On Google Chrome for Mac OS X ☀
thethreelaws posted:
Google Chrome has come a long way in the past year, steadily getting subtle but useful features for power users. Let’s take a fresh look at Chrome’s current offerings —especially those willing to…
I’ve been meaning to log a lengthy review as I’ve been conducting an extensive trial with Google Chrome and consequently, it is supplanting Firefox as my #1 browser choice. Used the “official” developer preview for a few weeks but eventually bugs and one particularly annoying uglification drove me back into the Firefox fold — javascript popup windows (like the Tumblr bookmarklet generated ones) would display the bookmark bar over the form entry fields (also, at some point, could no longer switch between dialog and main browser window, Cmd-`). Then, I rediscovered the Chromium developer release repository and all became right in the world of Google Chrome again. Running developer releases is living on the edge, and for now, I’ve got a decent one running — multiple versions are released per day and sometimes new bugs are introduced — for example, during the work week, one version erroneously disabled the Cmd-arrow keys for navigating between tabs.
Yes, it’s a work in progress with many features still not provided. The Mac flavor still has some inoperative preferences panel controls (like one that sets default font settings) and bugaboos with the HTML5 javascript execution (features like local storage that are detected as available, but not actually working (yet)).
Why Google Chrome?
Because it is the snappiest of the browser suite. Not so much in actual page rendering, at least compared to the great strides made by recent Firefox releases. And I believe Google Chrome is employing some trickery to erect an illusion of a faster display. But still, in my non-benchmarked estimation, it’s slightly quicker on the draw. Where Google Chrome (it seems so wrong to just write “Chrome” without the “Google” in front of it) really shines is grinding AJAX. For you nontechnical folks, that’s those web pages chocked full of javascript — like Gmail, Google Reader, and just about any modern (2006+) web site (including Tumblr). Here, Google Chrome is significantly faster. My 1500+ RSS feeds in Google Reader present not a problem at all, and keyboard/mouse navigation is smooth as a desktop application. And Google Chrome appears to be devoid of the memory leakage that plagues prolonged Firefox browser sessions.
Now it’s still too early for me to abandon Firefox (and Safari too, as there are a few sites like banks and commercial accounts that work best in that browser, but Safari, by far, is the buggiest of the browsers on my box — any session with more than half dozen page visits is guaranteed to be greeted with a spinning beachball) as there are a slew of plugins I rely on in my role as a web developer (though it looks like Chrome has a foundation of some of these built-in already). And it’s still missing some fond Firefox features — one in specific, the automatic per domain remembrance of chosen zoom setting.
