Google Chrome: The Best & The Worst

For those of you who are internet savvy enough to know what a "browser" is, you're probably aware (or at least you should be) that Google released the first version of it's very own browser, Chrome, around October of last year.

What you might not be aware of, however, is that Chrome, while trounced by IE and FF in overall browser market share, is leaps and bounds faster and more streamlined than any other browser.

I have been seriously tempted to use Chrome for this reason alone.

However, I've been forced to put Chrome on the shelf in favor of FF, for the time being, for the following reasons:

1. No AdBlock Plus
2. No FAYT
3. No other serious addons
4. No SalesForce integration

If you don't know what AdBlock Plus is, you need to stop what you're doing (including using IE) and install it in FireFox right now. You know all of those obnoxious (and often filthy/sleazy) ads that infest your guarded Web page space? AdBlock Plus effectively eliminates all of the junk and leaves your pages clean (in more way than one) and unobstructed. Observe the difference. Can you guess which screen shot is from which browser (note that it's the same page).









I presume you can figure it out.

Next, other than RoW, you probably haven't heard of FAYT before. It's an addon in FF which stands for Find As You Type. The keyboard enthusiast seriously can't live without it and Google just doesn't seem to care (at least not yet). In FF, the default is for the generic (and very watered down) version of FAYT to be turned off. When I searched around for a good answer as to why Chrome doesn't have any kind of FAYT functionality, the answer was that some big shot at Google thinks it would confuse people to have it on by default and Google's aim is to make Chrome as widget free as possible (in other words, have the browser please the majority of users and ignore unique options).

Along with FAYT, I have a few other addons I love, including Cool Iris (for Google images) and Better Gmail 2. FAYT and AdBlock Plus are, admittedly, necessities, while the others are "nice."

Finally, I had the grand idea yesterday that since Chrome is so much snappier than FF and IE that I would use it for my daily work load in SalesForce (just think of it as Outlook for salesmen). To be short in writing, I live, eat, breathe, and die in SalesForce, so having it run a lot faster would be like going from a GoCart to a Ferrari. Sadly enough, SalesForce works fine with Chrome unless I want to send emails in our HTML templates which is, at least, 50-60% of my daily activity. Maybe one day, when Chrome captures more than just 1% of the overall market share and more than .005% of SalesForce users, it will be adopted and make my day that much faster.

As a final gee whiz, let me share a brief insight from one of our principal owners at Qualtrics, Jared Smith. Jared, along with helping to run Qualtrics, is a chief officer for Google Asia.

Admittedly, Google doesn't make a lot of money on things like its mobile phone operating system, Android or Chrome or even the famed Google Earth. Google makes these kinds of applications to make things like the Web better. MORE POWER TO 'EM.

I just hope they'll implement the four requests soon . . .