Sucked into the greedy maw of the evil devouring empire Tom Smith

Oh dear. I've been using Google Chrome for a few days now, and I'm not sure I can go back to firefox. Chrome really does just seem faster and more intuitively organized. It also makes organizing bookmarks easier with everything drag and droppable where you think it should be. The tab for every new window is nice, as is the ability to open up a new tab effortlessly. I also like the feature where you can set it to open up several sites upon opening, effectively giving you several home pages. The only thing I don't like is I don't see how you can set up a google, amazon, wikipedia etc search bar in your browser frame. They could easily have included that, and I don't see why they didn't.

I do think Google has a pretty creepy corporate culture, not overly law abiding and respectful of the IP rights of others, and with imperial ambitions. They scare me, but golly, they do make good products.

I do think it's wrong for them to keep all those brains they stole from orphans alive in vats underneath their server farm in Oregon just to alpha test their products, however, even if the technology is really impressive.

Here's a little issue: Westlaw thinks Chrome is Safari 1, and won't run in regular mode. I'm not worried, though. I'm sure Westlaw will fix this little problem within the next 10 years or so. In the meantime, try this: Extend your arms straight ahead. Now walk, without bending your knees. Repeat in a monotone: Must use IE and West! Must use IE and West! There, that's much better. Have a mug.

Comments

[Chris]

I tried it for a few minutes, but I couldn't figure out how to use favorites. It seemed to import only one bookmark.

[Chris]

OK, I see the "other bookmarks." Is there any way to get to them with a keystroke? I'm sticking with Explorer if I have to use my mouse for that.

[Tom Smith]

I don't know. I'm a mouse person myself. I couldn't find a help file.

[Chris]

Hmm. I really do like the open-all-bookmarks feature. And the bookmark moving is a lot better. I'll try it for a bit.

[Dan in EuroLand]

The URL text field is also a google search bar.

[t]

The big concern with Chrome is Google's intentions.

Chrome conceivably enables Google to crawl password-protected websites, such banking sites, which it doesn't have access to when you visit these sites using other browsers, and to start harvesting and associating private data to user's specific ip addresses.

Included in Chrome's original user agreement was this:

"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services."

Be sure to read Chrome's fine print
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10030522-56.html

Google backtracks on Chrome license terms
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10031703-56.html

[t]

More:

Chrome is a security nightmare, indexes your bank accounts
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39176/108/

[tom clements]

I've been using Chrome since it became available for download. I like it. It doesn't seem noticeably faster than firefox to me, but I'm still liking it better. I have had some problems with firefox sucking up available resources sometimes, and haven't noticed that so much with Chrome.

And FYI you can have multiple pages set as your home page in firefox - so if that's your killer app you still have a choice. From what I remember, you just open all the tabs you want to have open automatically, then go to options and click on 'use current page(s)'. (It's something like that, sorry I didn't go back and try it.)

And yeah, Google makes me feel a little hinkey every now and then, but I just keep using them and their apps.

[Cro]

People, people, people. You can do all the things that Chrome does in Firefox. It's called an extension and you really need to check out lifehacker if you don't already know about it.

Just PLEASE tell me you are using some form of adblocker...

That said, Chrome is now my default browser because it specifically renders a work site better than FFox... but that's about the only reason... I added Privoxy (check lifehacker) to block ads.

[Matt]

You can set Firefox to open several home pages without extensions. Just open up the sites you want, Tools -> Options -> Use Current Pages.

Anyway yeah, I find Chrome creepy.