Jeff Rock

Google Chrome for Mac Beta: First Impressions

Duck, duck, goose!

I was extremely hesitant to download Chrome because I’m very comfortable with Safari. You know, if it’s not broken, etc. A few of the developers I know in Richmond convinced me to give it a try though, so I’ve decided to give it a week to change my mind.

Anyway, here’s a few thoughts after using Chrome exclusively for 2 days.

It’s fast. Like really, really fast. I’m not sure why Safari 4 feels so sluggish in comparison but the speed improvement is very noticeable on both my 3 month old Mac Pro and my 9 month old MacBook Pro.
The address bar is wonderful. Integrated real-time Google search results? Yes, please. It also searches inside a handful of site search engines right from the address bar. For example, to search facebook.com for something you simply start typing facebook and then you’ll notice a prompt to hit the tab button. Once you do, you can direct-search the site from the Chrome address bar.

The Webkit developer tools are built in. They look terrible in Chrome, but they’re included and if you’ve ever used them you know you can’t go back.
Tab management is well executed. While not as pretty as Safari, tearing and merging tabs is exquisite. My only niggle is that the close tab button is on the wrong side.
The “New tab” page is lovely. Site thumbnails are well proportioned and your bookmarks sit at the top if you don’t have your bookmark bar shown. There’s even a recently closed bar at the bottom. Well thought out all the way around.
There’s a “Reopen closed tab” command. Need I say more?
It’s very stable for a beta. In fact I’ve not experienced one tab crash yet. Just don’t look at how how much Chrome is “helping” in your Activity Monitor. Yikes!

(Yes, I realize that there’s one process per rendered tab.)

Select and search. How many times a day do you select an error message (or anything really) and paste it into the search bar? Highlight and click “Search Google for…” Boom. New tab with your results.

Now for some of the less positive points.

It’s ugly. And not just the robo-bellybutton icon. The entire toolbar icon set is glaringly heavy-handed, especially the back, forward, home and bookmark art.
I can’t seem to remember to stop looking for Safari. Yes this is a personal problem, but whenever I go to access my browser I have a micro panic attack because I can’t find it. And then I remember that I’m not using Safari. And then I see the Blade Runner beach ball and think to myself, “Jesus that thing looks terrible” and I click it. Hopefully this will work its self out over the next couple days.
Inline define is missing. I want my control+command+D! It’s Webkit for pete’s sake. Why is it missing?
The pop-up status bar can get annoying. On a non-white page it’s very irritating to roll over links. I can’t seem to find a way to leave it on or off all the time.
Chrome for Mac is a second-class citizen. Even in beta form there’s a ton of stuff missing that the Linux folks get and we don’t. I hope this isn’t indicative of Chrome’s future on OS X.

Overall I’m very impressed. Keep those updates coming!