall also spotted it.
It’s very very persistent as well, after you block it Google updater would try again every 5 minutes or so!
Unistalling Chrome won’t uninstall the Google updater either!
I still had the WinPatrol alerts even after I uninstalled it.
Thankfully I eventually got rid of Google updater by unistalling a previously lightly used Google player which I installed long ago.
Use CC cleaner after you unistall all Google programs and you should then be Google updater free!
Comment by Elimination Blackjack Tips - October 8, 2008 on 11:24 am
So far I have been using Chrome since its release. It is nice, but the lack of features makes it hard to use. With Mozilla Firefox you have all of the extensions in place to block ads, unwanted scripts, control web site styles, get weather updates, etc, etc. Chrome is SUPER basic.
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