Why Google Gets The Browser With Chrome

Aside from speed. I made the full migration from FireFox over the past week, in those odd moments I wasn’t otherwise swamped. Now I see what Google understands about the browser, that Microsoft has missed, FireFox lost and Apple will take it’s own, misguided role with Safari on.

Internet Explorer:
Bogs itself down trying to do everything and doing nothing. Weak on “extensions” and add-ons, slower than all of them out there and working far too hard to keep you in the Microsoft ecosystem. But then I am a Mac user after all.

Safari:
Makes for a nice “clean” experience, fast enough as a browser, but not much in the way of “extensions”, in fact, practically nothing. It’s certainly smooth as a UI and I like it sometimes. But it’s not for the power user.

FireFox:
Dear good old FireFox, still a favourite, but it’s been bogged down and slow lately. I’ve had to re-install several times and it keeps dropping my preferences. I just got fed up and decided to try Chrome. I had a lot of tools on FireFox, our software controls, testing gadgets and SEO tools. It was a workhorse.

Chrome:
I spend upwards of 30 hours a week online doing research, using our research webware and a whole bunch of Social Media tools (after all that’s my company) and so I’m a power user. I use Google Apps and Google Docs, Wave, Buzz, Gmail Chat, Twitter, Evernote and a host of other apps constantly.

And this is where Google has set a new standard with the browser. The way the apps can be accessed without opening new tabs or windows and interacted with quickly to do the things you need to do and then return back to your sessions in the tabs.

As we’re moving more and more of our leisure and work activities into the digital space, the browser plays an increasingly important role. While the “cloud” is still not there for many processor intensive apps (i.e. photoshop and heavy design or spreadsheets) and the Web isn’t prevalent enough, it’s getting there.

Even better, Chrome has the ability to add all these services but unlike Explorer, it doesn’t bog you down with all the unnecessary processor actions. I suspect as people get the hang of doing more and more within the browser, Chrome will advance. As it should. Take note FireFox.