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RSS FeedJuly 8th, 2011
Google’s aggressive Chrome positioning
As I waded through my computer migration today (a new Dell Latitude E 6510, replacing my Dell Latitude E 6500 after about 18 months of heavy use), couldn’t help but notice that Google is positioning Chrome very aggressively. Almost every program that I downloaded and installed on my comp (Skype, Winzip, Earth, PasswordSafe, SlickRun), came with the pre-checked “option” to “Include Chrome and make it my default browser”. Seems to be a bit of a desperate measure by Google, but looking at the recent performance by Chrome, it appears that strategy is working for Google. After all, how many people are going to carefully look at all program installation options. But that argument only gets Chrome on peoples’ machines. To actually get people to use it, Google is playing a slightly different game, promoting Chrome within specific uses, translation between one of them.
September 15th, 2009
XMarks
This is one browser extensions that I find very helpful. It is such a simple add on, but keeps the bookmarks on my home PC, work PC, laptop, netbook all synchronized. I just discovered that it now frees me up to organize my favorites wherever I am. Earlier, I would avoid organizing my favorites knowing very well that I also have to do it at 3 places, so inertia had a value. Now, being organized has a value, and I love it!
Here is the link to xmarks: http://www.xmarks.com/
December 14th, 2008
Chrome
I just spent about 40 minutes looking at the comic book describing Google’s shiny new browser. Really loved the comic book (and the ideas that Chrome has been built on). Then, I downloaded Chrome, and noticed that my default way of using Firefox isn’t so compatible with Chrome. In Firefox, I go to my bookmarks using my magic codes, starting with Alt-B to open the bookmarks. For example, my magic code to come to this blog is: Alt B -> G -> S (for Bookmarks -> bloGs -> Software Journal).
Perhaps Chrome’s way of typing into the universal bar will take some getting used to, but as you know, the problem with browsers is that we are not so tolerant.
December 8th, 2008
Scope for improvement for IE
Browser wars are over, in a way. Firefox at this point has a really strong following and the latest browser statistics show it neck to neck with IE 6 + 7. I personally use both, and I am a bit surprised that there are some essential features in Firefox, that IE lacks. I am not really sure if the IE team has not noticed these, or if they have decided not to implement those features for a reason.
- Ability to close a selected non focused tab. In Firefox, you can close the tabs other than the current one by clicking on that tab’s delete (X) button. In IE 7, you cant – you have to first move to that tab, and then close that one (the X only shows for the active tab). Both IE and FF have a “Right click -> Close other tabs” option though.
- Ability to highlight some text and search for it. In Firefox, you can select some text, right click, and do search (using whichever search engine is your default). No such feature in IE7.
- Ability to load bookmarks from one file. When moving between computers, it is so easy to move full firefox settings by simply copying the profile folder, or at least copying the bookmarks by using the file import export. No such option in IE7.
- Addons are very limited for IE. Granted that these addons are made by independent developers, but still, for an end user, this is an important advantage in Firefox.
Perhaps these features are coming in IE8, but that is still in beta.
November 13th, 2007
Firefox has problems?? Heaven forbid!
Once upon a time, IE used to dominate the web. People loved it, people hated it, but that was all there was. There was a bit of Netscape, a bit of Mozilla Mosaic, together for a total of whopping 1.6%. Rest was IE.
Complainers would complain – oh IE sucks – oh it is unsafe – oh it is not cool. And crashes, my God, yes the crashes.
Then along came the Firefox, slowly starting to take a bit of share, nibbling at 5%, then up to lower teens, then to 20s, until it came to almost 50%.
Skeptics told us that the same problem that only IE is known to have, will be shown in any browser once it came to take any significant market share. But we wouldn’t have any of it – nossir the problems with IE are caused by evil northwesterly and that by definition cannot affect the flying fire fox. Until the problems started appearing. Today, Firefox has crashed 6 times on me. My list of pains is growing. Only problem is, I have no northwesterly to blame today. So, instead I rant here, and document it thus:
(i) Firefox has a memory bug. Sure, that might be an understatement, but that just needs saying. If I open task manager, I can notice that after a couple of hours, Firefox takes more memory.
(ii) Crashes often.
(iii) When I shut windows, doesn’t automatically shut down, rather “crashes” – then when you start windows, it asks should the session be restored or new session, and there is no way to specify a default.
Overall, I am still sticking with Firefox, considering that it is in active development, and I hope developers will fix these issues soon.