{ taihen.org } Log – getting older.

Why Google Chrome ?

For many years, Firefox has been the only browser I use regularly, even in ancient times when it was called Phoenix. I've tried to make things work with other browsers ( well, Opera only ), but I always drifted back to Firefox. The community and the variable plugins, make of it one of the kind. Well, no more. As of new year, I've dumped Firefox. I have a new love and after two months of heavy testing I'm sure that I'm going stay with it for long time. My new browser of choice became Google Chrome.

For all of you, long time Firefox users, here is a list things I like about it:

• Stability - a major selling point for me, even as I'm using dev version for Linux ( 4.0.302.2 ) it never crashed on me, process per tab is very nice especially when you have unstable flash, as addition each of the extensions is separate process as well, you need some more resources but it's worth it, at this moment I have 27 chrome processes (it's another discussion is it good for you or not)
• Speed - starting in a second ( my laptop is 2Ghz Core2Duo and 3GB of Memory ), JavaScript VM V8 it's performing nicely ( especially important if you are heavy Google user ) and generally when you have more than 20 tabs open and you open another tab it's starting and loading pages as quick as before ( if you have enough memory ) where Firefox with more than 20 tabs is having major difficulties, try two pages side-by-side in Firefox and Chrome and see for your self
• Privacy - incognito window ( so called porn mode ), you can have it open all the time next to your regular tabs where in Firefox you have to switch completely loosing all regular sessions
• Omnibox - referred as the address bar in Firefox, merges both address bar and Google search, meaning you can type in either an URL or a search term
• Extensions - what was a killing feature of Firefox came finally to Chrome and it's impressive, after being there just for couple months I've managed to find and replace all of my extensions from Firefox which I've never though it would be possible
• Overall Usability - i can in simple and efficient way detach and attach back tabs from main window ( handy with multiple spaces and screens ), it remembers settings for pages ( scale down gmail.com to 80% of regular size and it will stay like that permanently ), tab management with pining or closing unwanted build in ( features such as “close all other tabs” and “close tabs on the right“ ), recently visited pages and just closed tabs easily accessible

Feature for Chrome looks bright, Open Source development powered by Google Engineers, multi platform support and vastly growing user base. One thing that bothers me is security, the only trustworthy browser ( at least at this very moment ) is Firefox, mostly because is not using shared libraries ( like broken CryptoAPI ). Well you can't have everything.