Google Chrome

[Ardesco]

I don't own any polo necks (!), or wear thick-rimmed glasses, or hang out in wine bars.

There goes my mental image of you.....

[cojak]

Too slow for my wee eee pc. Took it off and am happy with Firefox...

[voodooflux]

Too slow for my wee eee pc. Took it off and am happy with Firefox...

Are you finding it slower than Firefox? Is it slow to render, or just in general use?

Supposedly Google have been testing with older PC's to make sure it performs well on low spec machines. I suspect the tab-process-sandboxing doohickey must be killing it on your machine.

[NickFitz]

Hmmm, been using Chrome a day or so now. It's OK. Not exactly an intuitive user interface I find. It took me a few minutes to get a "home" button on the button bar. I couldn't see within ~3 minutes of looking last night how to bookmark a page, so I gave up. Those two issues should be obvious and staring you in the face. (Caveat- it was very late last night and I was tired but what the heck.)

You know what a "Home" button is, and have the concept of setting a "home page" for your browser. You think in terms of bookmarking pages.

The average user doesn't understand any of this, which is why Google are trying to supply a UI that doesn't need any of the knowledge necessary to make sense of those things in the first place.

The default new page view will show you the pages you recently looked at most (not just the most recent, but the ones you spent the most time on, and probably some slightly more complex heuristics), together with the sites you most often go to to search for stuff. The address bar will try to give you what you want without you having to remember a URL or a site name - natural language concerning a subject will get you back to a site you looked at concerning that topic a couple of days ago.

It's all about giving people what they want, not demanding that they know how to get there. What, not how, is what works for ordinary people.

If you prefer more control, it might not be for you - although you should be able to work out how to make it do what you want, if you enjoy playing with browsers that much

Joking aside, you should leave aside your preconceptions based on the way every other browser has worked - they're not seeking to emulate other browsers, they're seeking to change our idea of how a browser should work. Think in terms of going from a normal car to one that has an automatic gearbox and cruise control - suddenly, all these things that you've always assumed were part-and-parcel of driving a car become irrelevant.

Then check out the automated collision-avoidance capabilities

[cojak]

Are you finding it slower than Firefox? Is it slow to render, or just in general use?

Supposedly Google have been testing with older PC's to make sure it performs well on low spec machines. I suspect the tab-process-sandboxing doohickey must be killing it on your machine.

Just generally. I thought that the new firewall was being too keen on browsers, but firefox (which is my preferred browser anyway) is really quick.

[Fred Bloggs]

Joking aside, you should leave aside your preconceptions based on the way every other browser has worked - they're not seeking to emulate other browsers, they're seeking to change our idea of how a browser should work

. Thanks NF. I'm very receptive to new ideas. It's largely what I do for a business after all. However, I have to admit to switching everything in Windoze to "Classic" view,

[VectraMan]

There's one reason why I will be sticking with IE. It's completely subjective, but IE has an option for using ClearType in the browser something both FF and Chrome don't have. You can turn it on for the whole system, but I don't want to do that, as in particular it's harder to read code in VS2005 that way. But I do like the way it looks on web pages, and unfortunately any website I look at in FF or Chrome looks worse to me than it does in IE.

[Dark Black]

You know what a "Home" button is, and have the concept of setting a "home page" for your browser. You think in terms of bookmarking pages.

The average user doesn't understand any of this, which is why Google are trying to supply a UI that doesn't need any of the knowledge necessary to make sense of those things in the first place.

- snip -

Joking aside, you should leave aside your preconceptions based on the way every other browser has worked - they're not seeking to emulate other browsers, they're seeking to change our idea of how a browser should work. Think in terms of going from a normal car to one that has an automatic gearbox and cruise control - suddenly, all these things that you've always assumed were part-and-parcel of driving a car become irrelevant.

Then check out the automated collision-avoidance capabilities

I disagree (which is unusual Nick, as although I don't post a lot I do agree with a lot of your posts). I'm old school and hate the current culture of dumbing everything down to suit those too stupid or lazy to learn how things work. I mean bookmarks FFS... it's not rocket science is it?!

** Off Topic Rant **

Likewise on the car analogy (unless I'm missing the point)... automatics (IMHO) are one of the most dangerous things ever put in a car (just look at the number of parking accidents involving, mostly older, people pushing the wrong pedal and accelerating into something instead of braking. As for automated collision avoidance - shouldn't be necessary, people should learn to drive properly and hone the skill. All the modern so-called safety features such as ABS, air bags don't help either..

** Off Topic Rant over **

[Board Game Geek]

I'm old school and hate the current culture of dumbing everything down to suit those too stupid or lazy to learn how things work.

Agree 100%.

I had a discussion once with an Sales Director in a company I worked for.

My role was to bring in to being a very high spec Video PC, capable of taking any medium of footage, and producing clips relevant for judicial review.

It used a number of video editing packages to finally produce the clip you wanted. However, producing the final clip required skill and competence with the software.

He wanted a "single button" on the UI that did this all for you.

In other words, the software would somehow be able to know that 6 hours of footage was useless, and just cut the 30 seconds of the armed robbers entering the garage, and then burn the DVD for you.

I asked him, in his world, should planes just have a big red button called "Fly" and that anyone could use them. He agreed it was a great idea and would do away with costly pilots.

You cannot win...

[bogeyman]

I disagree (which is unusual Nick, as although I don't post a lot I do agree with a lot of your posts). I'm old school and hate the current culture of dumbing everything down to suit those too stupid or lazy to learn how things work... [snip]

When you say 'old school', I think what you really mean to say is: -

"Look! I've spend years of my life learning this crap, and, even if the crap I know is now largely redundant, I resent anybody being able to achieve exactly the same result, without knowing all the redundant crap I had to learn."

EVERYTHING gets dumbed down.

There's a name for it. It's called 'technological advancement'.

An aeroplane with a 'fly' button would be ideal (in fact already exists, nearly).

A car with a 'drive' button would be even better, and safer, if the technology was up to it (and it will be in a few years time).

Do you buy your own crockery rather than making it on a potter's wheel and firing it in your own kiln? I expect a master potter would say that was 'dumbing down'.

I'm a pretty technical sort of hands-on chap, but even I can appreciate that not everyone has the time or desire to learn arcane skills and knowledge just to be able to accomplish everyday tasks.

Call them stupid and lazy if you like, but you just sound like someone who's jealously guarding their hard won, but obsolete and useless, knowledge.

These days I find I want to learn real-world, practical skills (like woodworking) rather than studying the latest .NET or Java techniques.