RockMelt: Google Chrome, only better

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

When we last looked at the alternatives to the well-known web browsers, we weren’t particularly impressed by any of them. Now there’s a new kid on the block, RockMelt, that’s coming mighty close to replacing Google Chrome as my default web browser.

When I say replacing Google Chrome, that’s a little disingenuous, because RockMelt is built on the same Chromium browser core as Chrome. It’s Google Chrome with knobs on. But for social networking and news-feed fiends, they are very useful knobs indeed.

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Is Google Chrome the new Internet Explorer?

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

For years, we’ve been wondering how long it will take Firefox to overtake Internet Explorer. The latest figures suggest that it’s Google Chrome that actually poses the biggest long-term threat to Microsoft.

The TechCrunch blog is today reporting that Chrome has overtaken Firefox as the most used browser to visit its site. In November, 27.8% of the visitors to TechCrunch used Chrome, with 27.7% running Firefox, 20.4% on Safari and Internet Explorer in fourth place with only 15.7%.

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In defence of Mozilla Firefox

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Barry Collins just asked me to take a read over his “Mozilla founder is right: Firefox has lost it” blog, and while I’ve pressed the Publish button I absolutely disagree with his views.

It takes 30 seconds to fire up the browser, Barry says. Well perhaps it does, but it’s still much faster than Internet Explorer, and in general my homepages – pcpro.co.uk and google.co.uk – are ready and waiting for me within ten seconds.

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Why Chrome’s more fun without the polish

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

I’ve been messing around with the developer build of Chrome just recently and it’s made my browsing life considerably more interesting – much in the way that bowling hand grenades would really spice up a Test Match.

For anybody unaware of Google’s peculiar approach to Chrome’s development it runs like this: a wild-eyed Chrome developer wakes up at 2am with an idea so cool that in Microsoft’s secret underground lair Steve Ballmer orders half-a-dozen cats to kick out of windows. He doesn’t know why, he’d just knows he’s angry and some kittens will have to pay.

Unfortunately, this idea is also so cool that it could conceivably bring about internet Armageddon. The solution: instead of inflicting the idea on the fifteen or twenty people using the stable Chrome release, our bedraggled Chrome developer sticks it into the developer build where it can wreak havoc without anybody getting hurt. He then pokes and prods the idea until it settles down, accepts its fate in Chrome’s brave new browser world and complies, or else he destroys it with his code voodoo. This is the world of Google; stern but benevolent – to borrow a line from Pinky and Brain.

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