Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#71

Post by ChrisNorstrom » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:08 PM UTC

"Massive Preferences List"? Are you serious? You sound like a stereotypical mac person who ventured out in the real world.

(and I sound like an ass for saying that but anyway...)

- The favicons over text in the title bar are no different than icons over text in the OSX Dock, yes?

- Also, I LOVE that the options and downloads open in a tab and not a new window. It keeps everything chrome related in a contained environment. I HATE managing windows, managing tabs however is easier and faster for me, you can also just drag out the tab and it'll become a window.

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#72

Post by pasbesoin » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:19 PM UTC

njs12345 wrote: post #63

pasbesoin wrote: post #27

MRU tab order. (I know, I've read the developer comments and it's not going to happen.) Pernicious browser caching. (Just when will you update that edited favicon?) Continuing assault on the address bar. (First they came for "http", then they came for me.) Crappy session management, restoration. (Is there a clear leader in the extensions that add better support? I find myself much less able to rank Chrome extensions…

My friend's written a small Chrome extension which implements MRU tab order - let me know if you're interested, I'll get him to share :)

Does it hook Control - Tab? My understanding is that as of Chrome... 5 or 6, I believe, the ability to hook default keyboard shortcuts was disabled, as a security measure.

I'd be interested enough to take a look. Thanks!

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#73

Post by zlapper » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:29 PM UTC

zlapper wrote: post #29

nhebb wrote: post #3

For me it's the password manager. I still have Firefox installed to navigate to certain secure sites because Chrome just doesn't seem to remember the passwords. Oh, and Chrome needs a search field on their password form (I've heard they're good at that sort of thing). The font rendering in Chrome must be a Mac compatibility issue because side by side, Chrome renders text much cleaner than FF or IE on Windows. HN on F…

you can always use LastPass, seriously, it would be like their motto says: The Last Password You'll Have to Remember!

just out of curiosity, why the downvotes?

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#74

Post by kbatten » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:30 PM UTC

treeface wrote: post #35

pasbesoin wrote: post #27

MRU tab order. (I know, I've read the developer comments and it's not going to happen.) Pernicious browser caching. (Just when will you update that edited favicon?) Continuing assault on the address bar. (First they came for "http", then they came for me.) Crappy session management, restoration. (Is there a clear leader in the extensions that add better support? I find myself much less able to rank Chrome extensions…

Continuing assault on the address bar. (First they came for "http", then they came for me.) Could you please explain why this is an issue to you?

The only issue I have with the missing http is that when you copy the link, it automatically adds in the http. Most of the time when copying a link I either don't care if the http is there, or I specifically don't want it (for example if I am sshing into a box.)

If they stuck with "copy what you see", at least for me, it would resolve one of my biggest peeves with Chrome. The other being useless tab text if you have too many tabs open (and I don't really like the side tabs.)

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#75

Post by mdwrigh2 » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:36 PM UTC

jtaby wrote: post #13

callahad wrote: post #6

There are a couple of things to point out jtaby's critique of Chrome: 1. There's no small, unobtrusive way to monitor the progress of downloads. Actually, in OS X, the Chrome icon in the dock has a small pie chart overlay during downloads that indicates both the number of pending downloads as well as the aggregate progress of all downloads. If your dock is hidden, you can quickly and easily check the progress by hitt…

Thanks a lot for your comment, callahad. I'll try to respond to your comments. 1. You're right, I hadn't actually noticed that until after I wrote the blog post. I think it's because I hide the Dock by default (still doesn't explain why I didn't notice it in the app switcher) My point was, there are three places to manage downloads. I have to manually close the Downloads bar. Worst of all (and this is something I for…

Making the browser window smaller after closing the downloads bar is actually a bug, it doesn't do this on other platforms. I think this is fixed in the newest dev builds.

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#76

Post by redthrowaway » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:42 PM UTC

jmreid wrote: post #56

redthrowaway wrote: post #31

Favicons: This is by far my favorite feature of modern browsers, and I in no way apologize for loving them. They make bookmarks actually useful for sites you visit regularly. Take a look at my bookmark bar: [1] The favicons allow me to fit all of the links I visit regularly in one easily accessible, compact place. I don't care if they look "tacky", they're incredibly useful. [1] http://min.us/l5aGM

Personal taste, I guess. I find your browser setup very distracting.

I imagine it would be distracting to someone who doesn't use it daily. For me, I know where everything is and what it does. It's optimized for efficiency, not cleanliness. Bookmark buttons are grouped by subject (mail, links, security & coding, humour, news, info, music, tv & video) and I know what each favicon is for. It saves me having to type the first few letters of a given URL, which works for me.

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#77

Post by redthrowaway » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:47 PM UTC

starwed wrote: post #59

redthrowaway wrote: post #31

Favicons: This is by far my favorite feature of modern browsers, and I in no way apologize for loving them. They make bookmarks actually useful for sites you visit regularly. Take a look at my bookmark bar: [1] The favicons allow me to fit all of the links I visit regularly in one easily accessible, compact place. I don't care if they look "tacky", they're incredibly useful. [1] http://min.us/l5aGM

I find it weird to even think of a bookmark bar anymore. At least in FF, the URL bar does such a good job searching history/bookmarks that I have no use for it, and I thought chrome was now in a similar position?

I find Chrome's omnibox better than the address bar in FF, as it autocompletes. I suppose I could press cmd-L to jump to the box and type a few letters, but the web is so optimized for the mouse that I usually have my finger on the trackpad anyway.

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#78

Post by intranation » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:52 PM UTC

jtaby wrote: post #26

atacrawl wrote: post #22

The one feature that Chrome doesn't have that Safari does (which therefore keeps me a satisfied Safari user) is one big difference he doesn't mention -- the Cmd-1 through Cmd-9 automatic key commands for one-off bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar. If I want to resize my browser window to the size and location I like, I hit Cmd-1. For my local traffic map, I hit Cmd-9. (And so on.) This is so convenient for me, and I've d…

I thought of writing about that but felt it was all subjective and that I couldn't make a UX argument for why it is objectively better.

One reason is using things like the Instapaper or Pinboard bookmarklets without showing the bookmark toolbar. I guess you're supposed to use extensions, but I prefer a "fire and forget" approach to bookmarking (i.e I've pressed something once, leave me alone after that).

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#79

Post by intranation » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:57 PM UTC

My biggest annoyance: open an incognito window (perhaps to do some Internet banking, or to log into one of the Google Apps accounts I've got); switch to another app; see a link in Twitter, email, or IM and click it; and it opens in the incognito window. Surely all new window events from other applications should go to the primary non-incognito window? Or at least you should be able to define the behaviour.

As an aside what I'd really like is sandboxed incognito tabs, so I can run multiple accounts on the same service (hi Google multi-accounts!) in the same window in different tabs without colliding cookies.

Re: Google Chrome – Why I Hate It And Continue To Use It

#80

Post by code_duck » Tue, May 31, 2011, 9:58 PM UTC

papa_bear wrote: post #25

code_duck wrote: post #20

These are odd and rather subjective complaints. I see the author acknowledges that in the conclusion. I agree with the good part points, following are my opinions on the 'bad'. I rather like the downloads UI - I was just wondering why Safari doesn't have a downloads tab like Chrome does. The separate window is a little clunky for me, esp. since OSX doesn't make it easy to cycle through tabs of a window with a keyboar…

Cmd-` (tilde key) cycles between windows of an application

I knew there had to be some trick to it... thanks for the tip.