First Test of Google’s New Browser
Chrome Offers New Way To Surf Net, as Microsoft Beefs Up Internet Explorer
September 2, 2008
by Walter S. Mossberg
Google has introduced a new Web browser, called Chrome, aimed at wresting dominance of the browser market from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The move takes the Google-Microsoft rivalry to a whole new level. If Google succeeds, it will be a big deal, with major ramifications for the future of the Web.
But just how good is Chrome? How does it differ from IE and from less popular, but still important, browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari?
I’ve been testing Chrome for about a week, trying out all its features and using it side by side with Microsoft’s latest iteration of IE, which came out just last week.
My verdict: Chrome is a smart, innovative browser that, in many common scenarios, will make using the Web faster, easier and less frustrating. But this first version — which is just a beta, or test, release — is rough around the edges and lacks some common browser features Google plans to add later. These omissions include a way to manage bookmarks, a command for emailing links and pages directly from the browser, and even a progress bar to show how much of a Web page has loaded.
Chrome’s interface has some bold changes from the standard browser design. These new features enhance the Web experience, but they will require some adjustment on the part of users. For instance, Chrome does away with most menus and toolbar icons to give maximum screen space for the Web pages themselves. Also, Google has merged the address bar, where you type in Web addresses, with the search box, where you type in search terms. This unified feature is called the Omnibox.
One striking difference in Chrome is how it handles tabs, which display a single Web page. In Chrome, each tab behaves as a separate browser. The bookmarks bar, Omnibox, menus and toolbar icons are located inside the tab, rather than atop the entire browser. The tabs appear at the top of the computer screen. Chrome also groups related tabs. If you open a new tab from a link in a page that’s already open, that new tab appears next to the originating page, rather than at the end of the row of tabs.
Despite Google’s claims that Chrome is fast, it was notably slower in my tests at the common task of launching Web pages than either Firefox or Safari. However, it proved faster than the latest version of IE — also a beta version — called IE8.
Meanwhile, Microsoft hasn’t been sitting still. The second beta version of IE8 is the best edition of Internet Explorer in years. It is packed with new features of its own, some of which are similar to those in Chrome, and some of which, in my view, top Chrome’s features.
Google’s Chrome browser displays thumbnails of a user’s most-visited pages when a new tab is opened, rather than a blank page.
For example, while IE8 also groups related tabs, it assigns a different color to each such tab group and allows you to close them all with one click. It has a “smart” address box of its own, that drops down a list of suggestions as you type, though it retains a separate search box.
IE8 also has breakthrough privacy features that exceed Chrome’s, and includes a new technology called Accelerators, which allows you to take rapid action on any selected word or phrase on a Web page, such as generating a map for a place name, without switching to a new page.
As they develop, each of these browsers has a good chance of besting Firefox 3.0, which I have regarded as the best Web browser for Windows, the only operating system on which Chrome currently runs. But they will have to get faster at loading pages. And, to best Firefox on the Macintosh, Google will have to make good on its promise to produce a Mac version of Chrome, something it says it will do in the coming months. Microsoft has no plans to produce a Mac version of IE8.
Chrome and IE8 are far more advanced than Apple’s Safari. Safari is speedy on both Mac and Windows platforms, but lacks many of the key intelligent features of its newer Google and Microsoft rivals.
Why is Google igniting a new browser war? There are two main reasons, and both involve competing with Microsoft. First, the search giant fears that because its search engine and other major products depend on the browser, Microsoft — with its rival online products — might be able to gain an advantage by altering the design of IE, which has roughly a 75% market share.
Second, and more important, Google sees the Web as a platform for the software programs, or applications, that currently run directly on computer operating systems, notably Microsoft’s Windows. It says current browsers lack the underlying architecture to enable future, more powerful Web applications that will rely more heavily on a common Web programming language called JavaScript. Chrome was designed to be the world’s speediest browser at handling JavaScript.
That move might one day make Chrome a sort of online operating system that competes with Windows. “Think of Chrome as more than a simple Web browser,” Google declares. “It’s a platform for running Web applications.”
Microsoft’s IE8 has an “Accelerator” feature that lets users select any Web text and then map, translate, search or email their selection without leaving the page.
I tested Chrome, and IE8, on a plain-vanilla Lenovo ThinkPad laptop running Windows XP, and equipped with a modest processor and one gigabyte of memory.
To gauge Chrome’s speed at loading Web pages, I launched two large groups of typical Web pages simultaneously, each site opening in its own tab. One group included 15 sports sites, the second 19 news sites. In both tests, Chrome’s speed fell in the middle, at 35 and 44 seconds, respectively. IE8 was slower, taking 49 and 75 seconds to open the two groups of sites. But Firefox and Safari were much faster, notching identical speeds of 19 seconds for the 15 sites and 28 seconds for the 19 sites.
Google claims that future, more sophisticated Web applications relying more heavily on JavaScript than today’s sites do would run faster on Chrome. Of course, I couldn’t test any claim about future scenarios, but I did run Chrome on several JavaScript test sites, used by developers. It handily beat the other browsers. However, Google doesn’t claim users would see much difference on current Web application sites.
I also tested Chrome’s compatibility with scores of common Web sites. In general, it did well, rendering the sites properly. But I ran into problems with video. Some video sites refused to recognize Chrome, because its development has been a secret. On others, like Major League Baseball’s site, videos mostly played properly, but sometimes didn’t.
IE8 also has some compatibility issues, for different reasons. It’s the first version of Internet Explorer to hew closely to Web standards. Earlier versions used some nonstandard ways of rendering Web sites, prompting some site designers to adopt techniques that made their pages work in IE, but look odd in Firefox and Safari. Now, ironically, these pages also look strange in IE8. So Microsoft was forced to build in a special Compatibility View button that users must click to see the sites properly.
Chrome is built on three core design principles. The first is its spare user interface: just two menus and a handful of toolbar icons. IE introduced a similar approach in its version 7, but with a difference. Microsoft allows users to restore a traditional menu bar; Google doesn’t. The only toolbar icon you can add in Chrome is a Home button.
The second principle is that a user can type anything into a single place, the Omnibox, and instantly get suggestions on where to go, gleaned from the user’s own browsing history and Google’s rankings of popular sites. Whether you type in a Web address or a search term, the Omnibox is very smart. In my tests, it sometimes came up with the right destination after I typed only one or two letters of the name of a site I often visited.
The Omnibox has another cool feature: Tab-to-Search. If you type in the name of another site that includes its own search feature, like Amazon.com, the Omnibox lets you just press the tab key to search within that site, without opening it first. Chrome, through its Options settings, also lets you change the default search engine used by the Omnibox. Instead of Google’s own search service, you can use Microsoft’s Live search, Yahoo search, or others.
The third big principle behind Chrome is that each tab runs, under the hood, as a separate browser. Tabs can be dragged off the main browser and turned into separate windows. If one tab crashes, the rest of the browser keeps running. But this doesn’t work perfectly. In my tests, all of Chrome died on me when I tried watching an Olympics video on the NBC site.
You can even make a tab a standalone application that runs from the Start Menu, or the desktop, as if it was a separate program.
Chrome has a few other key features. When you open a new tab, you don’t get a blank page, but a set of thumbnails for your most-visited pages, plus lists of recent search engines you’ve used, recently used bookmarks and recently closed tabs.
Like other browsers, Chrome puts up a warning when you try to visit a malicious or phony Web site, and it has a private browsing mode, called Incognito, which allows you to browse without leaving any history on your computer — a feature popularized in Safari.
Chrome also has a pop-up blocker, but it’s annoying because it flashes a notice that a pop-up has been blocked. IE also does this, but unlike in Chrome, the warnings are much less intrusive.
Internet Explorer 8 has some new features Chrome lacks. Its private browsing mode, called InPrivate, is the first I’ve seen that not only leaves no traces on your own computer, but also bars Web sites from collecting some types of information on where you’ve previously been surfing.
While IE8’s address box and search box remain separate, each also offers rapid suggestions; and both are organized better than Chrome’s. For instance, the suggestions that drop down from its address bar are divided neatly into categories drawn from the browser’s own guess, your history and your favorites. One downside: For this to work in Windows XP, you must first install Microsoft’s desktop search product.
Like Chrome, IE8 lets you switch your default search provider, but it also allows you to switch search engines on the fly. When you type in a search term, icons for alternate search engines appear at the bottom of the suggestion list, and you need only click on these to see search results from, say, Google, instead of Microsoft’s own Live search engine.
IE8’s Accelerators feature presents a blue-arrow icon above any text on a Web page that you have selected. Clicking on the icon brings up a list of actions you can take using the selected text, such as posting it to a blog, emailing it, mapping it or searching it. While these actions are set by default to use Microsoft’s own Web services, you can change them to use Google’s, Yahoo’s, or those from other companies.
Microsoft also has built in a feature called Web Slices. These are portions of a Web site that a site developer can designate to appear in the IE8 Favorites bar and to constantly update themselves. An example might be bidding on eBay.
Like Chrome, IE8 also displays useful information whenever you create a new tab, including a list of recently closed tabs and a list of Accelerators.
With the emergence of Chrome, consumers have a new and innovative browser choice, and with IE8, the new browser war is sure to be a worthy contest.
Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.
Comments
Thank you for your review.
I downloaded the new Google browser an hour or so ago and have been using it to see how it works with my favorite sites.
To me the browser seems much faster. The page rendering is very quick.
I noticed that bookmarks didn’t get picked up. It may have been my fault though. Not sure if IE was set as my default browser and it may have went out to Firefox or Safari for their bookmarks which didn’t have any.
I do like the look of the browser and the tabs. In the past I haven’t used tabs much but I think I will in this browser.
Thanks again for the review.
-Al
Posted by Al Gross at September 2nd, 2008 at 1:28 pmIs Google Chrome porn safe? Maybe, maybe not.
1. Google doesn’t mention themselves in the privacy statement in incognito mode
2. After checking GMail in incognito mode and surfing for porn I noticed that my search history is happily being stored in Google History.
3. The username and password safe mode is used in incognito mode. un/pw are pre-filled in incognito mode.
Definitely Google has some work to do. There are no warnings and no settings in Chrome.
Posted by Jaap Steinvoorte at September 2nd, 2008 at 1:39 pmIt is really annoying when things are released as Windows only. Firefox, Flock, and Opera don’t seem to do this. Safari is not the perfect browser and I would like to have access to Internet Explorer on my iMac. Everyday I get a little closer to installing Vista on my iMac.
Posted by Jim Maney at September 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 pmrofl, it looks like a pokemon ball xDDDDDD
Posted by soleil torres at September 2nd, 2008 at 1:59 pmOkay, but who’s watching the chickens around the fox? or google as a search site that has been recording where people go, would it not hold the same for their browser, and how much more information are all these browsers collecting and for who?
Posted by Keith Hetzel at September 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm“Google’s Chrome browser displays thumbnails of a user’s most-visited pages when a new tab is opened, rather than a blank page.”
That’s just too close (if not the same) to what Opera does. Also Opera was the first tabed web browser and in my oppinion Opera should be the ruler with what the other browsers should be measured.
Posted by Fernando Funez at September 2nd, 2008 at 2:34 pmI have used both chrome and IE8 beta 1 and 2 and webpages seem to load at the same speed on ie 8 beta 1 and chrome but ie 8 beta 2 loads faster. chrome needs alot more fixing and i find it kind a hard to navigate through chrome and it needs some better privacy features!!!
Posted by Osvaldo Pulido at September 2nd, 2008 at 2:35 pmGreat review Walter, always ahead of the pack
.
Plenty of thoughts on the Chrome strategy and a first impression of the browser experience here:
http://zwadia.com/
Posted by Zubin Wadia at September 2nd, 2008 at 3:17 pmHow fast did it load compared to IE7? You compare to the other 2 major browsers but then to IE8?
Posted by ron willoughby at September 2nd, 2008 at 3:20 pmInverting the relationship between tabs and the URL and associated controls is one of those head-slappingly right decisions. Conflating URL’s and search terms, not so much, especially for those of us who know what we’re doing. Biggest question: How will I live without AdBlock Plus? – the very best thing about FF, and something Google seems unlikely to allow, for obvious reasons.
Posted by Charlie Brenner at September 2nd, 2008 at 4:29 pmPutting URLs and Search Terms in the same Omnibox allows the Auto-Suggestions area to become the default set of 1st page search results. Doesn’t this User Interface innovation potentially create a massive problem for Google in that this box could obviate the need to go to a Google’s search results page (where the user might be attracted by a CPC-based sponsored link)? If Microsoft converted IE 6, 7 and 8 to work this way and Firefox expanded their current offering in this way, then there might be a lot of users who never see a traditional Google Search results page. Doesn’t this really hurt Google’s only revenue source? If implemented correctly and without Sponsored Suggestions in the OmniBox list, Google Chrome’s success could hurt Google’s only current revenue stream.
Posted by Lee Lorenzen at September 2nd, 2008 at 4:46 pmKallOut Brings IE 8 Accelerators and More to All Office Apps, IE, Firefox, Adobe Reader and Google Chrome (in the next release)
If you think you might like the IE 8 Accelerators feature, you will absolutely LOVE KallOut.
KallOut offers many more accelerator pages and it offers them in floating palettes that work for selections that you do inside any of the following apps:
1. IE 6, 7, 8
2. Firefox 2, 3
3. Microsoft Office Apps: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Notepad, WordPad
4. Microsoft Outlook
5. Adobe Reader
We will be adding Google Chrome support for KallOut in the next release as well.
This means that just about every major Windows app (with Mac Apps coming soon) supports a suite of Best-of-Breed Content Providers in a dynamic, context-sensitive, BestGuess Menu that suggests the ideal KallOut not just those showing Microsoft products.
Clearly, KallOut’s shipping product is superior to this initial entry from Microsoft in the Selection-based Search category.
Please try it out and let us know what you think.
Thanks,
Lee Lorenzen
Posted by Lee Lorenzen at September 2nd, 2008 at 4:51 pmCEO, KallOut — a new way to search using only your mouse
I enjoyed the review of both browsers and found the information on the new features very comprehensive. I already downloaded Chrome and am enjoying the beta version but have no plans to try out the new IE, which i understand is fairly bloated. My concern in trying the new IE8 is that I’ll never be able to delete it off my machine.
Posted by carmen hughes at September 2nd, 2008 at 6:01 pmI got following error while installing BETA
“Installation failed. Ensure that your computer is connected to Internet and that your firewall allows GoogleUpdate.exe to connect and then TRY AGAIN. Error Code : 0×80073EE7.”
Unfortunately, I can not attach screen here to show you that my computer was in good shape to connect to IN. But, I can show you the when requested.
I apologize to post comments on using this chrome.
Error above is Microsoft’s petent error !!?
Posted by Sachin Nakade at September 3rd, 2008 at 12:22 amVery informative review. For me, it’s probably a “stay tuned” situation to see what Chrome’s full version is like. Nevertheless, I’m glad to see another entrant into the browser world. The new ideas and competition will only force everyone else to step up their game.
Posted by Ken Okel at September 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 amVery helpful review, as always, but it omitted one of Chrome’s critical shortcomings: No support for adblock.
I found that Chrome was faster on some of the sites I visit most, but was shocked the first time I visited a site after downloading and installing Chrome. “What are those things on my screen? The result of a virus–or malware?”
No, it turns out that they were the ads that (over)populate so many websites. After using FF since its first release, I’d forgotten how intrusive advertising has become, even on major media brand sites.
Given Google’s business model, it will be interesting to see whether they or a third party provide support for adblock or something similar.
Posted by Lee Wright at September 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 amI was surprised that Opera wasn’t mentioned. It does have thumbnails as mentioned above, and also zoom (which Firefox also now has), autoreloading, and cross-desktop bookmark synching. As mentioned above, it was the first with tabbed browsing, and I think it was the first with state restore. And more people were using it than Chrome two days ago — in any case, it’s not far behind Safari, and is very popular on some mobile platforms.
It’s now just as free as the other browsers, and claims to be faster, although I personally haven’t done any formal speed comparisons.
I am an Opera user, but I don’t spend so much time posting “what about Opera?” on internet bulletin boards. But, I think it deserved a mention. Actually, I was also surprised to not see it in the Google Chrome Comic Book. I turn out to be pretty easily surprised.
Posted by Ion Freeman at September 3rd, 2008 at 7:10 amBesides the tabbed browsing and the thumbnails, the Omnibox is also derivative of an Opera feature, which is why I was suprised to not see it in the Google Chrome Comic Book. Maybe I should just pencil in arched eyebrows.
Posted by Ion Freeman at September 3rd, 2008 at 7:12 amIE8 also uses separate processes for each tab, so this is not unique to Chrome. Regarding performance, even on Google’s own Google Docs, JavaScript performance was no better than IE8, and FF3 blows them both away (sorting a column in Google Spreadsheets is sub-second in FF3, and takes several seconds in IE8 and Chrome). Also missing from Google is an automatic clear history/temporary files on exit like in IE8 and FF3. This is not just for porn, this is is to remove personal information from you PC (bank statements, etc). Like IE8, stored passwords aren’t encrypted (FF3 encrypts stored passwords).
Posted by Russ Clark at September 3rd, 2008 at 8:38 amHey Walt…I hope you didnt write this review and post it online using Chrome. If you did, you just gave a Google a ”
“perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.”
And, furthermore, “You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.”
So, hopefully, you are ok if Google needs to edit your content and ” make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.”
Finally, “You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.”
Not to worry, you could always start waiting tables once Google has full rights to all your content.
Don’t belive me…check out the EULA for Chrome.
Whatever happened to “Do no evil”?
Posted by Renaldo Cartaglioni at September 3rd, 2008 at 10:43 amI have been using Firefox exclusively for the past year (after dumping IE). Chrome is a pleasant surprise – VERY fast, easy to use, and Google Docs work well in the Chrome environment. I look forward to the added functionality that Walt referred to, but so far so good.
Posted by Joe Gartrell at September 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 pmplease do a real review, compare it with firefox, opera and ie on speed before you praise “speed” as a benefit…clearly this is not true
Posted by Sam Harrison at September 3rd, 2008 at 7:28 pmto renaldo, google’s ‘do no evil’ mantra got tossed out when it went public and had to keep its stock options in the money, that means selling as many ads as it can in any way it can, on any platform it can…basically google is the world’s biggest ad agency now
Posted by Sam Harrison at September 3rd, 2008 at 7:30 pmIon Freeman notes that Opera has “more people were using it than Chrome two days ago — in any case, it’s not far behind Safari…”
The first statement is, of course, true. But the second is demonstrably false. IE, Firefox, and Safari are the big three; Safari has over 6% market share, and is growing.
Opera is a very distant fourth place, with market share below 1%
Source for market share stats: http://marketshare.hitslink.co.....px?qprid=0
Posted by Steve Klein at September 4th, 2008 at 5:50 amWhat is Wrong with Google??
Just months after Mozilla releases a first-class free product that sets a world record for the number of free downloads, Google decides to move into the same market with a competitive product. We already have a stack of great browsers, and now that my freshly installed Firefox 3.0 is fully loaded with all my bookmarks, plug-ins and passwords, why would I want to even to beta test this Chrome creation? What on Google Earth are they thinking?
So what should Google really be doing, rather than releasing copycat products onto an already swamped market? Here are five key areas where Google could really be making some positive impact.
1. Bit Torrent traffic now accounts for almost half of the global internet traffic but as far as Google is concerned, all of this information might as well not exist. True, you can see what is on public trackers such as Pirate Bay or Mininova, but what about the tens of thousands of private trackers where the real action is located? For many of these sites, their main weaknesses are their search capabilities and their relatively small communities. As TV quickly converges with the internet, this is an area where Google could really become a major player. If it were my call, I would go for a zero tolerance policy towards file sharing on the main web search, and release a specialist torrent search software that focuses solely on this rapidly expanding sector of the market. If Google had put the same efforts into a private torrent aggregator as they have into a browser, I would be investing my life savings into the stock.
2. One of the company’s best products so far has been Google Earth, but why has it not been taken to its full potential. What happened to the merger of Google Earth and the traditional travel guide-books using this revolutionary new perspective? Where are the KML links pinpointing the geographical locations of all the fantastic documentaries that are now available on the torrent networks? A virtual map of the Earth is a great place to start building a new business empire. We already have a good selection of web browsers to choose from, what we want now is a good Earth browser.
3. Some pundits have conjectured that the release of Chrome coincides with a new release of IE which by default blocks all ads, depriving Google of its life-giving revenue stream. Advertising in all its forms has always suffered from eventual market fragmentation. While the databases and software required to run this kind of ad placement might be ultra complex, the idea itself is not. Even with all the creativity of its best artists, producers and directors, the traditional ad industry is an continually developing arms race for getting the message out to consumers. Google cannot sit back on a few flashy logarithms and expect the success to last forever. Already many other ad placement set-ups are appearing, that will quickly lay siege to Google’s rather precarious peak position. In other words do not expect online ad revenues to keep on climbing indefinitely for Google. From almost one hundred percent, the market share can only shrink. I only hope that Google will refocus on its core business which is providing information.
4. The real problem is that browsers have already reached their limitations in terms of the World Wide Web, mainly because it has been so successfully co-opted by business. Serious research using the internet has become more and more difficult as the web has become more and more crowded with media stories, blogs, wikis and social networks. Needless to say, research on many subjects can now be done better at a traditional, but well stocked library rather than online. Whatever its stock price, Google simply does not offer as good a service as a well trained, experienced librarian. Rather than competing for a small fraction of the browser market, Google would do better to simply make a larger internet available to more people. In fact, some might say that as the planet’s default search engine, it is their obligation to make as much information available to as many people as possible. Thanks to it shareholder obligations, Google search remains more of an unimaginative Yellow Pages than a planetary library. Some have described it merely as ‘Craigs List on steroids’ but my own comparison would be that Google resembles a set of the literary criticism notes that are popular with students, while the actual texts of the reading lists remain in the Dark Web. Google has not bought forth the expected gigaflood of information that many had expected and hoped for. The contents of most libraries remain unavailable to internet search engines, as are most books, magazines and newspaper back catalogues. Seen as an assembler of information, Google is way behind other open-source projects such as Gutenberg and Wikipedia. Even though they introduced a very promising librarian type service called Google Answers, the scheme was quickly dropped causing an outry amongst its many adherents.
5. Why go head to head with Mozilla, one of the most popular and admired companies on the Net? If Google really wanted to make a mark, then eBay would be a far better adversary. The online auction giant has been stagnating for years now, as users tire of incessant price increases, and recently acquired subsidiaries such as Paypal and Skype become public enemies in themselves. Online auctions were some of the fastest growth areas in the net’s history, and could easily be so again if Google had the vision to properly attack this project. Forget another browser and launch a peer-to-peer freebay auction site, with special attention paid to delivery networks, where prices have increased the most, and users will flee from Ebay like Michael Phelps escaping the Titanic.
Posted by shi di wen at September 4th, 2008 at 4:30 pmThe author is currently in Asia researching material for an forthcoming paper entitled ‘The Exaflood and the New Rennaisance’ and can be should be contacted at his out-of-office email adress which is wenshidi at yahoo.co.uk
Al http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20.....mment-1719 : I noticed the same thing. A Favorites folder that should have 18 items in it has only 15 in Chrome. Also annoying: Favorites lists show as a single column. Maxthon spoiled me with its multiple-columns option.
Posted by Jon Delfin at September 4th, 2008 at 5:30 pmChrome was slow for me, too, until I uninstalled and reinstalled Java on my machine. Make sure you have the latest version. Now it’s remarkably fast.
Posted by David Hall at September 6th, 2008 at 7:27 pmAfter an extensive test drive, I switched to Chrome from Internet Explorer, but after reading Walt’s review, I decided to give Firefox a try. The results from Walt’s speed tests seem to depend on the page content, since tests conducted on my computer showed Chrome to be as fast or faster than Firefox. In fact, Firefox took several minutes to load a web page that Chrome loaded in about 15 seconds. Several attempts at the same page had the same result, so it seems like Firefox was choking on some of the content that Chrome had no problem with. Also, when comparing the same page loaded in both Chrome and Firefox, Chrome provides a much cleaner presentation and does not waste space with excessive buttons, menus, etc; Chrome is able to display more of the page’s content since space isn’t wasted with an extravagant GUI. Google has been successful in creating a browser that is a simple window into the web. Compared to Chrome, Firefox is a gaudy frame that wastes pixels to display buttons and menus instead of content. I’m happily back to using Chrome.
Posted by Brian Hansen at October 19th, 2008 at 1:43 amFirefox and IE still rocks for me, features, usability and so on.furthermore im using hibernater (hibernater.com) to save my links easily. until hibernater supports chrome, i’m gonna stick to IE7
Posted by veny kense at December 11th, 2008 at 9:11 am