Roughly a week ago I made a big change in my Internet browsing habits and ditched Mozilla’s Firefox for Google’s Chrome for a week long trial to see how it compares. So how did it do?
The fact that I’m still using it now bodes well for it. I’ve really enjoyed using it. Mostly from the speed aspect of the browser. It’s a lot faster and slicker at loading heavy pages. Noticeably quicker than Firefox, which has been a refreshing change. Also I’ve noted no crashes while using the browser, either at work or at home. Usually at work the Firefox crashes at least once a day and I’m having to restart my whole computer sometimes. That could just be my work PC, but I’ve not had any crashes at home with Chrome, which I would have had too.
There’s a few things I’m still getting used to. Like in Firefox I would simply type whatever website’s name I wanted to go to, hit enter and Firefox would take me there. I know it’s doing a little Google search, but it was a ’1-click’ thing for me. Meanwhile with Chrome if I were to do that I’d be taken to the search engine of my choice. I know the answer would come in the drop down as I was typing in the address bar, but not used to it yet!
I am missing a couple of extensions. I’m missing Echofon for Twitter a fair bit. Just the fact that it has the ability to have multiple accounts is what I miss. If I only had 1 Twitter account Chromed Bird would be fine.
The other Firefox extension I really miss is Fireshot for taking whole website screen grabs. The alternative Webpage Screenshot is working out OK, just doesn’t have the functions I’m used to with Fireshot.
Still, those couple of things aren’t stopping me sticking with Chrome. Let’s see how the next week goes!
At work I spend a lot of the day getting frustrated with Firefox. Well, the beginning of the day starts off well enough, but towards the end of the day frustration levels are getting higher all down to the usually brilliant Firefox crashing, using a ridiculous amount of memory and slowing me down.
Starting this morning I decided to make the switch at work to Google’s Chrome. I’ve used Chrome on and off for little bits here and there but never really made the switch. No real reason why, other than I was used to Firefox. So, the same reason why many people have stuck with IE then?
Why have I chosen Chrome for my Firefox alternative?
Quite simply – it’s my next best bet for a good browser with extensions and isn’t IE. Good enough answer?
I was pleasantly surprised when I installed Chrome and it not only transferred all my bookmarks, but also my browsing history, cookies and all. So the move over to Chrome was made all the less painful! Next step was extensions.
Firefox has such an amount and variety of extensions I was a bit cautious as to whether Chrome could match it. It can’t. Yet. But there’s a decent amount of extensions so far in their stock. For work though I missed having the web developer toolbar that has been faithfully stuck to my Firefox browser for as long as I can remember. Thankfully Chrome does have Firebug Lite so I feel somewhat covered for work.
Also essential for work is Chromed Bird. Twitter client for Google Chrome. Yes it’s work, but we all need a little divergence at times. Echofon was my Firefox work Twitter client. Chromed Bird is so far so good, however it lacking multiple account ability is a definite downside.
I’l be trying to find some more extensions as this week goes by and will report on anything interesting!
After one day’s worth of work on Chrome I have to say I am impressed. It’s slick, quick and seemingly effortless. We’ll see how I feel at the end of the week and the computer’s been running with a million applications.
Sidenote – I’ve switched to Chrome at home too. Is it a sign?
