Jul
9
Written by:
Javier Callico
7/9/2010
I want to start by saying that I’m not Google fan boy and the only Google product I use apart from Chrome is, of course, Google search (I also tried to give
Bing a change but couldn’t use it for more than one hour, I guess I’ll have to try again).
I still remember what I said the first time I heard about Google’s new browser: Who needs another browser besides
Firefox?
What started as an experiment to create my own opinion when I decided to use
Chrome for a week for casual browsing and web reading now has become a common practice and
Chrome is now my preferred browser without any doubt.
From the start I liked how fast it felt. The pages seemed to load faster that in
Firefox and IE. Then I got used to
Chrome’s address bar (also called Omnibox), the fact that I can go to a single location and type URLs or search terms is something that I totally love. Maybe this behavior for the address bar it’s not a new concept and it was introduced by other browser before but I love Chrome’s implementation. I enjoy the clutter-free minimalistic interface that allows me to concentrate in what I’m reading.
If I had to pick something I dislike about
Chrome I’d choose the lack of native UI integration. The default blue color and the lack of a standard menu were hard to overcome but after experiencing
Chrome’s other features I chose to overlook these annoyances.
I still prefer
Firefox for developing since the excellent toolset for web development are really hard to match. Add-ons like
Firebug,
HttpFox and
User Agent Switcher have become part of my arsenal and I feel unarmed when I’m developing web sites and don’t have them.
I also have
IE8 installed (who using Windows doesn’t anyway) and only use it to browse sites “design only for IE”. Its icon is not even on my quick launch bar. I’ve heard great things about the next version, let’s hope Microsoft get’s right this time.
In the meantime, let me save this blog post, close
Chrome and start my weekend.