MON(FX)

Google Chrome: Firefox Killer?

I’ve spent the last few hours testing out Google Chrome and I can now say that it will be my new default browser.  While the feature set of Google Chrome is limited and lacking compared to Mozilla’s Firefox, it is the speed and efficiency that Chrome provides that has made me switch over (at least for now).

I’m not talking about a split-second difference here — my tests show that pages were loading 2-3x faster and my overall browsing experience has been amazing.

Why Google Chrome is better than Firefox:

• It’s FAST - Google has designed this browser in-house from the bottom up to be fast.  Like they said in their blog, Google employees spend a lot of time online and they needed something that was both fast and efficient so they did the only Google thing to do: built a new one.
• It’s SIMPLE - While IE moved to a less-cluttered design with it’s newest revision and Firefox has always been fairly clean, Google has outdone themselves with Chrome.  For starters, there is no application menu (you know, File — Edit — Settings — Etc.), just the basic page navigation buttons, an address bar and two simple icons that serve to control and customize your browsing.  Tabs appear above this and bookmarks occupy the space below, maximizing the overall viewable browsing area.
• It’s GOOGLE - Even with the controversial EULA originally found in Chrome, I feel confident and secure using products made by Google.  Experience has shown that Google is synonymous with reliability, user-friendliness and efficiency in the quality products they build.

A few other features that Google has added include the Omni Bar, a customized default homepage, unobtrusive pop-ups and a simpler UI for web apps.

• The OMNI BAR - Google has redone the address bar and bravely titled it the Omni Bar.  When you visit a site and use their search bar, try typing the name of the site in the Omni Bar and pressing tab to search the site without having to go there first.
• The HOMEPAGE - I love the new default homepage in Chrome.  The page includes 9 of your most visited sites are shown as thumbnails, a search box, recent bookmarks and recently closed tabs.  Did I mention it loads extremely fast like everything else in Chrome?
• The POP-UPS - Not all pop-ups are bad and Google has found a decent way of dealing with them.  Pop-ups now appear as a small, unobtrusive boxes at the bottom of the site that you can drag out and reveal.
• The INTERFACE - The design of Chrome is clean, user-friendly and simply appealing.  The browser also goes into convertible mode when dealing with web applications.  It’s much like the alternative views you can achieve in Firefox however done slightly better and automatically.

While there are a plethora of great features that Chrome sports, there are a few things missing that may keep some Firefox and Opera users at bay.  If Google is able to add these features without sacrificing the quality and speed of the browser, Firefox and IE will be shaking in their boots.

Limitations:

• Plug-Ins - From what I was able to gather, Chrome does not yet have a built-in plug-in system.  The good news is that they plan to update Chrome within the coming week with all of the user feedback, and it turns out that a plug-in system is in pretty high demand.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed!
• Themes - Again, a minor thing to lament but Chrome lacks in the visual customization department.  Thankfully though this is another feature Google is willing to take a look into.
• Favicon Separators - While Chrome was able to successfully transfer all of my settings and bookmarks, all of the separators I had setup in FF are not present in Chrome.  This is because at the moment, Chrome doesn’t support separators.
• Downloads Bar - Unfortunately I haven’t found a way to keep the download bar hidden by default after finishing a download.  I might have overlooked this but I’d hope it would be addressable from the Options menu.
• History Navigation - While there is a search bar to navigate through the Chrome history page, I found the Firefox interface a bit more thorough and useful than Chrome’s version of it.  This is a very minor complaint and probably limited to a few users.
• Minor Quirks - A few minor kinks still appear to be present in Chrome.  For instance, I was unable to modify a story on my Facebook stream (on new.Facebook.com) as the links would simply not respond. Unlike Firefox, you can’t scroll the page by clicking your middle-mouse button and moving the mouse up and down. Chrome is also missing ‘View Image’ and ‘View Background Image’ links when right-clicking images.

Like I said, my overall browsing experience has been incredible and enough so that I am, at least for now, switching my default browser to Google Chrome.  If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend you do so.  If you have, what are your thoughts on Google’s new browser?