A Google Chrome Review from a Firefox 3 user at Sherman Boyd

After reading the following propaganda:

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

I downloaded Google’s new Chrome web browser, particularly sold on the whole multi-threaded thing. I like to have about a million tabs open and it really sucks when one crappy javascript page goes bonkers and kills all your other tabs. Also I have a dual CPU; it’s nice to finally see a browser take full advantage of that.

Having just started using the browser I can definitely notice the speed difference on complex web applications like Wordpress and Gmail. Chrome flies. Using a web application is snappy on Firefox 3 with Google Gears, but still noticeably faster under Chrome.

During my testing Firefox 3 locked up once, something which hasn’t happened yet with Chrome. If Google has simply created a crash free browser then that is quite an achievement.

Interface wise Google wins hands down. Clean and simple, whereas Firefox 3’s default XP theme sports a childlike feel that is a definite turn off to serious business users. The drag and drop tab management is smooth.

Things I miss:

A master password for all saved passwords. Maybe it’s a false sense of security, but I don’t like the fact that anyone can open options and view my saved passwords. When Google displays a saved password, you can’t copy and paste it. I think that the password may be actually displayed as images instead of characters as a form of security.
Spell Check. It’s there, but there is no way to add words to the dictionary.
Plugins. I need my Web Developer and Chatzilla.

Good cues taken from other browsers:

Integrated Stop/Refresh button. I lobbied hard to get this in Firefox 3. Well at least I lobbied a little bit. Wasn’t this originally a Netscape feature? What happen?
Privacy Mode or “Incognito”. You know, for browsing pr0n. Even IE is doing it.
Google/Wikipedia/Dictionary.com search bar. That multipurpose search bar in Firefox is hard to beat.

True innovations: