Open Sauce Software

Chrome looked good, but after a few days, the missing features, and poor performance meant I've relegated it to an optional browser.

Despite the promise that tabs would run independently, I found that all my tabs seized up when one went Sad (maybe it was just a temporary halt, but it was bad enough).

Chrome may be optimised for Java and AJAX, but it's pants at Flash, and that means a lot of the links I click on seize up or give poor performance. This includes Google's own YouTube, and news pages with Flash adverts on them, that Chrome doesn't allow me to block easily.

Plug-ins are out of control. PDFs in the browser kill Chrome - that's no surprise; they kill Firefox too, on my PC. But in Firefox I can set a default to download the PDFs, and open them in FoxIt. In Chrome I have to spot PDF links and download them manuarlly.

Searching for Images and News, and searching within a given site, are much more fiddly in the Chrome Omnibox than in a Google Toolbar like the one on Firefox.

Chrome looked good, but it turns out, it's a major drag on actually working.

I'll give it another look if it changes, but for now, it's off my Start menu.

Chrome is still my default browser, and there are everyday things I can't do so easily in it as in Firefox. Perversely. I think what I want is a Google Toolbar for Chrome...

The issues come down to a couple of things.
1. The browser is delightfully simplified -but I get less control.
2. It doesn't give me good streaming media
3. It doesn't have features I regularly use in add-ons like Google Toolbar - and there's no API for people to add them.

I'm still finding how to use Chrome best, of course. And some if it is my set-up. I have a five year old PC, running XP on 1.5G of RAM, using a below-average broadband service (1.5M now, but heavily contended in the afternoon), and with lots of stuff like IM and Skype running.

But here's some thoughts.

1. It doesn't play streaming media well for me.

Live Radio 3 in the BBC iPlayer stutters and gets into little two-second loops. Listen-again programmes and things like YouTube work well. The underlying problem may be my broadband, but Internet radio worked better in Firefox for me. .

2. Too many tabs and It seizes up.

Memory usage? Or unresponsive plugins?

3. Opening PDFs in Chrome is worse than useless.

Firefox is just as bad, but I can instruct Firefox not to open PDFs, but to download them. PDFs within Chrome open with a plug in, and are always unresponsive, but I haven't found a way to alter the way it handles content types, so I have actively remember to download them and open them locally.

4. Searching News, or searching within a site, and other types of search, take more clicks.

Searching News, Images, or searching within a site are drop down options in the Firefox Google Toolbar. They take a bit more work in Chrome - unless I'm missing some shortcuts.

If I want to search for News or Images, it's just a matter of an extra click, after I've done the vanilla Google search, but I'd like an option for these searches to show up in the box that drops down when I start typing.

Searching within the current site is harder. At the moment, I type in site:www.zdnet.co.uk and then my search term.

Is there an easier way to do this?

5. And then there's Adblock. Running a separate Privoxy proxy on my machine is not an ideal way to block adverts (though there is a certain amount to recommend it).

Obviously, I wouldn't suggest readers abstain from the display adverts that pay for the whole ZDNet enterprise, but help is at hand for those who use Adblock in Firefox, and want something similar in Chrome.

Adblock users have asked Adblock creator Wladimir Palant to make an Adblock for Chrome - but there's a problem. Chrome isn't extendible.

It doesn't have an API for extentions, the way Firefox does.

Also, since Google's raison d'etre is serving ads, the company isn't likely to make it a priority to allow users to block ads. Indeed, a Cnet colleague, Ina Fried, has pored over the Ts and Cs, and thinks Google might be planning to actually deliver ads in the browser, not in the content (not a likely thing right now, but keep your eyes open).

There's an online community that wants to build its own Adblock-like plug in, using Gears.

But there is a way to block ads now. It's more fiddly than adding an extension, but Privoxy is a web proxy that runs locally and filters ads.

I'd nearly forgotten about Privoxy - I used to use it when ads were playing hell with my old dial-up connection, and from what I remember, it's good (and many thanks to TechnoBabel for reminding me of it.

The download opened about fifteen minutes ago, and I'm now watching the Chrome press conference in Chrome - and I'm also writing this post in another Chrome tab I dragged onto the desktop.

Works well so far.

Oh yes - and we have the origin of the name. "Chrome" is web designer speak for the shiny junk you get all round your browser - toolbars and so forth. The chrome browser gets rid of it all.

The press conference is still on, and enthusiasm is high. Here's my thoughts so far.

Chrome could grab land from Windows. There are so-called "Pinocchio" apps, where tabs become separate windows, without the browser UI. This means I can have Google Mail running without interference from the rest of the browser. If it works out, I'll be running fewer apps from Windows, and more from the browser.

It's also going to be good on phones, because it uses less screen and fewer clicks - it's got less UI round the outside, and it has predictive text taking you to your favourite sites.

As Rupert said earlier, if this doesn't work as claimed, it will be the biggest IT disappointment for a long time.