Spaced-OoooO-Out ::

So, a year and a half after I blogged about Chrome being released I am finally making the switch from Firefox 3.6. Firefox remains an excellent browser, certainly better the Internet Explorer and less open to exploits, but its popularity is driving greater work on its security. From the off Chrome has been lightning fast on both startup and rendering webpages, particularly heavy javascript pages. Firefox has been bogged down by its greatest success: extensions. Just load both at the same time and the difference is staggering. Firefox desparately needs a more robust extension model which means a change and driving away many extension writers. The announcement that Chrome now supports extensions caused a lot of buzz and there are now a really good selection. So much so that most of my everyday browsing needs are catered for. As ever, PortableApps offer a portable version that you can install the extensions into. Current extensions are:

AutoCopy
Bookmark Tree
BugMeNot Lite
Downloads
FlashBlock
Google Dictionary
Metro Map
Mini Google Maps
Minimize Chrome to Tray
Simple Calendar
Snake
Type ahead fine
Webpage Screenshot
Wikipedia Companion

(and for academics that use BlackBoard Chrome is an absolute must. BlackBoard is a poor piece of web software at the best of times, laden with bloat. The “new” Grade Center is a fine example of this; good facilities but painful to watch loading in to Firefox and in IE… well I gave up bothering. In Chrome it loads extremely rapidly. So Chrome is the perfect companion for BlackBoard)