Google Chrome... a replacement for Firefox?

[Electrofreak]

Alright, so I just tried out the Beta of Google Chrome, the new web browser by Google.

I gotta say, so far, I'm impressed.

It's definitely designed with the minimalist in mind, so I'm liking not having to kill a zillion toolbars. For example, I like how it only pops up my bookmarks toolbar if I open a new tab or window.

You can also drag tabs around, pull them out into new windows etc.

When you open a new tab or window, Google brings up a list of your favorite sites; sorta automatic bookmarking. Now if there's certain websites you'd rather not be on that list (lawl pron), you can open an Incognito window that automatically erases everything accessed through that window. Clever Google.

There's some other nifty little things. Downloads drop themselves right along the bottom edge of the screen, and you can open them or drag them right onto the desktop as soon as they're done. There's also a built in browser Task Manager so if one of your tabs/windows/plugins goes haywire or starts eating tons of memory, you can kill it without closing the whole browser.

So yeah... its worth checking out IMO. Haven't decided completely whether I'm going to replace Firefox with it (at least until I find a way to get AdBlocker Plus to run on Chrome), but it's pretty neat.

You can download the beta at http://www.google.com/chrome. There's also a set of videos explaining the features, though it's not hard to figure out.

[MattxMosh]

After two days its already my replacement.

Its essentially the same, visually. Just quicker. And cleaner.

And it doesn't leak memory like stupid crazy if you leave it running.

[Baneblade]

I was going to try it, till I read the EULA. But in Google's defense they fixed it. I might try it.

[Baneblade]

Posting with it now...will take some getting used to.

[Ghryphen]

I like it. I have been using it as my default browser, I couldn't stick to doing that with Firefox and had to go back to IE. The whole EULA thing was stupid, the EULA wasn't even evil in the first place, people interpreted the wording incorrectly.

[Rbstr]

Yeah the EULA thing was a bunch of paranoid sillies looking to get on google's case about yet another non-existent privacy issue.

I really like the quickness of Chrome, the interface's minimalism and the tabs-as-processes thing but the lack of standard menus like bookmarks is an issue. I want to use a drop down for my bookmarks. EDIT: of course I just figured out how to get a bookmark bar under the address bar after I posed this, funny thing is putting the bookmark toolbar in makes the top of the browser take up more space than firefox does.. I don't want to open a new tab for those actions. I also want a home button. I use the igoogle homepage thing and I do a lot from that page.

I also miss mouse gestures and other addon stuff.
Obviously plugins will take a bit of time. Until then, however, I spend more time trying to get where I'm going than I save in fast loading.

Anyway firefox's new javascript engine is faster than Chrome's V8 (admittedly these are mozilla's numbers). If that's true I'll probably never have a reason to switch entirely.

[Baneblade]

Chrome choked on T-Mobile's website, so its out for me for now.

[MattxMosh]

Chrome choked on T-Mobile's website, so its out for me for now.

Thats weird.

It was fine for me when I payed my bill.

Though I have had a little trouble on sites with the odd java applet, but killing the tab and reloading it was fine.

I want to use a drop down for my bookmarks. EDIT: of course I just figured out how to get a bookmark bar under the address bar after I posed this, funny thing is putting the bookmark toolbar in makes the top of the browser take up more space than firefox does.. I don't want to open a new tab for those actions. I also want a home button. I use the igoogle homepage thing and I do a lot from that page.


When I imported from firefox it gave am an "other bookmarks" folder to the right, with them all in a drop down. With the bookmarks bar it seems to be the same size to me.

But I do miss the "live" bookmarks. A lot. Hopefully that gets taken care of soon.

I did set the new tab page to Google IG, since I do that same as you, most everything I do is off of that. so the + button is like a home button, but I would like a shorter address bar with a home button on there.

[Electrofreak]

Yeah the EULA thing was a bunch of paranoid sillies looking to get on google's case about yet another non-existent privacy issue.

I really like the quickness of Chrome, the interface's minimalism and the tabs-as-processes thing but the lack of standard menus like bookmarks is an issue. I want to use a drop down for my bookmarks. EDIT: of course I just figured out how to get a bookmark bar under the address bar after I posed this, funny thing is putting the bookmark toolbar in makes the top of the browser take up more space than firefox does.. I don't want to open a new tab for those actions. I also want a home button. I use the igoogle homepage thing and I do a lot from that page.

I also miss mouse gestures and other addon stuff.
Obviously plugins will take a bit of time. Until then, however, I spend more time trying to get where I'm going than I save in fast loading.

Anyway firefox's new javascript engine is faster than Chrome's V8 (admittedly these are mozilla's numbers). If that's true I'll probably never have a reason to switch entirely.

Under Options is a checkbox for a Home button. Personally, I prefer having my bookmarks only pop up when I'm opening a new tab. It's much cleaner that way. It's nice to be able to drag a tab into a new window, and I also like how if a tab crashes, the whole browser doesn't go down.

Last I checked, V8 was approximately 10x faster in handling Javascript than Firefox, and 56x faster than IE. Unless Firefox just revamped their javascript engine, Chrome should be faster.

Chrome's rendering engine, WebKit, is reportedly up to 3x faster than Firefox's Gecko.

And, of course, Chrome is entirely open source. Some serious kudos to Google on that.

I've made Chrome my default browser. Add-ons will come, and given the advantages of Chrome, I've decided it's worth going without Adblocker for a little while.

[Rbstr]

You misunderstand. The NEW firefox javascript engine, the one in the next major release. If chrome's add-ons don't catch up by then I won't have a reason to switch.
My connection speed limits the loading times of all non-java pages, as far as I've observed, so that's key.

As far as bookmarks, I guess I use tabs differently from you guys. Extra tabs are for secondary trains of thought, not simply new tasks. I like to keep browsing in the same tab for the most part. It's how my thoughts are organized.

Also: how can I get a middle mouse click to start that scroll thing?

[MattxMosh]

Also: how can I get a middle mouse click to start that scroll thing?

Thats one thing I absolutely hate about it.

I wish I knew the answer to that.

[Electrofreak]

Wierd... I can't stand that thing. I always scroll by rolling the wheel.