I have a question. I have never used chrome. I have used seamonkey for years. If you are familiar with seamonkey (lot like firefox), could you comment on the advantages/disadvantages of chrome?
Hi John,
Thanks for the welcome. Part of the reason I like Vector Linux is that it seems like it has very active and friendly user forums.
As for Chrome, the two main reasons I like it is because it seems faster and it has a simpler (cleaner) interface than Firefox. (I have used SeaMonkey but not too much -- though it seems the browser part of it is almost the same as Firefox.) Chrome doesn't have a permanent bar at the bottom, though status messages show up when needed. So, where Firefox has four permanent horizontal bars/bands/panels, Chrome only has two. I like to get as much of the webpage on as I can without using Full Screen (which is kind of a pain). Chrome also has some nice little features -- for example, in the navigation bar now the words "forum.vectorlinux.com" are bold whereas everything else is almost grayed out, including the "http://" With a quick glance you can tell what website you're on. Also, if you've got several tabs already open, when you click on a link in the leftmost one (for example), the new tab will open up beside it. It kind of keeps associated pages together. The menus (there are only two of them) are very simple. So, basically, I like Chrome because it's fast and "clean." Even Flash videos (on Hulu for example) seem to load in faster and work a little smoother.
Disadvantages: Some folks will probably think Chrome's interface is too simple -- almost sparse. You're very limited on add-ons and customizations. I don't do much customization in Firefox, so this in not something I particularly miss. Firefox is also a little "prettier" or "slicker" and definitely more flexible. Of course SeaMonkey also has email and newsgroups, which don't come with Chrome. And there is also the fact -- a worrisome one to me -- that Google might be getting too big and by using Chrome instead of Firefox I'm helping build another "Microsoft."
That's pretty much it. If Chrome went away tomorrow, using Firefox or even Opera wouldn't bother me at all. But for now, unless I know for certain Google really is slipping toward the "dark side," I'll probably use Chrome in Vector Linux because it is lighter and faster (kind of like Vector Linux itself). Chrome is not an option on my CentOS box at this time (the basic libraries are not new enough for it).
