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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Top 5 Reasons why Google Chrome Sucks

Off topic, but I gotta get this rant off my chest.....

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Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) rushed out the release of its Chrome browser with much fanfare. But despite all that hype, Chrome still fails to live up to some basic expectations:

1. Unpolished Chrome UI:
There's a bunch of minor UI flaws which collectively produces a big annoying headache for the user:
Coarse granularity scrolling - it seems there are only 3 scroll positions with Chrome: Top, middle, bottom
Also the dropdown URL history in the address bar does not exist (see FireFox for comparison).
No download %complete status
5 mouse clicks to select a different default search engine, vs. 2 mouse clicks on FireFox.


2. Half assed job on supporting Flash:
Yahoo!Finance, which I'm told is flash-based, has the ability to push dynamically changing content to the user. Chrome does not. For example, in Yahoo!Finance, real-time quotes are pushed to the user automatically without having the user to press the refresh button. Not so with Chrome, where you have to pull the content by continually pressing the refresh button.


3. Still waiting for ability to extend browser:
Google has promised an API framework to develop extensions/add-ons like FireFox, and granted, it's been only 4 months since release, but FireFox came out on Day1 with the ability to develop your own extensions. And there's not even talk of a date when Chrome will support extensions.


4. Resource Hog
At best, Chrome uses about the same amount of RAM as FireFox. But as you open more tabs, Chrome hogs up more memory. How does this add more value than FireFox's tabbed browsing? While giving each tab its own process is a novel and interesting idea, much work needs to be done to make it an efficient idea.


5. Worse than FireFox.
For better or for worse, like it or hate it, Chrome is being compared with FireFox. And like it or not, Chrome just is nowhere near as good quality as FireFox. And if it is not at least as good as FireFox, what is the incentive to put up with all of Chrome's flaws ?

2 comments:

Dancid said...

Thank you for the input man, I was curious about this browser. Back when I still used XP, I was a loyal Firefox user, then came along IE7 for XP, and within 24 hours it was denounced because the 4 people who actually downloaded it, reported it had coppied firefox with the tab browsing. I think it's funny how prevalent the mob mentality is in the tech community. It was the same thing with Vista. Sure the first editions of vista had problems, but the security was anything but 'secure'. I was one of the few who downloaded IE7 when it came out for XP, and I was very surprised when I found it to be, firefox made fluid, with even better security in my opinion. I was not however, one of the pioneers when it came to vista, I stubbornly participated in the anti-vista mob, without even barely ever using vista. Well a couple of years ago I finally made the switch and was completely annoyed with the constant security pop-ups, until I found out how to enable the administrator account. One I learned the differences, I upgraded to what I now consider the best operating system I've ever used: Windows Vista Business 64 bit Edition. I never use virus scanner and no longer use spyware scanners, and I've not had to reformat do to such a thing since I've made the switch. Well a couple weeks ago, I was building my sister a computer, and I decided to throw my old main harddrive for the my last computer into her's as storage. To my surprise it still had my original OS, and all my files on it. It had XP with what adaware called thousands of risks, a couple dozen of which were trojans. One of these trojans was so bad it was a tray icon that said I needed spyware, and all my memories came back to me from how 40% of my time was spent battling trojans in XP, especially when I saw the VundoFix icon on my desktop, a wonderful tool, that should have worked, but never did, I finally gave up and didn't use anything but my laptop for months. I guess I don't retain memories I don't go over, because I had completely forgotten how often I was dealing with all that bullshit, and I'm going to say this again: Even with the (real) administrator account enabled, with nothing but windows defender, and using IE7 with no security updates, AND still visiting such illicit sites, I stil HAVE NOT ONCE ever had to deal with so much as a trojan. I got a data miner from a torrent once, I also got an extremely nasty trojan, but windows defender caught it. The moral of the story, don't by into nerd hype, because 90% of them (including myself) have know-it-all personalities, which get off on criticism. It took me years to figure this out, but now that I do, I will be reading multiple other reviews about google chrome browser. I use gmail, and igoogle, and love them both, but if chrome is anything like the google toolbar, I'll hate it. In a community of know-it-alls, a two hundredth opinion won't be good enough, regardless of what EVERYONE is saying, always try it yourself! =) It was a good rant to be sure.

PS I'm not sure if you've tried IE8 yet since you're FF user, but it is fantastic, but as far as I know it's still in beta, and you'll have a lot of support issues, some sites thing it's a really old version of IE5 or something haha. It's truely awesome though.

Dancid said...

I forgot to mention that I'm a gamer, and the gaming community at that time was complaining that they couldn't use Dx10 but it probably wans't worth it anyhow. Well to this day I still can't figure out if it's worth it. Pixel Shader 4.0 has some amazing detail, but the big issue was that I didn't hear a single person, who didn't tell me you'll loose tons of FPS! This is when DDR2 was up and kicking, and was a refreshing price drop that old RAM. Well the stuff is dirt cheap now as you may or may not know, but if you have the recc. 1 gig for vista, and 1 or 2 more for your games, you'll be fine, ah I'm ranting again my point was, that not only was I once again dissappoint with the tech community (you know when I say tech, SORT OF mean the gaming community, but not totally) that I not only didn't lose FPS, and again I didn't only gain 5-10 FPS using PS 4.0, but I recieved less microstuttering, with the 9600gt I had then, and eventually the two of them, (I've not ruh my GTX 280 in xp) So the final final moral of the story is, I gave microsoft a chance, and ended up with flawless security, and a gaming performance boost... and god I get so worked up about technology, I can't even speak of politics anymore.

PS #2 Once you get the hang of vista, you can figure out how to make anything from a windows95 game, to a xp game to work----even if it's cracked in case anyone else reads this