Google Chrome – (Maybe) My Favorite Browser

Of all the different things you can do with a computer, perhaps one of the easiest to master is “browsing” the Web. Browsing simply means moving from one Web page to another, as you would move from one page of a book to another. To browse, we use a computer program called a “browser”, which lets us move from one page to another in three ways…

1. By typing a Web address (URL – uniform resource locator) into the address bar at the top of the screen.
2. By clicking a link (hyperlink) on a page.
3. By clicking the Back, Forward, or Home buttons at the top of the browser.

That’s really all there is to it… and honestly, once you’ve had a bit of practice doing the above three things, most folks find browsing pretty simple.

[What turns out to be the hardest thing for most people, is FINDING stuff, especially since there are BILLIONS of pages of information out there.... but we'll leave that for another post]

Ok, so browsing is pretty easy to do… and life should be good and we should all be happy Web users.  Why, then, over the past few years have I felt browsing to be more and more cumbersome, slow, and not so fun?

I blame the browsers.

Let me explain… In the world of browsers you have a handful to choose from. The biggies are Microsoft Internet Explorer (which about 65% of us use) and Firefox (about 23% use). Both these browsers do a good job of getting you from one place to the other, but because they are in heated competition for your attention, they are constantly adding new bells and whistles in a grand game of one-upsmanship. The problem is, all these bells and whistles also add complexity, and with complexity you (and your computer) have to work harder… leading to SLOWDOWNS.

The good news is, there are a few other lesser known browsers you can try, including Opera (which about 1% use), Apple Safari (which about 9% use), and the newest kid on the block, Google Chrome (with 2% of the market share). I’ve had a chance to play with all these browsers, and at the Senior Heatlh Foundation we actually have a class called “Browser Wars” where we show you the ins and outs of all these different browsers, and then let you pick the one(s) you think will work the best for your type of browsing.

[By the way, the statistics I relate for browser use vary widely, depending upon who you ask. To see this, visit Wikipedia's Browser page for one set of statistics, and then w3Schools.com for another. BIG difference!]

As you might guess, I have all 5 of these browsers on my computers, and I find myself jumping from one to the other, depending upon my mood at any particular moment. But you know what? I’d have to say that I’m starting to spend more and more of my browsing time using Google Chrome. Why? Because it seems so darn FAST!

Here’s what the Chrome screen looks like:

Here are some things to notice:

• The top of the browser screen is pretty simple. You have the Back, Forward, Refresh, Home, and Add Favorite buttons all together in one place, right in front of the Address box.
• Just below the button bar, you have a links bar you can add to directly (and easily) from the Favorites button.
• You can open multiple pages within tabs at the top of the screen. Just click the PLUS sign next to the last tab, and you have a new one. You can then click and drag tabs to put them into a desired order.

None of these “things” are that earth-shattering, and most of the browsers I mentioned earlier have similar features. What really makes Chrome standout is how fast it works. Just for fun, I had three computers next to each other, one with Internet Explorer, one with Firefox, and the last with Chrome loaded. I typed an a Web address into each one (an address that had not been visited before, so that it was not in the browser cache), and then had some SHF computer lab volunteers click the “go” button at the same time. It wasn’t even a contest. Chrome beat the other two by a good 3 to 4 seconds.

OK, this might not have been a perfect test, but the fact is, Chrome just “feels” fast as you use it. And the simplicty and cleaness of it’s interface just makes you feel good.

But Chrome is not perfect. Not all of my favorite plug-ins (programs that help certain web pages to display media correctly) yet work with Chrome, and every now and then I get a lock-up or other buggy issues that make me restart the program. But with time, these will be fixed. For now, I think I’m going to keep using Chrome. Oh, and did I mention how FAST it was?

Tagged as: browser, chrome, Google, Internet, Senior Health Foundation