First Impression with Google Chrome: Worth it to switch?

I’m an avid Firefox user, I love how I can extend the base features of FireFox at anytime with a number of plug-ins. Although went buzz made it around the office that Google had officially launched it’s web browser, I was ready to pass it off. That was, until, a co-worker showed me the break off tabs feature. Seeing that made me want to give this infant in the browser world a spin.

As of right now, I think the jury is out for it’s the final verdict on this web browser, but it does contain several key elements that just might make me switch. Regardless of the many complaints I hear about such as no AdBlock support, no FireBug support, and no Delicious support — you can actually get similar functionality right inside this browser.

Pluses

Each tab runs in it’s own process, so if I’m watching a YouTube video while trying to post a blog and the YouTube page becomes unresponsive, I can kill that process (just that tab), while leaving my other tabs open unaffected.

The drag off / drag on tabs is something I’ve wanted for quite some time in a web browser. Such a simple concept was never adopted and I’m quite puzzled as to why. In case you’re wondering, you can click and drag a tab outside of your browser window to create a new browser window. You can also drag it back. This makes it useful if you wanted to break off the tab into a new window without having to open a new window and copy / paste the URL.

It loads super fast, especially sites heavy with javascript like Digg and Gmail, they load just like they would if they didn’t have all that javascript.

Creating application shortcuts are simply great. For those of you unaware, sites like Gmail and Google Docs are web based applications. With Chrome I can click the file icon and choose “Create application shortcut” and I can install a shortcut to this application in a variety of places (Desktop, Quick Launch, Start Menu). When launched, it opens in a new window with no address bar and acts just like an application would.

Peek-a-boo status bar has also been a want of mine for quite sometime. I really like the space a browser saves when I don’t have a status bar, but most of the times I want to know of the URL I’m about to go to so I’m not tricked into some scam of a website. Chrome finally answers my challenge by making a peek-a-boo status bar. It’s invisible for your whole browsing experience until you hover over a link, then a light blue bar with the address appears at the bottom.

There are a lot of other good things I could go over such as a really cool multiple browser import tool, download manager, history manager, and private browsing (just to name a few). I really like how Google has packed a ton of features into a browser without flooding you with a ton of options.

Minuses

The lack of plug-in support is a huge miss. Even though this is a beta, Google is making a real move for people to use this browser, and having the lack of plug-in support might be a deal breaker with a lot of people

Memory use can get out of control since each tab runs in it’s own process, so you might actually lose track of how taxing you may be to your machine. The good news about this is Chrome has a built in task manager that lets you see all Chrome tasks along with their memory, CPU, and network use. Plus it has additional stats for us geeky people.

There are some UI bugs, which I know will probably be hammered out sooner rather than later. This does drop the browsing experience quite a bit, especially when you’re trying to middle click to scroll.

Speaking of UI, who designed this thing? Even though the blue is part of Google’s common interface, it makes for a very childish browsing experience. Unless you’re running Vista with Aero Glass, in which case it’s a work of art.

But what about my FireFox plug-ins…

Delicious Bookmark Buttons
If you’re missing the ability to bookmark stuff to Delicious from your browser, worry not! You can use the handy bookmarlets for Firefox on Chrome! Just head on over to http://delicious.com/help/bookmarklets and follow the directions for the Firefox Bookmarklets. Let your delicious activities begin!

What about StumbleUpon?
There is a bookmarklet available for StumbleUpon too, just drag this “StumbleUpon” link to your browser bookmark bar. See, isn’t that handy?  

And what about ….?
It’d take too long to list other sites, but all you have to do is a Google search to see if your favorite site has a bookmarlet that will do what you need it to do. Make sure you use the Firefox one as that seems to be the only ones that work in Google Chrome.

Okay, what do I do without FireBug?
Firewho? Chrome has a built in inspector that’s almost as useful as firebug. Just right click on any page and click “Inspect Element”. You can review bugs, make live changes, and view CSS details on the fly just like in Firebug. You also get a nifty javascript debugger and a search box to help you find what you need in the site. Resources works well if you want to see how long it takes to load different elements on a website, and size does exactly what you think it does. Something really cool under the Resources tab there is a section called Resources that allows you to view images, local / remote javascript files, and much more. If you’re looking for just debugging Javascript you can click on “File” and under the “Developer” area can find a couple of tools to help you.

Okay, well I know I got you on this one, what about AdBlocker?
Well since Chrome is Windows only right now, it makes it a lot easier to block ads. First, you can update your HOSTS file to include a number of spam, scam, and advertisement sites out there so they are blocked when you surf websites. This makes loading websites a lot faster. If that solution doesn’t work for you, there are a number of programs on the web that will site in your system tray to monitor your traffic and block any advertisements, pop ups, etc..

So now that you’ve heard what I have to say, what do you think of Google’s attempt to make it in the browser world? Post your comment and let your voice be known!

PS: Here’s an undocumented Chrome tip for you. In a new tab type: about:network