Google Chrome, a confession.
My boss, is a die hard Chrome user.
This irks me.
We both use Macs, both love OS X, both appreciate and adore the stark, minimalist brilliance that is the Aqua UI, but when it comes to our choice of browser the differences are on the level of Holy War.
“Chrome is hideous”, “Safari is a pretty boy” “Chrome couldn’t render HTML-5 even if Google weren’t evil Web-M Loving hypocrits” “Safari couldn’t render your Ma!” etc, etc. As you can see this difference of opinion escalated rapidly, and in our offices where we spend literally every productivity fueled moment in front of a browser window, this was clearly going to become a problem. As such, a peace process was devised, we each spend a week using the others object-orientated object of affection and compare notes afterwards to see who was right.
So, hello Chrome.google.com, and hello my first problem with Chrome. Google, as amazing and talented and generous as you are, UI design always seems to be bottom on your list of priorities. Why? Come on, you’ve got at $200 Billion market cap, hire a UI guy or two. Please? With Larry cleaning out the Big Bad Schmidt’s closet no one will even notice.
And unfortunately thats about where my issues with Chrome end. Sure the Auto-Fill sucks, but it sucks on Safari as well. Chrome is a multi-platform browser, and as such you can’t expect it to look as good on a Mac as Safari does. No one does UI like Apple does, and everyone knows that no one at Google does UI. It’s fast, has never crashed on me in a week of use, has some great extensions and doesn’t rape your system the way Firefox does. I can see why people use chrome, why people enjoy it, why people get all religious about it. If Safari didn’t exist, I’d be using Chrome in a heartbeat to be honest.
But, as I write this post, there’s a familiar feeling at my fingertips. It’s kinda like that one pair of jeans that feels better than all the others, like driving your car after a long journey in someone else’s, like coming home after a good holiday. Sure, the experience was great, and you feel better and more cultured after it all, but nothing beats coming home.
And opening Safari.
P.S As I write this post, I got this message on twitter.
Old habits die hard 
