In its public beta version, Chrome was just an experimental browser, at first without even bookmark management. In spite of Infoworld declaring “Firefox is dead” this year, at least that browser for the Mac is years beyond experimental status. But as of this week, Chrome for the Mac is out of beta test and into a full release, the first of many. It’s promised to be fast, open and secure. A business user might consider Chrome as their window to the Web.
Picking a browser is like choosing a home repair store. You develop a habit of using one and stop thinking about the alternatives. Chrome is definitely a faster browser than Firefox in our use, delivering a payoff in the “time is money” formula. If you browse a lot, Chrome could be an upgrade. (Safari’s performance is much closer to Chrome’s)
But Chrome’s got some steps to catch up in other areas. In the Mac version we downloaded this week, some Web sites aren’t working completely. Our TypePad account editor (where we publish the 3000 NewsWire blog) won’t let us resize graphics for posts in Chrome. The editing features at the Constant Contact email site also won’t perform with Chrome for the Mac, either.
This puts Chrome in a category with the iPad: very fast and slick for consumption of information. Not so good for creating messages and more. As for the death of Firefox, that obituary shouldn’t be written yet. 350 million users won’t expire overnight.
The Firefox obit is based on the browser’s development resources, according to Infoworld’s writers. Firefox has said it will be releasing fewer interim security fixes in the future. Infoworld predicts that Chrome users will see more fix releases since it’s more open.
Security is important, even crucial to some kinds of business. And attacks through your browser are becoming commonplace now. But Chrome has no more defenses for scripting attacks than Firefox today. These are the hardest to engineer against. I wouldn’t hold the Firefox security against it at the moment.
Incredible Start Page
Chrome’s got a wide array of extensions available. One of the more interesting is the Incredible Start Page, billed as “A new, customizable start page for Chrome. Easily find your favorite bookmarks and closed tabs. Take notes as you browse.” This is the sort of customization that Firefox won’t have, it appears. Whether you find everything that you’re already using in Firefox, or your extensions for Safari, remains as an exercise. We’ve gotten the Xmarks bookmark synchronizer installed on Chrome — a good first step in making a browser transition.
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