hello!

Until you display webpages properly (instead of complaining they have stopped responding), I’m going back to Firefox. Good thing I still have Feedly over there.

So Google finally has a proper deb package of Google Chrome for linux. About time too! Prior to this, I’ve seldom used Chrome, only a couple of times on Windows preferring instead to stick with Opera there. And I never bothered with Chromium.

Anyway, I’ve been using the Linux beta for a couple of days now and I must say I’m really impressed. There are many nice touches, some of which remind me of Opera at times.

• Speed!
• No separate downloads window. Downloads show in a new tab like Opera.
• The ability to “pin” a tab. I love how my most used tabs can be pinned and they take much less space.
• More screen real estate for webpages. Ok, I liked this from the first time I tried Chrome.
• Extensions! I somehow always felt Firefox extensions slowed down my browsing experience, so I never bothered with them. But unlike Firefox, Chrome extensions feel unintrusive and lean. I remember the Delicious extension on Firefox doing way too many things I didn’t want it to. All extensions on Chrome just add a simple button next to the address bar. However, there are some really great extensions and I do not notice any slowdown in the browser. Among the recommended extensions: Feedly, Google Mail Checker, Delicious Bookmarker. And they all work very well.
• The little status bar at the bottom when you hover on a link. Again un-intrusive and neat.
• The bookmarks bar which conveniently pops up when a new tab is opened.
• Despite the themes, it integrates nicely with GTK.

It’s my primary browser for now. At least until Opera 10.5 or Firefox 4. :)

Favitabs! - Winner in the easiest to ship category. Very simple and practical. I’d like to see this happen.

I think this is rather exciting. I’m trying it out now. :)

Update: And yes, it is très cool. Assuming my browser is still up, here’s my Opera Unite page or leave me a note here. ;)

The company celebrated with an awesome old-school version of their homepage and a press release about how far they have come since 1994.

Happy 15th Birthday Opera!

Opera meets Firebug?