Google Chrome

When Chrome first came out I had a little play with it, it wasn't something I'd ever consider using, I just like to see what Google's latest releases are like. It was fast, had similar key bindings to Firefox, didn't crash, but I didn't see anything overly enticing about it.

A few releases and bug fixes later, I've decided to revisit Chrome and see how it's coming along. It's still fast, has some great features but there's a few little things it does that are slowly grating on me.

Just for some background, I am a FreeBSD Desktop user and a Solaris Admin. I am also very resistant to change when I find something I like and find efficient. Chrome, unfortunately, doesn't quite fit into this category.

I can see where Google is going with Chrome, they have tried to incorporate features we want with a simple look and feel with no 'fluff'. They hit the nail right on the head there -- there's no annoying menus, very little window decoration, a snappy interface and some really nice features.

But ... I'm just not sold on Chrome. I've used Firefox for years and although it's not the fastest browser in the world, but there's a few things it does that I find more suitable.

There doesn't seem to be much you can actually 'configure' with Chrome. I'm not sure why this is, but Firefox seems to have an abundance of configuration items -- most I have no idea what they do, but it's nice to know that I have the ability to tweak almost everything.

The middle click paste feature is lacking in Chrome, this has been something I've used for years as it's consistent with all the other X applications and it's become habitual. I assume Firefox only supports this because it's target audience in the past has mostly been Linux users.

The middle click behaviour in Chrome is similar to what IE provides -- an XY mouse scroll. I've never used this before, so I can't comment on it's usefulness. This is something I'd like to be configurable.

Another little annoyance I've found is the lack of a '/' search. The first key I go for when I want to search is '/', not ctrl-f. This is probably due to my over-use of vi and less. I've found an extension that provides this functionality, but it doesn't do a very good job.

Other things I do in the browser pretty much reflect the functionality Firefox has -- opening tabs, closing tabs, re-opening tabs; they all use the same key combinations. I think Chrome based a lot of the tab behaviour on Firefox's.

Overall I don't have an overly strong opinion whether I like Chrome or Firefox more. Sure, the missing functions I mention annoy me but it doesn't stop me using the browser, it just slows me down.