5 Reasons I'm addicted to Chrome | Hacker News Reader

5 Reasons I'm addicted to Chrome

teabuzzed.com

6 pointsfjabre23 comments

I've pretty much switched to chrome for all daily browsing, with the exception being on Linux, where the builds don't yet handle flash as well as Firefox.

With that said, I'm missing two features that I've become accustomed in Firefox:

1. ctrl-1, ctrl-2, etc for switching tabs.

2. Forward-slash for searching

1 Reason I Was Forced to Overcome My Chrome Addiction:

It keeps freezing, requiring a power-off restart, with more than about twenty-five tabs. Sad to say, both FF and IE8 are much more stable with lots of tabs.

I usually have about 5 instances of Chrome open at a time with at least 10 tabs each. Usually it's pretty stable.

I do think FF still has an edge in the stability department however.

I don't use other browsers much (IE8 sometimes at work), but I'll add Opera 10 (and 9 iirc) to the list of browsers that can stably handle lots of tabs. Memory usage gets a bit crappy but nothing crashes.

Interface-wise, Firefox also wins in the "huge numbers of tabs" department; Tree-Style Tabs is an absolute must for anyone using 50-100+ tabs regularly.

I would like to pre-emptively add to your comment: If anyone says "you don't need that many tabs" I respond: "You don't need to tell me what I want to do".

Can you give me an example of why this is useful? What do you use such a large number of tabs for?

Keeping open things which I have not wrapped up. This may mean patches, forum threads, news articles, whatever--anything which I may use again soon. Bookmarks are not really a good interface for this.

Also, browsing TVTropes.

1. Ludicrous Speed for fast fingers. Using the following key strokes makes me a search GOD..!

Is Ctrl C, Ctrl T, Ctrl V, Enter really quicker than right-click->"Search the web for [selected word]"?

I use a Greasemonkey script: select & hit Alt-A, searches Amazon in background tab. Alt-G, google. Alt-Y, youtube. etc.

I use Vimperator. I can search (including site-specific search keywords) or open a URL or file by hitting 'o' and starting to type.

No modifiers, no nonsense.

I love Vimperator.

Might just be a personal preference but using the address bar to search is so much more intuitive.

Couldn't you do that in Firefox with Ctrl-C, Ctrl-L, Ctrl-V? Or instead of Ctrl-L, use Ctrl-K to get to the search bar?

For Firefox: highlight text, ctrl+c, ctrl+e (to give the search box focus), ctrl-v, enter

Years of using ^C ^V have probably biased my opinion =)

I might add that for me the #1 feature that I'm really addicted to is the address bar doubling as a search bar. It just feels right.

For Firefox:

   1. Double-click/highlight any word or phrase on a website
   2. ^C
   3. ^K
   4. ^V
   5. Alt-Enter (for results in a new tab)

Even faster!

  1. Double-click/highlight any word or phrase on a website
  2. Right-click
  3. Click Google search for [whatever was highlighted] (results in a new tab)

I like how Chrome is more stable and uses less resources then Firefox. Does not crash on me like FF does.

Though it is not my default browser - yet. I'd definitely switch when they have same add-ons and it with such added it remains stable/does not crash. One can hope...

Focusing the address bar (Command-L on Mac, Alt-D on Windows) and then tab usually brings you to the search field on any modern browser.

Reason I use chrome: Keeps surfing the web simple.

Number 1 reason I don't use chrome: It (google) tries to impose it's will and existence on me. Through paid articles like the linked one.

"1. Ludicrous Speed for fast fingers." Same can be done in firefox using ctrl-c, ctrl-k, ctrl-v, alt-enter

"2. Each Tab is its own Process" That might actually be a good thing to implement in firefox. Although what he mentions has never happened to me. In my experience firefox rarely crashes.

"3. No bothersome updates on every other launch" What he said. It can be turned off. Altough I haven't cause i find it to be a good thing. Yet another thing which runs itself. Though "sometimes you just want to check gmail and check it fast" (notice how the author says "check gmail" and not "check your email" or some other just-want-to-do-it-fast task) and if firefox starts talking about updates I just click skip/cancel and go on with it. Still fairly fast. Most certainly this is not a point that rates high in my change-browser?-checklist.

"4. The stay-out-of-your-way look" My firefox is themed to be uber minimalistic. URL-bar, searchbar and a bookmarkbar consisting only of icons.

"5. Downloading…" I just like the way all downloads are accessible through one dedicated window/area.

What makes you think that this is a paid article?

I am flattered he thinks I work for Google though. ;)

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