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besson3c · Mar 16, 2011, 02:29 AM

I've been using it for a while, and I'm convinced of this. It isn't perfect, it is a little buggy in some respects, but it:

- doesn't bog down when I have more stuff open thanks to each tab being its own process (presumably). It looks like Apple will being copying this model

- better developer tools

- seems generally at least as fast as Safari, and in most cases it feels faster and more lightweight

I've actually grown to like the address bar doubling as search bar thing. I'm not yet sure how I feel about the tabs above the address bar, but in the areas that are most important to me, I'd say that Chrome has earned its spot as my default browser now.

Any other happy Chrome users?

ibook_steve · Mar 16, 2011, 02:51 AM

Definitely. It's been my default for almost a year now. The only issue I have with it is lack of support for special web sites I use, such as watching my Slingplayer and accessing my work applications through Citrix. Also, it doesn't play as nice with Microsoft Sharepoint sites (that we use at work) as IE does. But that's not a huge loss. Other than that, it's the best.

Steve

P · Mar 16, 2011, 05:53 AM

I liked the idea of Chrome, except for the neverending beta tags, and I was going to try it when they did the unspeakable and removed an existing feature for political reasons (H.264 in <video>). Nope, won't touch it.

Chrome uses the same rendering engine as Safari, but uses a different Javascript engine (V8). The speed difference is there, but it's not huge.

mduell · Mar 16, 2011, 12:08 PM

Chrome is good for speed, but missing or poorly implemented two key features: quicksearch and content blocking

besson3c · Mar 16, 2011, 12:55 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Chrome is good for speed, but missing or poorly implemented two key features: quicksearch and content blocking

You mean ad blocking? What is quicksearch?

mduell · Mar 16, 2011, 03:31 PM

I mean content. Flash, some ads, annoying js, etc. I haven't gone full crazy to greasemonkey yet, but it's appealing.

Quicksearch is the ability to type "foo bar" in the address bar and have it rewrite to http://foo.com/whatever/search?q=bar

CharlesS · Mar 16, 2011, 03:52 PM

Quicksearch is the ability to type "foo bar" in the address bar and have it rewrite to http://foo.com/whatever/search?q=bar

Chrome has had that feature for a long time.

Chongo · Mar 16, 2011, 04:26 PM

What if your still running a Power PC Mac?

cgc · Mar 16, 2011, 04:55 PM

I tried Chrome and it's good but I feel no real benefits over Safari other than aesthetics (which I don't prefer). For those rare sites that don't render or act properly in Safari I resort to Firefox 4 (still in beta but at RC1). FF4 is very good and uses a different renderer/javascript engine than Safari/Chrome so I find it more useful.

besson3c · Mar 16, 2011, 11:13 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

I mean content. Flash, some ads, annoying js, etc. I haven't gone full crazy to greasemonkey yet, but it's appealing.

Quicksearch is the ability to type "foo bar" in the address bar and have it rewrite to http://foo.com/whatever/search?q=bar

What content can't you block with one of many extensions? I block ads and flash, and my sense is that there are actually many more Chrome extensions than there are Safari extensions

besson3c · Mar 16, 2011, 11:19 PM

Originally Posted by cgc

I tried Chrome and it's good but I feel no real benefits over Safari other than aesthetics (which I don't prefer). For those rare sites that don't render or act properly in Safari I resort to Firefox 4 (still in beta but at RC1). FF4 is very good and uses a different renderer/javascript engine than Safari/Chrome so I find it more useful.

Chrome and Safari use different JavaScript engines, and this is actually something I should have listed in my original post, as v8 is heavily backed by all the Node.js guys, and may become the basis for the next heavyweight web programming language post php and Rails

lpkmckenna · Mar 17, 2011, 12:17 AM

Tried it before, and just downloaded the latest version to see what's up.

It's still friggin' ugly. The "chrome" is just dreadful.

Importing my current Safari bookmarks in Chrome. It kept all of previously imported bookmarks from the last time I tried Chrome, and added to the current bookmarks on top of that. Now, how to I fix this mess? In the bookmarks manager, it seems I have to individually select every folder and delete it. Great...

The bookmarks bar is cluttered with favicons. Can I turn that crap off?

So far, it's not for me....

lpkmckenna · Mar 17, 2011, 12:19 AM

Ok, was able to quickly erase all bookmarks and re-import. Crisis averted.

besson3c · Mar 17, 2011, 12:49 AM

I still don't understand why ugly seems to be near the top of the list of importance with many Mac users. Speed, stability, responsiveness, behavior with a crapload of tabs open, and dev tools are all far more important to me than aesthetics.

I will say that it would be nice if Chrome used the os x keychain.

jmiddel · Mar 17, 2011, 12:53 AM

I've tried it, it's definitely fast, like it, but am creature of habit, so still use Camino. I think I'll give it another spin

lpkmckenna · Mar 17, 2011, 01:00 AM

besson, if it is faster or more stable, I certainly can't tell. Dev tools mean nothing to me. So the UI is the only difference that I encounter.

besson3c · Mar 17, 2011, 01:41 AM

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna

besson, if it is faster or more stable, I certainly can't tell. Dev tools mean nothing to me. So the UI is the only difference that I encounter.

Do you generally have a ton of tabs open in Safari?

TETENAL · Mar 17, 2011, 10:27 AM

The developer tools are exactly the same between in Safari and Chrome. Google just updates more often, so you see the newer versions of WebKit's developer tools earlier. If that is important to you, you could also use the WebKit's nightly builds.

Google Chrome is too ugly for my taste. Just have a look at the following screenshot for one example:

besson3c · Mar 17, 2011, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

The developer tools are exactly the same between in Safari and Chrome. Google just updates more often, so you see the newer versions of WebKit's developer tools earlier. If that is important to you, you could also use the WebKit's nightly builds.

Yeah, I used to use the Nightlies, but I grew tired of the instability and regression.

angelmb · Mar 17, 2011, 05:37 PM

Why would Chrome need extensions to block flash, ads is beyond me. Chrome is 100 MB on size whereas my default browser weights 15 MB and it does let me block what I want, when I want and where I want.

On a positive note, google is getting rid of the current, beyond ugly, icon. Let's welcome the colorful 666

Spheric Harlot · Mar 17, 2011, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I still don't understand why ugly seems to be near the top of the list of importance with many Mac users.

We know.

Oddly, some think it's important that stuff that's stared at all day be easy on the eyes.

besson3c · 01:29 AM

The visual appeal is going to depend on the sites you are forced to/like to use though, so big meh

Spheric Harlot · Mar 17, 2011, 07:12 PM

Not for text rendering or standard control elements (pop-up menus, radio buttons etc).

besson3c · Mar 17, 2011, 07:25 PM

Yeah, but all major os x browsers use the native os x ui stuff, right?

P · Mar 18, 2011, 06:15 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Yeah, but all major os x browsers use the native os x ui stuff, right?

Not sure about how it is today, but in the past FF always used their own general controls on web pages unless you hacked it.

The Final Dakar · Mar 18, 2011, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by angelmb

Why would Chrome need extensions to block flash, ads is beyond me. Chrome is 100 MB on size whereas my default browser weights 15 MB and it does let me block what I want, when I want and where I want.

On a positive note, google is getting rid of the current, beyond ugly, icon. Let's welcome the colorful 666

Jesus, that looks worse.

Spheric Harlot · Mar 18, 2011, 10:24 AM

Yes, it does.

lpkmckenna · Mar 18, 2011, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Do you generally have a ton of tabs open in Safari?

Occasionally. Today, I decided to load up a bunch of links to read and was surprised how well Chrome handled it. Safari would have stalled once or twice when switching between tabs.

But, Chrome auto-plays video in tabs loaded in the background. That's completed unacceptable and I can't figure out how to stop it.

Oisín · Mar 18, 2011, 08:20 PM

There’s one thing that really bugs me about Chrome (and the newest versions of Opera, too, but not—if I recall correctly, Firefox):

When Cmd-clicking a link or clicking on a link with the middle button on your mouse, it opens the link in a new tab, but doesn’t move focus to that tab. This is ridiculous. It completely ruins the advantage of having a super-easy way of opening links in new tabs.

Opera used to do it the right way (new tab + focus for Cmd-clicking; new tab without moving focus if you Cmd+Shift-click), but they silently switched it around at some point. Chrome is the same.

This makes no sense, and it’s annoying as hell, even if it is just a tiny little thing. If you need to open a link in the background and stay on the site where you are, chances are (in my case at least) it’s because I’m opening multiple tabs at once. In that case, I’m prepared to move my hands the extra bit and hold down Cmd+Shift, no problem.

Just opening regular links in new tabs, though (which I do all the time), shouldn’t require having to do that. A simple mouse click should be all that it takes.

Or, at the very least, there should be an option (like there is in Safari) for whether you want to move focus to new tabs by default or not.

Apart from this one thing, I find Chrome and Safari pretty much on par for everything else, except the UI, where I also prefer Safari. Oh, and my badminton club’s netbanking, which suddenly (and randomly) stopped working properly in Safari, much to the confusion and distress of the developers behind it who couldn’t figure out what Apple suddenly changed.

besson3c · Mar 19, 2011, 12:27 AM

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna

Occasionally. Today, I decided to load up a bunch of links to read and was surprised how well Chrome handled it. Safari would have stalled once or twice when switching between tabs.

But, Chrome auto-plays video in tabs loaded in the background. That's completed unacceptable and I can't figure out how to stop it.

Yeah, I can see how that would be annoying... What do you mean by "videos" though? Both Flash and HTML5 videos that are set to start on click work accordingly for me.

lpkmckenna · 01:27 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Yeah, I can see how that would be annoying... What do you mean by "videos" though?

Any video. Just tested it with Apple.com, youtube, and liveleak.

Both Flash and HTML5 videos that are set to start on click work accordingly for me.

And how do you change that setting?

EDIT: ok, forget it, just found out you have to download an extension to halt this. Ridiculous, but I guess it solves the problem.

EDIT2: ok, the ext I added only stops video from youtube, but you can manually add other websites to also stop auto-play. How much more ridiculously user-hostile can you get?

EDIT3, ok, did a search in Chrome's store for an ext that blocked all video, seemed to work, but then didn't block auto-play from Apple.com. This situation is friggin crazy. Why is core functionality offloaded to third-party extension writers?

EDIT4: also doesn't block auto-play on LiveLeak, G4, or Break.

besson3c · Mar 19, 2011, 01:19 AM

I didn't download an extension, but I'll pay closer attention to this next time

P · Mar 19, 2011, 08:36 AM

Originally Posted by Oisín

There’s one thing that really bugs me about Chrome (and the newest versions of Opera, too, but not—if I recall correctly, Firefox):

When Cmd-clicking a link or clicking on a link with the middle button on your mouse, it opens the link in a new tab, but doesn’t move focus to that tab. This is ridiculous. It completely ruins the advantage of having a super-easy way of opening links in new tabs.

Really? I've set Safari to act that way as well (except I middleclick, but...same thing). It's the way I read these forums, for instance - open a bunch of tabs for all the threads that look interesting and close the front tab when I've selected all that I want. This means that I never have to wait for a page to load and render - they've all done that by the time I get to them.

macintologist · Mar 21, 2011, 10:57 PM

What pisses me off about Chrome is no support for fullscreen video.

My favorite Safari extension is Youtube5 Vertical Forest :: YouTube5 Version 2

There is a Chrome version, but you can't do native full screen.

What also pisses me off is sometimes when I make a new tab, type in a search time and hit Return, nothing happens. I have to do it again for it to work.

Young Spade · Apr 1, 2011, 04:38 PM

I have been using Chrome for a little over a year now, first with my netbook because of the light footprint it has on the system and now with my new MacBook. I love it for its speed and minimalistic look.

When getting my new Mac, I instantly installed Crome and synced my bookmarks and whatnot.