Google Chrome

I was an avid Firefox user for many years but a couple of years ago made the switch to Chrome permanently as I had noticed considerably more speed when using it. Firefox also has a lot of updates which require you to engage it. Google Chrome automatically updates and I've never noticed it occurring or affecting my internet browser speed. I could be mistaken and perhaps have never updated it, but I cannot see this setting enabled or a check updates setting in my account. Chrome is available on Android devices and also your iPad and iPhone now. It searches for anything you're looking to learn more about quickly. With automated results available to select from the search bar while you're typing. I've used this feature many times. I've also used this search to identify relevant topics about a niche that I am just learning which I've found incredibly useful. By searching for 'keyword A', 'keyword B', 'keyword C' and so on to learn from the most popular searches for multiple keywords quickly. I like the tab system in Chrome. It's easy to flip between them. The extension selection available is huge. You can find so many great ways to extend Chrome from right inside your account. I use the Session Manager extension extensively to re-create browser sessions related to specific projects or clients. The search functionality is extremely easy to learn and it's possible to search right from the browser bar too, not having to wait for the Google home page to appear. I like that it syncs your data from Firefox when you install it too. You can also search by voice using Chrome without using Flash. For example, you can use the microphone icon to vocalize a search and have the results appear for you. PDF's are automatically read too inside the Chrome browser. That's incredibly useful and I've read PDF's linked from my Gmail many times very easily. There are solid customization and private searching options available in the back-end settings.

There are a few minor usability items worth noting. For example, it's not super easy to find your settings initially. You have to browse through a drop down menu to find it near the bottom of the list, and then highlight it to open it up and select to open it up. I like Firefox for how easy it is to find browser options, but I also like how they are available in Chrome without having to have your browser menu window open. Every time I used to clean my computer the download location would reset to default and not to the desktop where I set it to be. This issue may have been resolved very recently as I didn't notice this the last couple days, but certainly had previously. The ability to close the bookmark menu attached to the address bar is not available, or not easy to locate. I've gone into my settings multiple times and right clicked on the menu in order to do so but haven't been able to successfully yet. The Chrome software download is quite large at nearly 400MB currently, I believe. If you're running low on local storage this can be an issue if you are working online and need to test a website issue in a new browser and haven't installed Chrome yet, which it has been for me in the past. It was easy to work around the issue, but simply took more time than I had allotted for doing so.

Considering Google Chrome is free it's worth a try to know whether it runs well in your current system. It's an easy and consistent software to use for daily research online. There's a ton of third party support for Chrome online, and Google has decent help and a knowledge base available. Overall, I cannot get work done without Chrome. It's the fastest browser available in my experience. Firefox is great too, but I only use it now for troubleshooting website issues across multiple browsers. Chrome is my go to browser and I highly recommend it.