Would you like to make Chrome your default Mac browser?
Guest post by Jim Alden @TechFrog
Although the Internet was invented years before on the campus of UCLA, It wasn’t until Christmas day 1990 that Tim Berners-Lee, completed the first browser for the world wide web (on a NeXT computer). As the 90’s went on, the web was growing, Mosaic, Opera, Mozilla (and others) continued to change the definition of what the browser would be. Microsoft, late to the game, in 1995 finally understood that the Internet was the future of computing. Gates and his very competitive team at Microsoft built a very good browser and gave it away free with their operating system. The browser wars were on and we’d continue comparing many browsers and their features, speed, compatibility etc. Two decades later, we are still comparing browsers and people like myself are still reviewing them.
December 2009. Enter Google’s Chrome browser for Mac beta (Intel-based only).
Sometimes I’ve found a browser feature that I like so much, that it makes that browser my favorite. There was a time I preferred Opera because it has a text zoom feature that nobody else had, so I would simply use it more than others. Firefox added this feature, and I found myself not using Opera so much, mostly because Firefox had so many add-ons that really allowed for a fantastic browsing experience. I would use both Firefox and Safari. Firefox was feature rich, and Safari was blazing fast and more stable. My current favorite “feature” is an add-on to Firefox called Cooliris, which is simply brilliant. It keeps me using Firefox far more than the faster Safari.
Safari’s huge performance edge over Firefox, and the aging and slow Opera, was what keep me using Safari on some particular web adventures. The Java script engine in Chrome seems every bit as lightning fast as Safari’s, if not faster. Without benchmarks, its really too close to call. Clearly the performance in feature rich Firefox lags in comparison, but because of the aforementioned add-on, plus a few others, I’m not yet willing to dethrone Firefox as my main browser.
Although Chrome has been available for PC for about a year, it is now in beta form for Mac. Google designed Chrome to isolate browsers or applications that crash, rather than letting a glitch shut down the entire browser session. Google promised quicker start-up and improved stability when compared to the competition. I have yet to crash it, and yes, it is fast. It’s beta, yes, but this is a fully functional and beautiful browser. Tabs on top may take a bit of getting used to, but one great feature is the ability to search right from the URL bar. I expect this feature to end up on all browsers in coming iterations. History View is strangely missing, but I expect this matter to be dealt with soon. Chrome sports an Incognito mode that allows for private browsing, leaving no breadcrumbs or footprints behind. Overall, this is solid browser and I think Google hit the ground running.
When the Google Extensions come online, we may have a much tighter war. As stated, I will not leave my cozy & comfy Firefox, or stable and super-fast Safari yet, but if Chrome gives me the best of both worlds, who knows? Maybe when I see this in a month or two, I’ll check the little box:
[ ] Would you like to make Chrome your default browser?
