I am fascinated by technology with a pretty good understanding of how lots of electronic devices work. Advancing the state-of-the-art is my fun. That’s why I think it’s time to switch from Firefox to Google Chrome.
Motivation: javascript.
Javascript (lower case ‘j’) is used on websites a lot. Web servers can offer more because javascript is executed on your computer and not the webserver itself as some other languages are. Chrome came out of the box with a javascript engine much faster than anything else–noticeably faster while web surfing. It’s a significant pick-up.
The problem is the first versions of Chrome were noticeably sparse and unable to support add-ons like Firefox can (called extensions in Chrome). That’s now changed.
Today I fired up Chrome, ‘updated’ to a stable beta version, and began to download new tools. It now syncs bookmarks with my other browsers using Xmarks. Also installed are an ad-blocker and Gmail checker. I suspect new extensions will be forthcoming. These few
Browsers first appeared at a time when the web was served by ‘thinner pipes’. Multimedia playback was very limited.
New browsers will better support all sorts of media natively, without the need for players (think Flash and Quicktime for example). The separation between TVs and computers will shrink and shift. Are TV stations worried? You betcha.
A faster browser is another step toward making that all possible.