My home page is the Firefox Google page, so I was not hit with an offer to download Chrome until I got on the net at work. Even though I’m perfectly happy with Firefox, I thought I’d give it a go. I’m currently trying it out, now that I’m back home and can download software without triggering all sorts of apocalyptic warnings.
First impressions do count. I know it’s still a Beta version, but do all the tabs have to crash every time I open more than two stories from my RSS reader? That’s enough to drive me straight back to Firefox right there. (Not that I wasn’t nearly back there already, what with the decidedly un-kawaii logo. C’mon, Google, give us a small, furry creature! Or something. Something recognisably something.)
Another strike against Chrome is that the Diigo toolbar isn’t available. Again, early days, I know, but when a product is trumpeted as being all “2.0″ (and I look up “2.0″ and think “huh, really?”) and then my social bookmarking site is not supported… I start thinking “if only there was a cute, furry animal involved, I’d feel better about this”.
I do like the minimalist look of the page and much prefer opening new tabs the IE way, rather than the FF way. I’m also a fan of having somethink to look at on the new tab, although I’m not sure how handy it’s going to be to see my “most visited” sites, given that they are also on my bookmark toolbar. What would be good – and I’m more than a little bit surprised that it’s not there – is a link to… Google. As in, the search engine. As in the-reason-”google”-has-been-verb-ised-and-popped-into-dictionaries.
Finally, “Chrome”?
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Update: 20/09/2008
Now I’ve had some time to play with Chrome, and wander around the internet looking at other people’s comments on it, I’ve found the “Google within address bar” feature, which is fabulous and explains why the developers didn’t need to embed the Google home page. It also sent me back to the Firefox add-ons to find a “new tab” button and the “fast dial” function. Probably not what Google wanted, but the existence of Chrome has improved my Firefox experience! I still use Firefox at home and IE at work (not by choice, but because I can’t seem to get FF or Chrome to load when I’m plugged into the school network) but will check on Chrome every now and again to see what they’re doing so I get more ideas for FF add-ons.
