After a week with the latest Chrome for Mac Beta as my primary browser I might have to revise the earlier post about Google vs. Apple. Maybe this is a full frontal assault that Google is launching upon Apple (and Microsoft — yikes! a two-front war!). Before I upgraded (or sidegraded) to the latest developer’s channel build a couple days ago I’d say that Chrome Beta for Mac was very good, perhaps quicker than Safari, but not necessarily a browser that would bury Safari. After discovering quite by accident last night that the latest dev channel build for Mac supports extensions I am much more enthusiastic about Chrome. Even in this beta/developer’s phase Chrome with extensions rocks despite some glitches. I had FUN sorting through and trying out dozens of extensions and then settling on a dozen or so very useful ones: like gmail checker plus, evernote clicker, google voice checker, google calendar popup, mini maps, wikipedia, feedly (news reader organizer), facebook popup, LastPass (password vault/auto-login), xmarks for Chrome (sync bookmarks across machines and browsers), AdBlock, facebook adblock, fittr flickr, flash block, etc.. Here’s a screenshot of my new collection of extension buttons on Chrome:
It’s been less than 24 hours with Chrome + extensions and I’m already sold. There are still some small rough edges, but I’ve had no major issues with any of the sites I’ve browsed, including banking, credit card sites. One problem, however, is that I’m getting inexplicable sluggishness that seems to occur with only certain kinds of pages, such as the WordPress posting interface. Not sure whether it’s the page and/or conflict with extensions. Still, I really like Chrome and can’t wait until the final Mac version.
I can see where the Google Chrome OS project might be headed from this browser. Google’s concept is that the we live so much on the web so why not make it our OS? With a suite of web apps and cool cloud-widgets, who needs a full-fledged OS on one’s machine?
Get the developer’s channel build for your machine here.
You know, I’ve been using primarily Firefox for the past many months, rather than Safari. One reason is that I was so bad at organizing my use of Safari before that when I checked out Firefox, it was an opportunity to start from a cleaner slate. I was able to make my use, particularly bookmarking, better organized and I never bothered going back to Safari to reorganize it. The next reason I just stuck with Firefox was the Zotero extension from the Center for History and New Media which is only for Firefox so far.
Since I heard about Chrome and its reputation for speed, I’ve begun feeling that Firefox is a tad slow. I am willing to look at Safari again (which I gather has also sped up?), but I’m sorely tempted by Chrome. The main problem is that I don’t relish the thought of jumping from one browser to another so that I can use the different extensions that each specializes in.
But I agree with you that what Google is trying to do is essentially turn the web into our OS.