Experimentation

[trixtah]

...of the not that compelling kind. I had a go with Google's new browser, Chrome, today. It's very nice, very fast-loading and I like what you can do with tabs and the address/search bar. The separate memory space for each tab is nice too. However, I want more configurability - I like to set my browser fonts to a kind and size that I can read easily, and the options in Chrome are worse than IE's (since from what I can tell, you can only do "normal" "bigger" "smaller" rather than setting a default font size, let alone a font face or a minimum font size).

I also realised just how much I don't want to browse without an ad-blocker ever again. I use IE7Pro at work, and Adblock Plus in Firefox. I actually don't mind Google ads - so if they built an ad-blocker that didn't restrict their own by default, it wouldn't bother me - but all winking blinking colour monstrosties that take up half of a page drive me up the wall.

So, I think I'll wait for the next Firefox upgrade, since it apparently has a fantastic javascript engine coming up as well. Of course, I can't use Firefox at work - it's blocked due to "security concerns" (the irony, it burns us).

Comments

[adamthebastard.livejournal.com]

I've used Chrome a bit on my desktop at home and haven't really been that impressed. It's nifty and all but I'm still getting lockups over the whole browser when a new tab isn't sure what it's up to.

I don't like the order in which new tabs open when middle clicking and I don't like that selecting text and doing a rightclick Google search switches to the new tab. I also find it quite slow to initialise new tabs but this could be because of my machine being overworked or my net connection being lagy.

It is full of nifty concepts though and I'm looking forward to what it means for the other browsers.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

I haven't had many problems with lag myself, but yeah, not ready yet. I find it particularly amusing that you can't log on to any of the Google sites at all from behind a proxy.

I definitely think it'll be a good thing to raise the game of the other browsers.

[ironed_orchid]

I haven't played with chrome yet, but I'm with you on ad blockers. I use flash block, too, which makes any flash ona page a matter of my choosing to click it and view. When I use other people's puters, or IE, I remember that the interweb is still full of ugly ads.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, Flashblock is the bees knees. I use IE7Pro on IE, which is actually a decent ad- and flash-blocker once you turn off all the crap that wants to overwrite your search engine and suchlike. It's the only way I find browsing at work possible.