My Thoughts on Chrome (aka, “Why I’m Not Going Back to Safari”)
I’ve been using Chrome for Mac on and off since before the official beta for Mac was released and it has slowly taken over as my default browser for several reasons.
- Speed - Chrome has been hands-down faster for me than Safari. App launch and page loading times are noticeably quicker than in Safari.
- Homepage/New Tab Page - I’ve found this to be a great launch page. It’s quick loading time and minimal look make it top Safari’s Top Sites for me. It also includes recently closed tabs (handy when you accidentally close a tab but it’s awhile back in your history).
- All-in-one “Omnibox” address and search bar - The built-in search (along with the ability to type a TLD such as “wikipedia.org”, hit the tab key, and search that site) is simple and quick.
The combination of these things make Chrome irresistible. Even if it’s still a beta and a little rough around the edges, it’s still replaced Safari as my everyday browser. Extension support will be icing on the cake once it’s available on the Mac.
That being said, I’d like to see inline PDF viewing and automatic file opening for .zip and automatic mounting for .dmg files, two things Safari has that are marvelous.
