Despite being perceived by others as a die-hard Mac fangirl (not confirming, not denying), I wasn't always a devoted Safari user. When I bought my first Mac in 2005, I used Firefox because I considered it the best cross-platform browser at the time. This was helpful since I also used Windows on a regular basis (hey, I like PC games, okay?!). It wasn't until February 2009 that I began to use Safari as my default browser. That was when the public beta of Safari 4 was released. It was fast, it was slick, and I made the decision to say goodbye to Firefox for good. Since then, I've had a completely monogamous relationship with Safari for all my serious web browsing needs.
Until today. <insert dramatic music here>
I thought it was time to see what all the fuss was about with Google Chrome for Mac (beta). Sure, I'd tried it before, a little bit, but not enough to come to a proper conclusion. In all honesty, I didn't give it a fair go because I was content with using Safari (the way it integrates with everything Mac, especially MobileMe bookmark syncing to my iPhone, is a hard thing to give up). Today, however, a developer release with extension support was announced. The one thing I always liked about Firefox was its extension support, and it was something I always missed from the switch to Safari.
I've been playing around with Google Chrome for the better part of a day now. I've found a bunch of extensions that I've already sworn allegiance to, and found a few little quirks and details in Chrome that I've fallen in love with. Here are my top five likes:
- The user interface. Google Chrome is a real slick beast. It doesn't feel like a native Mac app, but it has a refreshing UI that I have to say makes Safari look and feel a bit dated. From the look of the toolbar buttons to the way the tabs open and close, to being able to search Google from the address bar, everything is very simple, elegant, and polished. I'm surprised at Google's attention to detail for the Mac client. Then again, the Mac version has been cooking for quite a while while the Windows users looked upon us and laughed.
- Pinned tabs and the New Tab page. Being able to pin or anchor tabs in the tab bar and have them only show their favicon is a feature I didn't realise I needed 'til I had it. The New Tab page is also welcome since I got really attached to Safari's Top Sites page. That said, I replaced the New Tab page with an extension called Speed Dial, which works the same way but allows further customisation (background colour, more than eight pinned pages, etc). It works fantastically well. All my favourite sites just a click away.
- EXTENSION SUPPORT! Can't leave this one out. I'm generally a fan of Apple's locked down approach to their products, but when it comes to a web browser, a bit of customisation never goes astray. A web browser can be a very personal thing, you know. My Google Reader and Google Wave item counts are shown right on my toolbar now thanks to Google Reader Notifier and Google Wave Notifier respectively. Fittr Flickr is awesome, too. Know any other goodies? Lemme know!
- Bookmark synchronisation to your Google account. I don't have much use for this personally as I use MobileMe and Xmarks to sync my bookmarks to other browsers and devices, but just having this feature included is a giant step up and gives bonus points to Chrome. Bookmark syncing can be a major pain in the arse. This takes all the pain out of it for the average computer user.
- Performance. I'm running the developer release of Google Chrome because, at this moment, it's the only version with extension support. Google has stated that "the Dev channel can be very unstable at times" which is fair enough, but I'm yet to experience any stability issues. But, once extension support hits the beta release, I'll probably switch to it. Chrome is also blazing fast, and I haven't noticed any speed differences between Chrome and Safari, despite Safari supposedly being slightly faster in JavaScript rendering tests. I don't care much for numbers. Chrome feels pretty damn fast.
So, that's what I do like. Now here are the things that irk me somewhat:
- The "close" buttons on tabs are positioned on the wrong side. On the Mac, they should always go on the left. In Chrome, they're on the right, presumably to match Google Chrome clients on other platforms. It's a minor detail, and one I'll get used to, but it does niggle at me a bit.
- Bookmark synchronisation. Yes, this was listed as a positive point, but it's also a negative for the moment and for my current situation. I used to have a great and simple system for this. It's called MobileMe. All of my Safari bookmarks would get synced all the time, and automagically appear on my iPhone and any of my computers, both Mac and Windows (using Safari on Windows). To get the same result when using Chrome, I tried the complex system of syncing bookmarks via Xmarks for Chrome and Xmarks for Safari to get them to show up in both browsers, and then sync via MobileMe to also appear on my iPhone. No good. Too many issues, and MobileMe would constantly whinge and complain about x% of my bookmarks being changed (and I dare not hide this popup window in fear of something terrible happening.... which it once did; l lost all my bookmarks at one point, so hooray for backups). Thus, I'm now solely using Xmarks for cross-browser bookmarks syncing, and then syncing manually to my iPhone via iTunes. Not as pretty, but still functional enough. For now.
- Web page scrolling is a little jerky. It isn't terrible, but Safari scrolls like butter in comparison, especially with the new Magic Mouse. It's a shame because I've become a quite the mouse user (when did that happen? The keyboard used to be my best friend!). Perhaps the scrolling will improve in future releases. I'm hoping so, as it's the type of issue I know will get on my nerves after a while.
- Bookmarks Bar folder open/close "issue". In Safari, when I click on a Bookmarks Bar folder, it will display all my bookmarks for that folder in a pop-up menu. When I click the folder again, it closes the menu. Clicking a second time on a folder in Google Chrome doesn't close the menu. It just opens up the menu all over again, like it's refreshing it. So, if you decide you don't want to open a web page from that specific folder after all, you have to click elsewhere. Annoying and unintuitive and not very Mac-like.
- Google Chrome for Mac seems to take aaaages to develop. C'mon, guys! Pull your socks up! :)
And there we have it. They're mostly minor issues for the negative points, which is always a good sign. I'll continue to use Chrome until I have a real reason to stop and switch back to Safari, but right now I don't see any reason to. Chrome for Mac is pretty solid, even the dev release, and extension support is something I've sorely missed.
Hello Google Chrome and welcome to my computer. May we have a very long and happy relationship together.
And, Safari... If it doesn't work out, please take me back.
