Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Five reasons to use Google Chrome

Posted by Tyler King

I have an annoying habit of evangelizing certain technologies to just about anyone I talk with. One of the most common programs I recommend is Chrome, a relatively new web browser from Google. I've been asked to defend my love of Chrome enough times that I figured I'd publish it online for posterity.

So here are some reasons why Chrome is a great browser. I don't think that any of the features are completely unique, but I don't know of any other browser that can compete with Chrome on all, or even most of these.

Pull-away tabs

This feature is particularly useful if you use multiple monitors (which you absolutely should). When you have a bunch of tabs open in one browser window, you can just click on one and drag it anywhere else on the screen and it breaks it off into a new window. Some people don't think this sounds useful, but I assure you, it's incredibly useful.

Speed

Sure there are plenty of measurable ways to demonstrate how fast Chrome is, but you really just need to use it to understand how much faster it feels. Now that Chrome is my main browser, it's painful how slow everything else seems. This includes, starting the application, loading pages, and executing javascript code.

Search built into the address bar

There is absolutely no reason for browsers to have an address bar and a separate bar for search queries. With Chrome, you type whatever you're looking for into one bar. If it's a URL, it takes you to the website. Otherwise, it does a Google search. It also guesses what you're looking for so if you aren't sure what the exact URL is or what the right search terms are, Chrome will make suggestions as you type.

Lots of vertical real-estate

For some reason, browsers were originally designed with a status bar at the bottom, a file menu at the top, plus the normal bar at the top that almost all applications have. This means that there there's a lot of wasted space so your screen isn't being used efficiently. Chrome makes smart use of space. It's as if Google actually understands that the reason I use a web browser is to look at web sites.

Easy updates

One of my biggest pet peeves with Firefox is that almost every time I open it, I'm either asked to install updates to the browser or extensions or I'm told that updates were recently installed (like I care). It often takes several minutes for me to just open the browser. With Chrome, everything happens in the background when you aren't using it. The browser stays up to date, but you don't have to worry about a thing.

So those are the main things I like about Chrome. If you haven't tried it, I really recommend it (obviously). Is there anything I forgot to mention here?

Tags: Using Technology, Software, Chrome, Google

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