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Your thoughts on Chrome
- Thread starter MacBH928
- Start date
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How can they "not allow" that?
By golly, that's funny
Secret OSX system code:
Code:
@implementation OSX
-(void)checkWebBrowser:(NSWebBrowser *)theBrowser {
if(![theBrowser isMadeByApple])
[theBrowser behavePoorly];
}
@endI tried the dev version of Google Chrome and I find it pretty nice. It opens on 1-3 bounces on a cold start, which is slower than Safari though, since the latter starts up on 1 bounce.
Interface - I find Chrome's interface neat and perhaps even nicer than Safari's. I don't mind the tabs on top, BUT having them on top will prevent you from seeing the "title" of the website you are browsing. I don't know, perhaps I would get used to it eventually, but I like it when there is a name of whatever topic/site I'm browsing on top of the browser.
In Chrome, you gain more viewing space without the Status Bar below (yes, I know you can hide it in Safari too, but then you won't ever see what link you're about to click etc.) - kudos to Chrome on this one for popping up a little status bar info in the lower left corner whenever the site is loading, or when you hover your mouse over a link.
RAM usage - I've some people's posts about how Chrome only uses up to 70 MB of RAM after one day's use and whatnot. Well, I had Chrome use up 171 MB of RAM just last night after about 10mins or so. What's more, there is a "Google Chrome Helper" process taking up to 50 MB RAM apparently for each open tab, too. And I've noticed that even with just one tab open there are still several Google Chrome Helper processes visible in Activity Monitor, so I don't quite understand why they are there. Well, at the end of the day, Chrome is probably still a winner in terms of being less of a resource hog than Safari. We'll see.
Speed - yes, Chrome opens pretty quickly and is also quite fast (obviously faster than Firefox), but it's still not as snappy as Safari, which I immediately noticed after browsing a couple of websites. I also ran a Peacekeeper test on both browsers to prove my point, and yes, chrome scored 3500-something, while safari got almost 3900 points. So Safari is a winner here.
Searching - you can virtually use Chrome's URL bar as a Google search so whether you are looking for your bookmarked site or non-bookmarked one, it will be really easy to find, unlike Safari, where it's difficult to find even your bookmarked sites; unless you search by URL and NOT the name of the bookmark, you won't find it in Safari. So Chrome is a definite winner here. Oh, and I like how in Chrome when you click on URL bar above, it will immediately highlight it, unlike Safari where you'd need to click on the favicon on the far left of the URL to highlight the entire URL bar.
Favicons - I like how in Chrome you can have favicons on the bookmarks bar, while in Safari you can't. Also, in Safari every now and then it will occur that certain favicons won't get displayed (despite having Glims), which gets annoying to me. Apparently, just like in Firefox, Chrome won't have a problem with that, except it for some reason won't display favicons under "History" tab; don't know why. One thing I miss in Chrome is also a site's favicon to the left of the URL bar. I also wish Chrome would display favicons in the "Awesomebar" search. But still, Chrome wins again.
The buttons - I hate Safari's refresh/stop button on the far right. Chrome keeps everything on the left nice and clean. Chrome wins again.
Tabs - Safari tends to beachball every now and then. If it crashes, it will take down the entire app. Chrome, on the other hand, will only crash the problematic tab. Kudos to Chrome on this one too!
Scrolling - still slightly jerkier in Chrome, so Safari wins on this one.
In short, I think when Chrome is fully compatible with 1Password and I'll be able to use most of the Firefox add-ons on Chrome, I'm pretty sure I'll be switching to Chrome. I'm willing to take the slight difference in snappiness over usability. Btw, when is it supposedly getting released officially?
Interface - I find Chrome's interface neat and perhaps even nicer than Safari's. I don't mind the tabs on top, BUT having them on top will prevent you from seeing the "title" of the website you are browsing. I don't know, perhaps I would get used to it eventually, but I like it when there is a name of whatever topic/site I'm browsing on top of the browser.
In Chrome, you gain more viewing space without the Status Bar below (yes, I know you can hide it in Safari too, but then you won't ever see what link you're about to click etc.) - kudos to Chrome on this one for popping up a little status bar info in the lower left corner whenever the site is loading, or when you hover your mouse over a link.
RAM usage - I've some people's posts about how Chrome only uses up to 70 MB of RAM after one day's use and whatnot. Well, I had Chrome use up 171 MB of RAM just last night after about 10mins or so. What's more, there is a "Google Chrome Helper" process taking up to 50 MB RAM apparently for each open tab, too. And I've noticed that even with just one tab open there are still several Google Chrome Helper processes visible in Activity Monitor, so I don't quite understand why they are there. Well, at the end of the day, Chrome is probably still a winner in terms of being less of a resource hog than Safari. We'll see.
Speed - yes, Chrome opens pretty quickly and is also quite fast (obviously faster than Firefox), but it's still not as snappy as Safari, which I immediately noticed after browsing a couple of websites. I also ran a Peacekeeper test on both browsers to prove my point, and yes, chrome scored 3500-something, while safari got almost 3900 points. So Safari is a winner here.
Searching - you can virtually use Chrome's URL bar as a Google search so whether you are looking for your bookmarked site or non-bookmarked one, it will be really easy to find, unlike Safari, where it's difficult to find even your bookmarked sites; unless you search by URL and NOT the name of the bookmark, you won't find it in Safari. So Chrome is a definite winner here. Oh, and I like how in Chrome when you click on URL bar above, it will immediately highlight it, unlike Safari where you'd need to click on the favicon on the far left of the URL to highlight the entire URL bar.
Favicons - I like how in Chrome you can have favicons on the bookmarks bar, while in Safari you can't. Also, in Safari every now and then it will occur that certain favicons won't get displayed (despite having Glims), which gets annoying to me. Apparently, just like in Firefox, Chrome won't have a problem with that, except it for some reason won't display favicons under "History" tab; don't know why. One thing I miss in Chrome is also a site's favicon to the left of the URL bar. I also wish Chrome would display favicons in the "Awesomebar" search. But still, Chrome wins again.
The buttons - I hate Safari's refresh/stop button on the far right. Chrome keeps everything on the left nice and clean. Chrome wins again.
Tabs - Safari tends to beachball every now and then. If it crashes, it will take down the entire app. Chrome, on the other hand, will only crash the problematic tab. Kudos to Chrome on this one too!
Scrolling - still slightly jerkier in Chrome, so Safari wins on this one.
In short, I think when Chrome is fully compatible with 1Password and I'll be able to use most of the Firefox add-ons on Chrome, I'm pretty sure I'll be switching to Chrome. I'm willing to take the slight difference in snappiness over usability. Btw, when is it supposedly getting released officially?
Probably in a few years. Google loves to keep the beta tag for quite some time, for example Gmail was beta for years. Forget about "official", it's typically best to run the developer version of Chrome because it has the latest fixes (for example the bookmark manager now works quite well with the version released last Friday) and is generally just as stable as the beta or release versions.
I see. Btw, do the dev version updates download and install by themselves? I could have sworn that yesterday I all of a sudden saw Chrome mount by itself, and then the mount window disappeared. Is that how it updates itself??
Been using chromium for about a month but it needs better adblockers so after seeing this im going back to firefox.
I think the adblocker for Chromium is fine, in some cases it's actually better than ABP on Firefox (it blocks the majority of flash based ads, where ABP does not). My biggest gripe with the browser is the scrolling. It's just dreadfully choppy. I even tried the smooth scrolling extension but could never get it correctly synthesized to my Macbook scroll-pad. Hopefully they fix this as I really think it could be the best browser on the Mac.
There's a bug filed on its tracker discussing smooth scrolling. They say it's pretty low-priority, but it'll get done eventually. Have you tried the latest dev version? Scrolling really is much better in it.
Chrome will auto-update itself if you tell it to (Chrome->About Google Chrome). I haven't seen it mount any .dmg files, though. Maybe it's just doing that quicker than I can see.
Chrome will auto-update itself if you tell it to (Chrome->About Google Chrome). I haven't seen it mount any .dmg files, though. Maybe it's just doing that quicker than I can see.
Yes they do update themselves but you first have to download a dev channel release. The updating is done in the background automatically or manually via the About Google Chrome box so you don't even see it when updates have been applied.
None of the adblockers I tried for chrome makes it even reasonably easy to add your own filters, which makes them mostly useless for me as I don't like to have some guy on the internet decide for me what is and isn't annoying, but rather create my own list.
Oh, and none of them actually blocks the ads, they just hide them. ABP actually prevents them form being downloaded.
I was about 15 builds behind. Scrolling does seem better. Thanks!
It does catch and choke a bit on animated gifs during up-scrolling, though this seems like a Webkit issue as Safari has the same problem whereas Firefox doesn't. People claimed SL fixed this issue, but it didn't on my weak little 1 GB MacBook.
Try using GlimmerBlocker, it is much more effective than ABP for me and allow me to use any browser on the mac without worrying about having adblocker installed in it.
Correction, Firefox is the worst browser of the trio, which includes Safari, Chrome and Firefox. I can't open more than 5 tabs before Firefox eats up all my RAM. Safari and Chrome can open 30 tabs using the same amount of RAM that Firefox can open about 5-6.
Chrome's themes are way better than Firefox's personas, which looks like some color-blind idiot created them. Some of the cool themes have horrible color contrast so that it's impossible to see the names of your tabs/bookmarks.
Webkit > Gecko.
Google chrome is no doubt better than firefox in themes. Still i go with firefox as i have got no complains with firefox ever since i used.
Does Glimmerblocker work with Chrome? I know it works with Safari and Fluid but I remember still seeing ads on Chrome. Also it doesn't work with Firefox, right?
Correction, as usual only nonsense
About Memory:
http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory
About Themes:
Firefox as now two theme systems.
Unfortunately have they not included https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513158 With Bug 513158 in one of the next versions will look Personas as well much much better on Mac OS X.
On the other hand use i for example only my own themes, where i can change nearly everything. The theme system from Chrome is currently more powerful than Personas, but then again not really powerful enough for many intended possible themes variations - likewise Operas system
Cheers
I'd be curious to see how the current dev builds of Chrome stack up. Unfortunately, I'm not curious enough to run the test myselfCorrection, as usual only nonsense
About Memory:
http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory
About Themes:
Firefox as now two theme systems.
Unfortunately have they not included https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=513158 With Bug 513158 in one of the next versions will look Personas as well much much better on Mac OS X.
On the other hand use i for example only my own themes, where i can change nearly everything. The theme system from Chrome is currently more powerful than Personas, but then again not really powerful enough for many intended possible themes variations - likewise Operas system
Cheers
Have not had a chance to use it on Mac yet, but I detest it on Windows.
It works just fine when only a few tabs are open.
However, as soon as it gets to 15-20 tabs, the browser becomes unresponsive. Firefox has no problems whatsoever under the same usage scenario.
I also hate it how this program ignores all the IU conventions. For instance, on XP it looks like a Vista/7 application... Which, obviously, costs resources.
I am not holding my breath for the Mac version.
Safari is not perfect, but it is really the best browser for OS X.
It works just fine when only a few tabs are open.
However, as soon as it gets to 15-20 tabs, the browser becomes unresponsive. Firefox has no problems whatsoever under the same usage scenario.
I also hate it how this program ignores all the IU conventions. For instance, on XP it looks like a Vista/7 application... Which, obviously, costs resources.
I am not holding my breath for the Mac version.
Safari is not perfect, but it is really the best browser for OS X.
It's a HTTP proxy server, it'll work with any browser system wide. Chrome and Safari works out of the box, Firefox doesn't use OS X's http proxy setting, so you have to set a proxy server in the settings to have it point to Glimmerblocker, after that it'll work fine.