I downloaded the newly-released Google Chrome 2.0.  It still sucks but not nearly as bad as it did.  I won’t be switching away from Firefox as my everyday browser anytime soon, but Chrome is getting there.  Here are a few of the let downs:

• Full-screen mode: In Firefox I just move my mouse to the top of the screen to get at the address bar and other commands.  There is no way to navigate or do any other tasks with your mouse while in full-screen in Chrome.
• Lack of extensions.  I guess this was in the betas but didn’t make it to GA.  The ability to quickly and easily create extensions is one of Firefox’s best assets.
• Plugin ecosystem is small.  Much more difficult to write a plugin that an extension.
• A little clunky.  Google has tried to do their own thing a little too much here.  The browser feels foreign even after a couple of hours of use.  If that is the case for a technophile like myself, it will certainly be the case for Joe and Jane Average User.

Here are a few positives:

• Large screen real-estate dedicated to page.
• Silverlight and Flash both seem to work out of the box.
• Fast Javascript.  But not that much faster that Firefox, and not for long.

I am one of those that believes that Google would be better served improving the Firefox code-base (to which they still donate people & money) than building chrome.  Hell, they could even put the chrome UI on top of the Firefox functionality.  Now that would be a nice web browser.  Still, if they build a better browser then I may switch.  Only time will tell.

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