Saturday, August 08, 2009

Browser Linkfest Blowout

Like there hasn’t been enough web-browser news lately….

Claus’s thoughts on Chrome/Chromium.  I’ve got Chromium loaded on all my systems and use Dirhael’s (portable) Chromium Nightly Updater to keep my builds of Carsten Knobloch’s portable Chrome packages updated.

I really do like Chrome/Chromium.  It is fast, clean and each tab runs in its own process.  However it doesn’t have the extensibility/Add-ons that I just demand and rely upon daily at work and home with Firefox.  So it continues to be my go-to browser when doing presentations or viewing most on-line media for relaxation due to the simple (non-distracting) interface.  For production work, Firefox still wins hands-down; speed or no-speed.

I’ve not yet bitten the bullet but will likely be migrating our primary email store from the desktop system to my laptop as I rarely go in there to turn it on and pull down all the email locally. (The Valca girls have taken over the study where it is installed and it is becoming the laundry/storage room now…anyway they like my company in the family-room space when I am typing away at the blog.)  I’m considering bumping over to the version 3 build for kicks and grins.  Any GSD readers using it and have any insights or gotcha’s I should consider?

  • Opera Desktop Team - Time to try Unite again! – Opera Desktop Team – Tweaks announced to Opera’s Unite product.  I’m still not sure how convinced I am on this “feature” that turns a computer running Opera into both a client and a server to provide content to other systems across the web.  Seems handy for some but a security administration challenge for system admins….  The Valca jury-foreman will be out in deliberations on this one for a while.
  • Unite - Opera Unite – The Opera Unite team blog.
  • Another day, another snapshot  – Opera Desktop Team – Another Opera 10 beta snapshot. Now adds stability to Unite as well as a Unite-based service called, wait-for-it, “Messenger” so you can chat on Opera with your pals. Other visual features also getting adjusted.

Now I’m not attacking Opera here.  It is a very nice alternative web-browser, behind Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Safari for Windows.  Really.  Very polished and fast in performance.  It’s got it’s own unique interface and lots of positives.  I do install it on most of my systems at home.  That said, I just see it continuing the “more-is-more” value march rather than going back to simplicity.  I wish “Unite” could be unbundled from the main Opera browser (can it?) for those of us who don’t want it. And I wish add-ons were truly integrated like Firefox extensions rather than this “widget” framework that is used.  I' guess I just don’t fully “get” Opera and the browsing experience they are designing for.  Once past those personal feelings, the interface and speed are very, very nice.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been using TBird 3 Betas since last summer when I had to to a complete restore on my Vista System (stay away from Zone Alarm's Force Field, much like AOL once it is on your system, it ain't coming up without a fight and doing some damage). Trying to recall what is different with TBird 3. I thinking the tabs (which I don't use all that much) and it is suppose to handle IMAP better (which I use for about 85% of my email accounts).

Anonymous said...

I'm using Ti-Took (titook.net), it's fast and very pratical, because of the built in features like online bookmark, etc. One heck of a browser. Try it out.