For the past few weeks I've been using Google Chrome for my primary browser. On Windows XP (I run in KVM for client testing primarily) it is pretty darn solid. There are a few sites that don't support it. On Ubuntu 9.04, it is a bit rougher cut. On each it uses far less memory than Firefox and generally renders nicer.
Good
- Smaller
- Flash crashes just flash and not the whole browser (you have to copy or link via ln -s to /opt/google/chrome/plugins/libflashplayer.so and run with --enable-plugins on Ubuntu)
- Multiple processes means that if I don't want to watch a page or slow AJAX app load I can go to another tab reliably
Bad
- I would prefer the tool and document drop down icons on the left.
- I had to turn on the title bar and borders in order to be able to move the window to different desktops, I'd prefer it integrated into the drop downs and I really like the borderless lightweight look.
- I still need Firefox for Firebug plugin. The chrome answer to this is insufficient.
- Chrome seems to constantly be pegged at using 3% cpu even when idle. Firefox often burps up to a higher rate, but doesn't drain the battery the way chrome does.
- My friend Damon Sicore from Mozilla will be mad at me for this post.
- Google hasn't assigned sufficient priority to the Linux edition. Linux won't make the kind of inroads into the desktop market until vendors treat it like a first class citizen. As an aside, I also think Gnome needs liposuction at some of its legacy underpinnings. I'd care a whole lot less if they (provided they use compile-time stack analysis instead of runtime garbage collection) used at least the patent-safe parts of Mono and ditched, for instance, Orbit (CORBA) -- provided we got a lighter, better Gnome out of it (and not just more bloated). I suspect the legacy bits weigh it down quite a bit.. I realize "ditch the legacy" is a though pill to swallow given the breakages such a thing would cause, but it can't just keep getting bigger and fatter while lagging on features.
