Paul celebrated his 27th birthday on Monday. He was showered in Chinese food, DVDs, attention, and chocolates befitting a birthday boy. Arriving about the same time was his massive new computer. I like to call it "The Beast." It's like two feet long and dramatically shaped for maximum awesomeness (or so I've heard). Apparently, everything about it is maximally awesome. I'll try to post a picture of it--along with the nicely finished and decorated room it's in--someday soon. I actually have lots of pictures to post; I just need to get around to uploading them.
In completely unrelated news, I've been using Chrome (Google's new browser) and it is fabulous. I love it to death. The only problem, well the only two problems, are that is so new that some sites don't support it (like Netflix's video player, which of course claims to only support Explorer anyway) and I can't get Paul to use it. So I can't entirely stop using Explorer (because streaming free video is, you know... free) and whenever Paul uses my laptop, I always have to close Explorer and open Chrome. It's a minor nuisance at worst, but I find his refusal slightly puzzling. I like to claim he's stuck in the past, just to tease him. That's what happens when you're 27, you know. You turn into a geezer and everything becomes automatically better back in the day.
2 comments:
OK, I'll bite. I know that performance-wise Chrome has the edge over Internet Explorer because each new tab runs a separate process, but aside from that, what do you see as the significant benefits to using Chrome? I used it for all of about five minutes before I shut it down and uninstalled it. I'm too used to browsing the web without those annoying ads, thanks to Opera's built-in ad blocker and Firefox's Ad Block Plus extension, that it was a major pain going back. Frankly, Google has no incentive to support ad blocking in their browser anyway, since selling ad space is the bread and butter of their revenue stream.
Netflix's streaming site (and a few others) have been IE-only from the beginning (it has to do with safeguarding the DRM they employ to deliver movies to your screen without making them susceptible to copying), so I always use two browsers for my work - 99% with Firefox, and 1% with IE.
I will say, though, that more competition from Google can only be a good thing in the browser wars, even if they don't get much market share from their new release.
/end soapbox
Good question. I don't know if you consider them significant benefits but they add up for me.
1. Improved download manager (over Firefox, obviously Explorer sits this one out). It's very convenient how each file sits in its own button at the bottom of the browser after the download finishes. I just have to click on the button to open the file and nothing else. I also like how you can go to the download page to access previous downloads. This is a big deal for me since I download audio files for my Japanese class all the time.
2. The useful homepage. The useful homepage, as I like to call it, has captures of your nine most-visited sites. Just click on one had it opens. The right side of the page has a list of your most recent bookmarks. It's so fast and easy to use, I open a new tab rather than type in the URL for the next site I want to visit.
3. Streamlined design. Explorer and, to a lesser degree, Firefox always struck me as a bit clunky visually. Explorer had three rows of toolbars at the top that I barely used, and that useless bottom bar. They really bugged me. Chrome has one very simple bar at the top and a bottom bar that pops up and disappears as pages load.
There was something else, but I've forgotten it now. I agree, it doesn't block ads like you cited, but I've never used them, so I don't notice the difference.
Oh, and congratulations on your new baby!
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