Browser Linkfest Blowout

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

• Google Chrome Blog: A New Beta: Why slow down when you can speed up? – Google Chrome Blog – Nice roundup with lots-o-pics of all the newest features to be found in Google Chrome.
• Google Chrome Themes Gallery – I’m liking the “Earthy” theme myself.  How do you install them? It’s a bit confusing (and not clearly documented) but you click the “Apply Theme” button for the one you want and let the “csx” file download to your system.  Then Chrome will find and apply the theme and delete the file.  Worked OK on XP/Vista, though it took just a bit longer to “automagically” apply on the Win7 systems. 
• Google Chrome 3 continues to accelerate even as it adopts themes - Betanews. Accelerate as in rendering speed.
• Rethinking Chrome – TechBlog – Dwight likes it! He really, really likes it!
• Chromium Memory Usage – Chromium Blog – Some technical-level details on how memory is being used and how to better monitor it.

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.

• Newsfox the Firefox RSS reader I use has received a minor version update to V1.0.5.2.  mozdev.org - newsfox: installation
• Firefox 3.6a1 Released - The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog – I’ve not yet had time to build a “portable/standalone” package of this alpha build.  Maybe I’ll have the chance soon.  The only issues I generally find are breaking of my fav add-ons.  Speed and responsiveness,including startup seem to be the primary focus of this build.
• Sure it’s Fast, But How Does it Handle? – Alex Faaborg’s blog.  Is speed everything in a browser..maybe but possibly not much longer. See also his What’s Next for the Perception of Performance? post.
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition 3 Beta 3 Released - PortableApps.com.  Lavie and I are still using the public version of Thunderbird 2.x to manage our home/Gmail accounts. 

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.