10 Reasons Why Google Chrome Should Be Your Default Web Browser

By , Published October 4, 2009

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An official version of Google Chrome has been available to try out for several months.

It fully supports flash and extensions, is super fast to both start-up and load pages and is so incredibly stable you will wonder why it's not already been signed off and labeled €œbeta€ already!

Below are 10 reasons why i think it should be your default browser.

Speed #1
First things first €“ Chrome is super fast. Quick, swift, pronto, whatever! it's really fast at loading pages. Try two pages side-by-side in Firefox and Chrome and see.

Speed #2
A common complaint about Firefox in Ubuntu is the time it takes to start-up/launch/open. It's not the most instant launching application!

Chrome, however, opens pretty much instantly allowing you to not have to waste time waiting to be able to do what you need to€¦

Extensions

€œI'll switch to chrome when it get's adblocker!! Until then no way!!€

This may or may not be a shock to you €“ but Google Chrome already has extensions! Tons of them!
Including: –

And this is just the beginning!

You can find these and plenty more on awesome Chrome User site chromeplugins.org.

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Functionality already built in

A lot of people who use Firefox may have plenty of add-ons €“ but many of these addons are not needed in Google Chrome because they're already built in!

For example, the features that the following add-on's provide are already built into Chrome : –

Addon FaviconizeTab Addon
A €œfaviconize tab€ feature can be reached by right clicking a tab and choosing 'pin tab'. This shrinks it down to just it's favicon and keeps it open.

Speed-dial
Google Chrome's €œnew tab€ page is a speed-dial, allowing quick and painless access to your most popular sites.

Hide Menu
Chrome doesn't have the traditional layout of a main menu on top €“ it tucks all of it's options away in logical system and preference buttons.

Take Your Chrome Bookmarks Everywhere!

Google Chrome has built in bookmark syncing €“ meaning no more third party applications and extra logins €“ just use your Google Account and access all of your bookmarks on any computer using Chrome!

You can enable this feature suing the –enable-sync flag. 

Userscripts
You can use the thousands of userscripts available at userscripts.org with Chrome!

Just create a folder called '’User Scripts' in: –

  • ~/.config/google-chrome/Default

and pop your download userscripts in it.

Note: You’ll need to add –enable-user-scripts as a flag to your launcher.

Flash
Google Chrome has been flash-friendly for quite a long time and it is incredibly stable already. It’s also fully HTML5 ready.

GTK Me Bebbe!
Google Chrome can use your gtk theme for ultimate desktop integration. Just go to the wrench icon > options > customize > Use GTK / use system borders. 

It can be a bit hit-and-miss with some GTK themes as it pick up the colour for the border from the "highlight" colour in the GTK theme.

Firefox uses your GTK theme also, so this isn’t exclusive to Chrome, but a feature people might not know about nonetheless!

Themes
If you don't like the way your GTK theme looks on Chrome, why not try out a Chrome Theme? You can find plenty of them over @ https://tools.google.com/chrome/intl/en/themes/index.html.

  • Glow goes very well when using the 'Impression' theme.
  • Folders is great with light coloured themes.
  • Earthy goes well with most dark themes €“ particularly shiki-dust and Karmic's Human theme.

Web Apps On Your Desktop
Google Chrome also offers the ability to create application shortcuts to your favourite online applications – such as Google Docs, Avairy Suite, GTalk, etc.

You simply go to your favourite web app, hit the Control menu in Chrome and choose ‘Create Application Shortcut’.

They run in their own separate windows and is a great way to get Google Tasks on your desktop amongst others!

Avairy Pheonix Image Editor & Google Tasks running as desktop web apps.
Whilst this functionality can be acheived in Firefox it doesn’t require an addon or external package in Chrome.

Download Google Chrome

You can download the latest version of Google Chrome @: –

Dev channel (for 32-bit systems): google-chrome-unstable_current_i386.deb
Dev channel (for 64-bit systems): google-chrome-unstable_current_amd64.deb

Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

Related posts:

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  3. Google Chrome 1.0 €“ What's Great/What's Not
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  • http://twitter.com/Shakka43 Wellington

    I’ve been using Chrome as my default browser for a few months now but the lack of the gecko-media-player plugin it’s a huge downsize from Firefox.

  • http://twitter.com/starryprabin Prabin Dahal

    My Nepali fonts doesnt render correctly in Chrome. In firefox It displays correctly..

  • http://gbutola.wordpress.com Gaurav Butola

    Awww… a website that probably makes revenue out of Ads is specifically mentioning the Adblocker extension. Brave heart :)

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/L7L7TGYKNBABWM3N7ELVBTLV3E Virgil

      Yeah one would think they would tamper somehow. :)

      Anyway Epiphany > Chrome is what I think. I still like Chrome though.

    • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/L7L7TGYKNBABWM3N7ELVBTLV3E Virgil

      Yeah one would think they would tamper somehow. :)

      Anyway Epiphany > Chrome is what I think. I still like Chrome though.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/R25APX2NWD4262MDEYS2BWWEZU Mikolaj

    It all looks fine, but still 90% of extensions I use on Firefox either have no equivalents on Chrome, or have them but work terribly. (e.g. all flash video downloaders). After all this time and chrome hype still no other browser allows as much customization as Firefox. So no, chrome is nowhere near to being a real competition.

    • Anonymous

      I don’t really know why you would ever need flash video downloader extensions… the video files are conveniently available in /tmp or chromium’s cache.

      I do however agree that Chromium’s adblock is less sufficient than Firefox’s. However aside from that, Chromium is far faster and superior to Firefox in my opinion (though I do feel bad supporting Google over Firefox)

      • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/R25APX2NWD4262MDEYS2BWWEZU Mikolaj

        because having to browse to tmp is tedious compared to clicking just one button while watching, plus you can use cache only after it’s fully downloaded. I can start a video, commence downloading and close the page and just watch it later from the disk.

  • http://twitter.com/Rebastion Sebastian Haselbeck

    why use Chrome if you can have Chromium?

  • Anonymous

    If I was able to customise the task bar how I have it set in Firefox I would use it, Chromium is on my system waiting for it to catch up with FF.

  • http://twitter.com/iambodin Bodin Netcharussaeng

    Chrome in Ubuntu had failed to split Thai word correctly and all vowels and tone mark were jumbled up. Never been fixed.

    Ubuntu is still default browser for me.

    • http://twitter.com/Rebastion Sebastian Haselbeck

      since when is Ubuntu a browser? ;)

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5XBMVDEVLLWCKZ2LL5COKXJY6M Ali Amini

        If IE is a browser , Ubuntu is a browser , too. And much better a browser. :D

      • http://twitter.com/iambodin Bodin Netcharussaeng

        Oops !! How fail I am.

        What I’d tried to say was ‘Firefox is still my default and favourite browser’

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R7TFX7KMZAZJVZPLFSDOKBIC2M mawst

    Adblock plus works poorly in Chrome, also as a blogger and website editor, I like ctrl+b to bolden text in wysiwyg editors online. Small deal? Maybe for someone that doesn’t blog / edit, but in Chrome it shows / hides the bookmarks bar. WOW that’s useful, we better replace ctrl+c with some needless GUI shortcut too.