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More About Google Chrome

I’ve been reading a few more comments about Google Chrome last night and this morning and have kept using it for browsing since yesterday. Here’s a few more points :

  • My comments from yesterday and today take into account that Chrome is a first beta. People have to remember that this is not yet a replacement for anyone’s regular browser. Many comments say that it doesn’t support extensions like Firefox, IE or Opera (they may call it diffferent things but you get my gist). It also has some annoying rendering bugs that seem to be due to Webkit and misses basic functionality like a way to turn off scripts which is a very good point that a commenter to my previous post brought up. All valid points but remember that this is a FIRST beta. Chrome will evolve.
  • I saw a comment today on Jeffrey Zeldman’s site that summed up my first impression of it : “At  present this seems like a solution waiting for a problem”. The more I think about it, the more I think that’s true. Did we “really” need a new browser in the market?
  • The above ties in with some of Zeldman’s comments as well as Tantek Celik who commented on the same post. Both say the same thing which is that, in order to compete, a new browser must offer something that others do not. They then discuss ways a browser may differentiate itself and Tantek brings up the point that, with a similar feature set, a browser may win market share by bringing better performance. So far, this seems to be the main thing Chrome brings to the table. But is it enough?
  • While Chrome is certainly much faster than Firefox, even Firefox 3 which improved its prdecessor’s very sluggish performance, is it really much faster than Opera 9.5? Not in my experience. On some pages, Opera is actually still faster than Chrome. So again, is it enough?

Like I said yesterday, only time will tell what impact Chrome will have when it reaches gold status and reaches a wider audience outside Web professionals and hard core tech geeks. Will people be willing to swicth? Personally, I have my doubts, especially if Chrome’s differentiation factors are not more visible than just speed. That may be enough for some people but most IT departments will probably keep using IE and those who moved to Firefox, Opera or Safari may choose to stay with the devil they know…

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