Un-Chromatic

[kerravonsen]

I've been trying out the Google Chrome browser, because Firefox is a resource hog.
Verdict: very very close, but no cigar.
It is fast, it is lean, it is pretty. Why, then, am I leaving it cigarless?

1. It doesn't support MHT format, and there aren't any extensions which support MHT format either.

What is MHT format? It's a file format which saves a whole web page (including images) in one file. I only recently discovered Firefox's extension which understands MHT format, but I've found it very convenient for saving web pages offline for reference. But if I can't read those web pages in Chrome, well, that's a problem.

2. All extensions are disabled when accessing pages at google.com.
Yes, this is understandable as a security measure when people are downloading extensions, but... it also means that my extensions are disabled when I am SEARCHING on Google. That is really, really annoying. What's the use of installing Vrome (the closest thing that Chrome has to Firefox's Vimperator extension) when I can no longer use my keyboard shortcuts when searching for stuff on the net?

3. A niggle with Vrome: it remaps Control-N (new window) to Next Tab; that's okay, that's what I'm used to with Vimperator. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide a "new window" shortcut of its own (while Vimperator does). So I can't open a new window with a keyboard shortcut. This, also, is annoying.

4. Showstopper: I couldn't get Vrome to work with Dreamwidth posting to post this very post. I couldn't open an external editor with the Control-I shortcut. No, I don't know why.

Perhaps I might have been willing to put up with one of these defects, but not all of them. I'm not ruling out Chrome completely, but I shall wait until it improves.

Then I tried out Opera. Bah! It was worse than Firefox. It drove me nuts. I'd click on a link and randomly Opera would decide to sit there and think and chew up 100% of the CPU before it would give me the page in question. It wouldn't read my MHT files even though MHT support is supposed to be native to Opera. I couldn't find any useful extensions, just toys. Lots and lots of toys. Most importantly, nothing that was equivalent to Vimperator. So for my purposes, Opera was also worse than Chrome. (sigh)

(Cross-posted from my journal)

Comments

[melannen]

Yeah, I have noticed with Opera that MHT files saved in Opera seem to only open in Opera; I wouldn't be surprised if the reverse also applies.

[cimorene]

Opera Linux is notoriously buggy, which is a bummer that they seem to put no efforts towards fixing. I still can't stand Firefox, though.

[kerravonsen]

What browser do you use, then?

[nafs]

Interesting and timely post. I spent about half an hour this morning trying to find hacks to make Firefox run more quickly on my Aspire One. It's starting to drive me a little nuts, especially as Firefox seems to get slower with each update.

[feathertail]

Epiphany's nice! The recent move to Webkit caused more problems than it fixed ... but hopefully it'll give them a more stable platform to build from.

[tonybaldwin]

Chrome is definitely faster. I've been using it since about December as my default browser.
Several minor issues:

• the adblock plugins (tried 2) really slow the browser down, instead of speed it up...weird


• with bookmark synch, occasionally chrome seems to crank up CPU use while synching


• Also, for some reason, some video files (mpg, wmv) don't show in my chrome on my Ubuntu laptop, while working fine on my debian desktop...also weird.


• the pdf view plugin is a little buggy, sometimes (I end up wget-ing some pdf files and using evince to view them on my machine)


• Aside from that stuff, I just totally dig it, because it's worlds faster, mostly, and doesn't lock up on my life FF does.

In truth, I switched because FF kept running the CPU up like mad, anyway, and locking itself up, so, chrome isn't so bad in that respect: uses a lot of CPU, but less than FF.
FF does have more options for handling of mailto: links, I think (gmail, yahoo mail, or, of course, any mail client, like thunderbird, evolution, or even mutt can play with FF).
But since I just use my two gmail accts to collect all my mail from the various domains I own, chrome works fine for me in that respect, as well.

I also tried Opera, but it used way too much CPU, and, within an hour of downloading and installing it, I succeeded in locking it up and crashing it. I then proceeded to remove it. I prefer to use Free (as in speech) software, anyway.
Konqueror and Epiphany are both decent, but, I believe Chrome gives me more useful extensions, and integrates nicely with the tonso google services I use.

[tonybaldwin]

doesn't lock up on me, like FF (not doesn't lock up on my life.... ??)

[onceamy]

I couldn't get YakShave (which is supposed to make Chrome have keybindings in the style of Emacs, or Vi [I need the former, from an accessibility point of view]) working.

Chrome's fun, but not having Scrapbook or a Firemacs equivalent rules out me using it as my main browser. It is cute though.