Comments for

It's Google Chrome Day! Extensions & Mac Version Available Now

2009-12-08T17:09:47Z

Google Chrome may be the best browser on the market. It's faster and more stable than Firefox and today began opening up to user modification with the availability of more than 300 browser extensions. Official Mac and Linux versions were just made available today as well.

Can Chrome remain so much stronger than Firefox once a pile of extensions or added on? That's the question and now is your chance to start finding out the answer. It's been more than a year since Google launched Chrome, but today is a big day for the browser.

]]> The one bit of bad news is that neither the official Mac version nor the developer version we've been testing for months - called Chromium - are allowed to install extensions from the official extension directory. You can, however, get a good view of the breadth of extensions available, and many extensions have links to their developer sites where you can find Mac installs unencumbered. You should probably just install Chromium, savvy readers. If you're on a Mac, download this app that TechCrunch made to easily upgrade your developer install with just a click at any time.

In the mean time, the independent site ChromeExtensions.org remains a great place to find extensions for your browser. The site is crawling right now, though.

I'm currently using GleeBox, TooManyTabs and Glue. How about you?

If you haven't tried Chrome yet, you really should. Poor little Firefox is a great community project and has done wonders for the web, but it's grown bloated and slow over the years. Chrome was built with web applications, not pages, in mind. It runs separate processes in each tab so one tab can't drag down or crash the others. The latest builds of Chromium for Mac are outperforming Firefox with Javascript (key for responsiveness) by up to 10 times. In other words, Chrome runs circles around Firefox. It makes us sad, but most of the ReadWriteWeb staff now runs Chrome or Chromium and we've been on the edge of our seats for the launch of extensions.

Now we'll see how a Chrome loaded down with extensions can do. Google says it shouldn't be a problem: "Chromium's extensive performance monitoring infrastructure has helped us ensure extensions affect Google Chrome's speed as little as possible."

Comment from aden7 on 2010-03-25

2010-03-25T20:25:39Z

I have been enjoying using Chrome, it loads very fast. But I want them to improve the way favourites work.

Comment from cece on 2010-01-31

2010-01-31T14:43:14Z

google chrome is fucking annoying now it wont let me change my theme it just changed it by itself and now it confusing and this is not the reason why i got it! and now im thinking about uninstalling it for good and just getting firefox

Comment from joel on 2009-12-14

2009-12-14T13:00:37Z

..open source is always a good idea,with 300 extensions let's wait and see if it will best Firefox

Comment from Oisín on 2009-12-10

2009-12-10T17:34:13Z

Unfortunately the Mac version of Chrome uses quite a lot of CPU time. I installed it to try switching over from Opera which has its own problems (somewhat higher CPU usage than Firefox, much higher resident memory usage, occasionally connections start hanging and you have to repeatedly stop and refresh pages to load them successfully, or quit and restart the browser), but after opening up all the tabs I had in Opera (about 30), there were a similar amount of "Google Chrome Helper" processes running (presumably each tab has a separate process) which collectively used about 30-40% CPU constantly on my 2007-vintage dual-core Macbook. In comparison, Opera used 20-30% (mostly, but inconsistently), so there I'm leaving Chrome alone for at least a few releases or until a stable build is out.

Comment from Chris on 2009-12-09

2009-12-09T14:37:24Z

I used to use Firefox, and then I switched to Opera when Firefox got too bloated and slow (with bare minimum ad-related extensions). However, even Opera would start dragging and crash with too many web apps open. I agree that Firefox and Opera are the ones that drove major innovations in browsers. It's too bad that Opera didn't keep moving faster in regards to web app efficiency. I now use Chrome for any non-Flash (it crashes Chrome) web applications.

I've been really missing some of my extensions, though, so I've been looking forward to this. I haven't looked yet, but I hope that there's Adblock/Flashblock/etc in there. Some websites use MASSIVE ads that make it almost impossible to browse without them removed -- especially those ads that expand to take up the page with the slightest mouse move.

Comment from Daniel Lo Nigro on 2009-12-08

2009-12-09T06:38:58Z

I agree with the comment about Opera. Why is it always omitted? It's an awesome browser.

Comment from Naruki on 2009-12-08

2009-12-09T06:25:40Z

Nice fellating of Chrome, but WTF? Why do you people consistently omit any mention of Opera, the source of the majority of ideas you steal for your own browser?

Laaaaaame.

Comment from visibo on 2009-12-08

2009-12-09T04:25:49Z

@Feng: the official extension gallery in Chrome doesn't allow Mac installation of extensions

TooManyTabs, as mentioned, can be found officially on Chrome's gallery here:

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/amigcgbheognjmfkaieeeadojiibgbdp

Enjoy!

Comment from John Vasko on 2009-12-08

2009-12-09T03:31:18Z

I've been holding on to my 2005 ibook, which still works like a charm. And I was disappointed to find out that Google Chrome for Mac will only work on intel-chip macs. Looks like it's time to get a new computer.

Comment from Andraž on 2009-12-08

2009-12-08T20:53:06Z

Really glad we were able to get Zemanta extension ready on time for this! :)

Google Chrome maturing is a big step forward for web competition!

Google Chrome is moving so fast it's hard to follow it. But if you try hard you can: http://www.zemanta.com/blog/zemanta-extension-for-google-chrome/

Andraz Tori, CTO at Zemanta

Comment from Sacha on 2009-12-08

2009-12-08T19:00:06Z

When is Google going to realize that the future of the Web might not be happening inside of a browser?

http://technotations.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/if-i-was-google-i-would-be-really-scared/

Comment from Feng on 2009-12-08

2009-12-08T18:26:49Z

The glue extension (use the link in your post) can't be installed on the Mac.