I have spent a few days with Chrome for Mac. I have a few observations. First, the negatives. Chrome is not noticeably faster than Safari or Firefox. I am running it on a 2.53Ghz Core2 Duo Mac, running Snow Leopard. This is not a hardware issue. The only site I have had problems with, on Chrome, has been Gmail. The problems have been regular and frequent. That’s irony. When Chrome is minimized, and I click on the Chrome dock icon, the toolbar opens, but the window stays minimized. I don’t like not being able to drag the favicon to the desktop and make it a shortcut. I don’t like the way downloads work in Chrome. I want to be able to set my downloads window to clear after downloads have completed. I also don’t want to see my downloads in the main window… even at the bottom. Give me my screen space back.
With the negatives out of the way, I will get to the positives. Overall, Chrome has been stable, easy to learn, and functional. Considering every browser has issues, Chrome is a worthy contender. Like most other browsers, Chrome makes Internet Explorer (any version) look pitiful.
So far, the negatives outweigh the positives, but I won’t give up yet. I will continue to use Chrome… along with Safari and Firefox. It is always good to have a few good browsers, and I think Chrome has a bright future.
