A year of Google Chrome

A year ago Google bumped into the browser market with Chrome.

I used Firefox for years and think it's a great browser with plenty of features. However for some reason, on October last year I wasn't really happy about Firefox's load time and memory management so I decided to give Chrome a chance. The very first time I used Chrome I was confused. Simply put, Chrome consisted of a tab bar, an address bar, a bookmarks bar and space to show websites:

Chrome had no extensions, no extra toolbars nor even a download window. Chrome felt odd. On top of this, browsing was unstable and bookmarks unmanageable. After a few hours using Chrome, I went straight back to the good old Firefox. After all, Chrome was just in the beta stage.

I continued to use Firefox for months until around May this year I got tired of memory leaks and load time again. I tried Safari this time first but it didn't solve either of my problems so Chrome popped into the picture for the second time. This time the release was no longer a beta and Chrome's market share has doubled, which meant some improvement.

My experience was completely different. To start, Chrome solved both problems. Memory management in Chrome makes each tab independent. If you hit Ctrl + Alt + Del (Windows only) you will see a process for each open tab. Therefore, if one particular tab is causing memory leak, you can kill the process and problem solved. Even so, what impressed me most about Chrome were the load times. Loading Firefox from cold would take about 5 seconds plus, at the very start, the program wouldn't be fully responsive. Chrome loaded practically instantaneously, nothing else to say.

Apart from these two issues, I mentioned I was worried Chrome wouldn't substitute Firefox entirely. It is true that Chrome is a less powerful browser but after using it for a while I discovered I didn't need all the extra features. Chrome makes my browsing a lot simpler by maximizing the websites' display size and not cluttering the screen with toolbars and buttons.

Since I installed Chrome the second time I've been using it both at work and home as my main browser. Chrome makes browsing simpler, faster and user friendlier.