Why I'm Not Using Google Chrome

Google ChromeImage by Matrixizationized via Flickr

As readers of my blog may have noticed, I'm a heavy Google user. I use Google as my primary search engine, I use GoogleDocs, Blogger, Gmail, GoogleVoice, etc., and I eagerly await an invitation to try out Wave. When Google Chrome was released, I immediately downloaded it and started using it exclusively for awhile. I have noticed that I'm using it less every day, though, so I thought I'd take a look at my usage patterns to see if I could identify the source of my discontent.

The first, and probably most important, thing I noticed was that I rely on a large number of Firefox extensions: Delicious, FireShot, Zotero, ScribeFire, WebNotes, Zemanta, Twitter Bar....My Firefox browser has become my Personal Learning Environment (PLE). At this point, Chrome offers very little of this functionality, although that may change.

Secondly, although Chrome loads much faster than Firefox, and renders pages faster, there are pages that don't load properly. Also, even though each tab operates in its own environment, the whole thing does crash on me occasionally, contrary to Google's claims for Chrome--more so than Firefox. This really interrupts my work flow.

I will point out that Chrome does load quickly. I also like the layout--the way it makes good use of the entire window. I'm also sure that Google will be adding tools and functionality, and that developers will probably release Chrome versions of my favorite tools. For now, however, I'll stick with Firefox.

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