Chris Pirillo » safari

How to Convince Someone to Switch Web Browsers

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:50:27 +0000

How to Convince Someone to Switch Web Browsers

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Someone in the live chat room recently asked how they can convince a relative to stop using Internet Explorer. The answer is that you really can’t – and you shouldn’t. They use what they use because they like it. It’s a matter of personal preference, folks. How would you like it if someone told you you need to stop using Chrome, Firefox or Safari? You’d not be a very happy camper.

If they aren’t happy and are looking for suggestions, then go ahead and give them your ideas. When you try to convince someone to change – whether it’s Web browsers or even religions – you’re superimposing your experiences onto them. You’re forcing your own opinions and perspectives on someone’s life.

If they’re using IE for all the wrong reasons (such as using a very old version), that’s a bad reason. Explain to them why it may not be safe. It may work well and look good to them, but it isn’t safe. Tell them the dangers, and help them understand why they should upgrade or look at a different browser.

If you are going to insist on trying to get someone to change, don’t simply say something is better or faster. You will never win them over. Point out specific features you feel they would appreciate and need that they cannot get in the browser they are using now. The same can hold true if you are talking about phones, gadgets or computers.

Show them something they will be able to do outside of the limitations of what they have now. Ask them what they want their browser (or anything) to do, then show them what fits best with their needs – even if it is Internet Explorer.

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How to Convince Someone to Switch Web Browsers

Safari 5.0.1 Brings Extensions to the Table

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:21:31 +0000

Safari 5.0.1 Brings Extensions to the Table

Apple released Safari 5.0.1 into the wilds today. Also introduced at long last is the Safari Extensions Gallery. Apple introduced extensions last June, giving developers time to begin creating browser add-ons using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript standards. This move brings Safari into play again alongside Chrome and Firefox – both of which already support addon features.

What came as a surprise was the name of a few of the new extensions – namely those from Bing and Amazon. You’ll also find extensions for MLB.com, the New York Times, Twitter and eBay. You can access the new extensions within the browser, and install with a single click. You’ll not have to restart Safari for your choices to take affect, unlike what you have to do with Firefox.

Manage your addons within your Safari window and update with a single click. Disable or enable individual extensions or turn them all off at once. Each extension comes with a signed, digital certificate from Apple to “prevent tampering.” This also verifies that updates come from the original developer. Your extensions are also sandboxed. This will keep them from being able to access information on your system, and disallows communication with websites other than those specified by the developer.

Safari 5.0.1 Brings Extensions to the Table

It’s Time to Use a Different Browser When…

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 04:38:58 +0000

It’s Time to Use a Different Browser When…

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Over on Lockergnome.net, Michael asked people which web browser they prefer, and why. This is something I am asked constantly. It certainly seems as though everyone has a definite preference: there are over a thousand views on that question alone, and several pages’ worth of answers. I’ve been using Safari for quite awhile, but I think I’m on the cusp of switching to something different.

The one I’m thinking of using is another webkit browser – Google Chrome. To be more specific, I plan on using the browser on which Chrome is based – Chromium. It’s very powerful, and it’s only getting better. It’s exceedingly fast, and there are a lot of extensions already available. Heck, there’s already five extensions that have been made by our community members that each have something to do with what we do on a daily basis!

It’s a big deal for most people when you switch primary browsers. There’s usually a good reason that you decided to make the change. Let’s face it – we hate change most of the time, even when it comes to our browsers. I’ve used Safari for nearly three years now, so yeah – this is a big deal for me.

With Chromium, I get nightly update builds loaded right onto my computer. That’s important to me… I’m always on the bleeding edge with the latest they have to offer. When you spend as much time as I do surfing the Internet, having the best browser available is critical.

Which browser do YOU use, and why is it your favorite?

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It’s Time to Use a Different Browser When…

Safari 5

Chris Pirillo — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:50:30 +0000

Safari 5

http://apple.com/safari/

This update contains new features including:

Safari Reader: Click on the new Reader icon to view articles on the web in a single, clutter-free page.
Improved Performance: Safari 5 executes JavaScript up to 25% faster than Safari 4. Better page caching and DNS prefetching speed up browsing.
Bing Search Option: New Bing search option for Safari’s Search Field, in addition to Google and Yahoo!.
Improved HTML5 support: Safari supports over a dozen new HTML5 features, including Geolocation, full screen for HTML5 video, closed captions for HTML5 video, new sectioning elements (article, aside, footer, header, hgroup, nav and section), HTML5 AJAX History, EventSource, WebSocket, HTML5 draggable attribute, HTML5 forms validation, and HTML5 Ruby.
Safari Developer Tools: A new Timeline Panel in the Web Inspector shows how Safari interacts with a website and identifies areas for optimization. New keyboard shortcuts make it faster to switch between panels.

Other improvements include:

Smarter Address Field: The Smart Address Field can now match text against the titles of webpages in History and Bookmarks, as well as any part of their URL.
Tabs Setting: Automatically open new webpages in tabs instead of in separate windows.
Hardware Acceleration for Windows: Use the power of the computer’s graphics processor to smoothly display media and effects on PC as well as Mac.
Search History with Date: A new date indicator in Full History Search shows when webpages were viewed.
Top Sites/History Button: Switch easily between Top Sites and Full History Search with a new button that appears at the top of each view.
Private Browsing Icon: A “Private” icon appears in the Smart Address Field when Private Browsing is on. Click on the icon to turn off Private Browsing.
DNS Prefetching: Safari looks up the addresses of links on webpages and can load those pages faster.
Improved Page Caching: Safari can add additional types of webpages to the cache so they load quickly.
XSS Auditor: Safari can filter potentially malicious scripts used in cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
Improved JavaScript Support: Safari allows web applications that use JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) to run faster and more securely.

For more information about fixes that improve performance, stability and compatibility, please see: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4134

For information on the security content of this update, please visit:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Safari 5

Blizzard Cashes in on Virtual Game Spending

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:34:33 +0000

Blizzard Cashes in on Virtual Game Spending

I think I am in the wrong line of business. I knew already that Facebook’s Farmville was a huge hit. Every time I log into the site, I see people harvesting their crops and begging me to fertilize them. I’ve also seen people cooking up delicious things in their restaurants on Cafe World. I’ve heard (and read) that you can use real money to advance yourself in these games. I had no idea, though, just how huge of a market this is until now.

The people behind World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment, struck gold this week – literally. In the past, they have occasionally offered limited-edition virtual pets for sale in their online store. Pay Blizz some real money, and you can have yourself a seriously cool pet on the toon of your choosing. This week, the geniuses introduced a new Celestial Steed, which allows you to “travel in style astride wings of pure elemental stardust.” I’ll admit that the steed is pretty cool looking. But I can’t see paying twenty-five real dollars for it if I was already paying fifteen every month just for the privilege of playing the game.

Apparently, one heck of a lot of people disagree with me, though. Blizz is reporting that in the first four hours that the mount was available they made an astonishing two MILLION dollars just off of that pet alone. That is over eight-thousand smackers per minute.

The mount doesn’t give a player any advantages in the game over other subscribers. It simply looks cool. Who knew that you could make a fortune in moments through a virtual game? I need to put my brain to work to come up with one of my own.

Photo courtesy of MMO Champion and Blizzard Entertainment.

You don’t have to play WoW or even join Facebook in order to see what’s new in our software center.

Blizzard Cashes in on Virtual Game Spending

Top Ten Features of Safari on the iPad

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:23:05 +0000

Top Ten Features of Safari on the iPad

Many of you have been using Safari on your Mac or PC for quite some time. You may love the way it looks and feels, or even adore the speed at which it runs. However, I have a feeling you’re going to love Safari even more on the iPad. There are several little quirks and tricks built in to the browser experience for use on the iPad that I think are going to be a huge hit across the board.

The larger screen will allow you to view entire web pages at once, unlike what you see on smaller mobile devices.
To open a link found on any page, simply tap it. In the case of a URL shortener or “disguised” link, you can tap and hold to see what the url is prior to actually opening it.
Rotate your iPad to change easily for Portrait to Landscape view, and Safari automatically adjusts itself to fit your entire screen.
Tap the + sign on any page to quickly add it to your bookmarks.
Flick your finger across the screen to scroll up or down a page.
Pinch your fingers on the page to zoom in or out.
The text will be large enough on the screen to actually see and read it easily.
The Thumbnail view allows you to see all of the pages you have open in a small grid pattern. This lets you quickly change from one site or page to another.
Safari on the iPad supports the latest video innovations found in HTML5. You can watch compatible videos from within the page, or double-tap them to watch full screen.
Sync your bookmarks from your Safari install on your Mac or PC. It only takes a moment. This ensures that you always have your favorite sites right at your fingertips.

Don’t get me wrong: Safari works great on other devices and machines. However, from the looks of things in this video, I think it’s going to be an even better browsing experience on the iPad when it gets here.

Top Ten Features of Safari on the iPad

Block Ads in Safari

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:20:25 +0000

Block Ads in Safari

Many people prefer to enhance their browsing experience by adding features such as AdBlocking. With Safari, that is more difficult to do than it is with other browsers. Several of you also choose to block Flash applications, using plugins such as NoScript. However, Alex wrote in to tell all of you about a much easier-to-use plug-in that can be loaded onto Safari.

ClickToFlash is a Flash-blocking plug-in for Safari on Mac OS X. By installing ClickToFlash, you will no longer have Flash-based applications load automatically on the computer. Instead, you can choose (or not choose) to click just once to allow the Flash object to play. This way, you get Flash only when you want it!

You can also configure ClickToFlash to always allow Flash to load on certain websites. In addition, ClickToFlash allows you to view YouTube videos in QuickTime, instead of Flash! You can also change your settings right in ClickToFlash to always (only!) display YouTube videos in H.264, no matter what video you’re watching! Simply go into Safari and ClickToFlash, then choose the “Settings” option. From there, just check a box to allow the default to change.

Thanks Alex, for sharing this with us. I hadn’t yet tried this out, but you can bet I’ll be installing it today!

Block Ads in Safari

How to Remove Internet Explorer 8

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:40:56 +0000

How to Remove Internet Explorer 8

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Marques has been an excellent screencast contributor in the past months, and today’s addition is no exception. Many people prefer to never use Internet Explorer, instead choosing one of the many other browser offerings. Marques is using this screencast to show you how can you remove IE 8 from your computer entirely. Be forewarned, however, that doing so could possibly cause some Windows programs and files to not work properly. Another solution is to simply remove the IE icon from your Start Menu and desktop, and just don’t open it. Also, of course, you may need IE at some point for your Windows Updates (many ppl still use that method to get the updates).

To remove Internet Explorer, you first want to head into your Control Panel. Once there, go into your “Programs” area. Once there, you’ll notice a button near the top (under the heading Programs and Features) that says Turn Windows Features On and Off. Click on that to bring up a window that will help you do just that.

Uncheck the Internet Explorer box, and you’ll have it fully removed. There are also other things in the box that you can safely remove, such as the Tablet features (IF you’re not using a Tablet, of course!). Make sure you thoroughly research all of the things found in the list before you decide what you want to uncheck!

That’s all there is to it. Removing Internet Explorer is fairly quick and easy to do, and may help keep your system running a little faster without some of the previous bloat associated with it.

Thanks, Marques, for another outstanding screencast!

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How to Remove Internet Explorer 8

Does Internet Explorer Suck?

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:21:24 +0000

Does Internet Explorer Suck?

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We all must browse the web. Unfortunately, the Lynx browser is no longer cutting it. If you don’t remember it, then you are not old like I am. PC PitStop community member James asks if Internet Explorer is safe yet. He’s been waiting to use the newest version, because he’s heard that it has a lot of problems. What are your thoughts on this? Is IE solid, and safe?

The consensus in the chat room was that Internet Explorer is just not there yet. However, the answer is both yes and no. Every browser has its own set of issues. Every browser is as safe as every other web browser… and as safe as the user. There’s really no way to guage if it’s safe enough of not.

Every browser is going to have bugs, and security flaws. If you connect to the Internet, then you have security risks on your hands. If you’ve heard that people have had issues, then by all means, wait if you aren’t ready to upgrade. However, I’ve been using the newest version and haven’t had issues.

You could also use IEs Compatibility Mode, or choose a different browser. You can use any one that you wish, you know. Just because you have that little icon on your desktop doesn’t necessarily mean that you are required to use it. That’s the beauty of the Internet!

My recommendation is always to upgrade to the latest version of any browser. If you arent happy with it, then simply try something else!

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Does Internet Explorer Suck?

No New Firefox Before the End of the Year

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:19:25 +0000

No New Firefox Before the End of the Year

Mozilla had long been promising version Firefox 3.6 by the end of this year. According to their website, that goal has now been pushed back to early 2010. Also, version 4.0, which promises to be a major update, has been pushed back to late 2010 or early 2011. This is leaving some Mozilla fans with a case of the grumpies. However, they need to remember that all good things are worth waiting for.

Didn’t we learn any lessons from Windows Vista? Didn’t we all witness first-hand what happens when a company rushes a product out the door before it’s truly ready to be on the market? If the folks at Mozilla feel they need more time to deliver a solid product, then I say we give it to them and stop griping about it!

The big new feature in version 3.6 is incorporation of the Personas plug-in that lets people easily customize the browser’s appearance, though behind the scenes there’s also been work to speed up the browser’s launch time, improve security, and make some other changes. There have already been five beta versions released, but we’ve yet to see the release candidate. An RC signals to the masses that a final version is nearly ready.

There is a lot of competition in the browser wars these days, and releasing newer and better versions is always under a time-crunch. However, I repeat again that I’d rather wait a little longer for a high-quality product. I don’t want to see the Firefox team lose credibility by releasing something that won’t go over well.

What browser do you use, and why? What makes it better than others in your mind? If you’re a Firefox fan, are you happy to wait a bit longer for the new versions?

No New Firefox Before the End of the Year

Could all of Life’s Conveniences be Killing Us?

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:19:42 +0000

Could all of Life’s Conveniences be Killing Us?

Reading this blog post on Geeks earlier stopped me dead in my tracks. I saw myself in what the author wrote, as I’m sure many of you will. He talks of how we have so many gadgets and gizmos to make our lives easier… and then wonders if it’s in fact making things more difficult:

People around the world are moving so fast, trying to do so much, that humanity as a whole is slowly choking itself with its own progress. We’re trying to cram so much into a day, so much into our minds that we don’t know how to do anything else. What we need to learn how to do, more than anything else, is to slow down. If you’re worried about progress, think about this, the best way to gain a clear perspective is to back away and let everything focus. People are supposed to smell the flowers that they plant. Just take some time to enjoy what mankind has done, rather than waste your time coming up with the next best thing that no one will take the time to enjoy.

All the ‘conveniences’ that we use and abuse only serve to get you to the next minute faster. Every inch of the way is packed with time savers that allow you to use more time savers. Just slow down, take a breath, get to know people, go to new places. Enjoy life before it passes you by, just to get to the next generation.

Wow. I’ve been pondering something very similar to this in my own life lately. That is why you’ve seen me out of the office more – trying to take time to relax and have fun. We tend to get so caught up in the daily grind of life that we often forget to live.

When is the last time you took a day completely “off”? I don’t just mean off of work… I mean OFF. OF. EVERYTHING. When did you put away all of your gadgets, your phone, your laptop and even your iPod and just chilled out? Can you even remember when it was, or what you might have done?

If you can’t bear to part with your computer, maybe you can take time out from working yourself into the ground, and enjoy what others are hard at work doing. They are writing excellent articles, like the one mentioned here, every day. They are sharing their thoughts with the world, and I sincerely hope you will consider doing the same. There’s something to be said for being able to write out what’s in your mind and heart, and it takes a very special type of person to be able to do so. The next time you’re stressing over the little things, and everything yet to do on your list, why not just let it all go and write? We’d love to have you join us on Geeks or Lockergnome.

Could all of Life’s Conveniences be Killing Us?

How Do You Enlarge Web Site Fonts for Printing?

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:19:41 +0000

How Do You Enlarge Web Site Fonts for Printing?

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Yes, I’m addicted to fonts. I’ve admitted it for years. I like looking at cool fonts, and enjoy finding new ones. Someone from the PCPitStop community recently asked how he can enlarge fonts on a web page, to make it easier for him to read. You don’t need a new printer, don’t worry! The answer lies within your browser itself!

My recommendation for a browser is Firefox, Safari or even Chrome. No matter what browser you’re using, you should be able to change the font sizes on the page before you read it or even print it. You can check the associated help file in order to learn how to change these settings.

In Firefox, you can change your font sizes by simply holding down your CTRL button, and clicking the + button/sign as many times as needed to increase your font size on the page.
In Internet Explorer, click on View, and then hover your mouse over Text Size. Choose large or larger in order to increase the font to something you can easily read.
If you use Opera, you can click on View and then hover the mouse over Zoom at the bottom of the View menu. From there, you can increase the percentage to make the text manageable for your needs.
With Safari, you will again go to the View menu. Once there, click on “Make Text Larger”, and adjust the percentages accordingly.

Hopefully this answers the question properly. Thankfully, all browsers have ways that you can easily change your settings on everything from font size to the colors that display… in order to maximize the browsing experience for everyone. Don’t let bad eyesight keep you from enjoying everything the web has to offer!

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How Do You Enlarge Web Site Fonts for Printing?

How Does Your Web Browser Handle JavaScript?

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:21:21 +0000

How Does Your Web Browser Handle JavaScript?

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Google Chrome has been officially in beta for about a month now. Many of you are using it for your default browser already at this point. I wrote about Google Chrome this month for my CPU Magazine article. I want to discuss one of those points with all of you now.

As you visit websites, you may seem to be slowed down due to the amount of script that is running on the page. It’s all potentially tied into JavaScript performance. This is going to get interesting in a couple of months. Google has said they will be using the V8 JavaScript engine. This, of course, is now a part of WebKit. Just last week, WebKit came out and said they have SquirrelFish Extreme, which is a register-based, direct-threaded, high-level bytecode engine, with a sliding register window calling convention. It lazily generates bytecodes from a syntax tree, using a simple one-pass compiler with built-in copy propagation. This increases JavaScript performance even more, even compared to V8.

We’re about to enter a browser war, specifically in the area of JavaScript performance. Google releases a beta browser, with a good JavaScript engine. Let’s face it, a lot of your favorite sites are probably running JavaScript right now. And, Chrome is handling it much more efficiently. Here we have a Beta browser who is running a better JavaScript engine than what any of the current leading browsers have. This is raising the bar in a very big way for everyone else.

I went searching the web to help me find something that can help me download the nightly build of the WebKit. I found NightShift for use on Mac OS X. NightShift automatically downloads and updates WebKit, the Safari HTML rendering engine, to the latest nightly version for Safari. No user intervention is required, everything is fully automated. The developer has a few other cool tools, as well.

For Windows users, check out Chrome Plugins. This site is full of Plugins, Themes, Add-ons and information for the Google Chrome Web Browser! This isn’t an “official” Chrome blog, but the people who are working officially on Chrome are a part of this community, as well. You can learn pretty much everything you need to know about Chrome, and then some!

What are your thoughts? Where do you think browsers are heading?

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How Does Your Web Browser Handle JavaScript?

The Community Speaks out About Google Chrome

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 06:23:35 +0000

The Community Speaks out About Google Chrome

I recently recorded a video talking about Google’s new Web Browser, Google Chrome. I was excited about it then, and I still am. Google Chrome has set the bar higher for all other browsers, and we won’t allow others to lower it. I’ve received a lot of feedback about Chrome since my video aired. I wanted to share what three people had to say.

From NamelessFragger

I learned about this browser two days ago, only because someone posted a forum thread about it. I read the comic, and was totally thrilled. I then found out that the browser was released the same day.

I normally use Opera 9.52, which is generally regarded as fast. However, if Opera is light speed, then Chrome is ludicrous speed! (Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that my traditional Opera usage has hundreds of tabs open at once, whereas I think I’ve had only ten or twenty Chrome tabs open simultaneously.)

What I also like is how Chrome handles tabs. All too often, I’ve had Opera brought down entirely by one bad tab. While I haven’t had any bad tabs in Chrome yet, the knowledge that I’ll probably be able to close just that one tab while not bringing everything else down is reassuring.

I also like the fairly minimalist interface. It leaves a lot of room for whatever Web page I’m looking at. Oh, and Chrome can play embedded WMV videos without much hassle. IE and Firefox can too, but for some reason, Opera never does so out of the box. (However, I never bothered switching since I liked the rest of Opera too much…until now.)

All in all, it’s just been an amazing experience, and this browser is only in beta phase still!

From Jake

First of all, what you said in the first Chrome video about it being developed on Webkit and being fast is dead on. This thing speeds along. I barely have any add-ons on Firefox, and Chrome just goes 2 or 3 times faster. From screenshots that I saw, I thought the UI was going to look ugly, like a matte blue color and looking like a blueprint page or something. That’s not the case. Sure I don’t really enjoy the light blue color scheme, but it’s not overbearing and it’s easy on the eyes. Having the tabs at the top really streamlines the look in my opinion, as it leaves more room for the actual page. The shortcut to hide the bookmark bar really leaves a lot of room for viewing the actual page. The incognito mode is a nice little gem too. It read my Firefox bookmarks like a charm, and had to do barely any setup.

There are some drawbacks that I saw. My biggest concern is viewing picture links. I searched for a picture in Google images search and went to view full size, and it downloaded the picture to my default downloading location. I could not get the picture to appear in the browser. Instead, it made a bubble in the bottom-left corner that basically opened the picture in the Windows picture viewer. I don’t know anything about coding really, and the options are extremely vague. I couldn’t find any solution to this problem. Another feature that I used sometimes in Firefox (that I found lacking in Chrome) was a style sheet option to show no style, but obviously that’s a very minor gripe and can easily be forgotten.

Other than that, I can’t really say I have any problems with the browser yet. I’d like to see more themes and add-ons. Seems like the browser is off to a great start and hopefully it will get some add-on developers and themes.

From Scott

I saw one of your new videos yesterday about the release of Google Chrome. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that; I never saw it coming. I’m a fan of Google software, so I was naturally excited to hear that they were releasing a Web browser. I’ve been using Mozilla Firefox as my default browser now for over a couple of years, and have never found anything better for me. You name it — Safari, IE, Maxthon, Flock (which may be my next favorite), K-Meleon, Avant, Slim, Opera, Slim — I’ve tried about everything out there pretty extensively. I keep a lot of browsers installed to launch up every now and then.

First, I’ll discuss some of the things I like about Google Chrome. I find Chrome’s launch time to be noticeably faster than Firefox, which is nice (but is probably because I run FF with lots of plug-ins/extensions/themes that it must load up). Chrome’s page load times are very impressive; it’s a bit faster than FF, and perhaps even a hair faster than Safari (which, yes, I’ve found to be consistently faster than FF, even on Windows Vista). I like the “Incognito” browsing feature; I’m not sure I would use that too often, but nonetheless, a cool feature. Another thing I liked in Chrome was the way the “Find” function was designed. They did a good job with that.

Now, for the “bad stuff.” The GUI is, well . . . interesting, but I’m not a fan yet (e.g. I don’t particularly like the tabbed browsing system positioned above the navigation area as opposed to below). It might just be me, but overall, the Chrome GUI reminds me way too much of IE–yes, of course that’s a bad thing. I don’t care for the font system in Chrome, either. Compared to Safari (which I particularly like) and Firefox, it just seems bland and underdeveloped. Chrome seems to be on par with Safari or IE in terms of customization/tweaking; there isn’t a whole lot available to the user. A couple of other things I was really disappointed to see in Chrome’s GUI: The downloads are manage in a new tab? I don’t care for that at all. That just seems inefficient to me. No “Home” button? I hate when browsers don’t include simple, often-used functions *cough*Safari*cough* like the “Home” button. So far, I don’t think it’s possible to change things like that in Chrome. No spell checker in Chrome, either? Wow . . . . lame. ‘Nough said. There’s also some weird functionality things about Chrome that I don’t like (e.g., you cannot open previous pages in a new tab via click the “Back” or “Forward” button in conjunction with Ctrl).

In the end, Google Chrome was somewhat of a disappointment to me (granted, I’m still giving it a shot over the next several days). Yes, I realize that this is just a beta, but from my experience, betas just don’t improve enough to make a difference by the time they are released in their final form. I use Firefox over other browsers for a few simple reasons: It has a proven, sophisticated security system; it’s more customizable than any browser, bar nun, which means you can make it look/work exactly how you’d like it to; it’s intuitive and simple, yet it’s full of useful features that make sense to both average and power users; above all else, it just works. Mozilla’s got it right.

The Community Speaks out About Google Chrome

Have You Tried the New AOL Desktop?

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:49:42 +0000

Have You Tried the New AOL Desktop?

iPhone is a regular member of our chat room, and sent me a surprising email the other day. He has apparently found something from AOL that he is happy with. Take a look:

I wanted to share something GOOD AOL made. No I’m not kidding, I actually like the app really well. It’s called AOL Desktop. It’s available for the Mac and PC both. Yes, it may be AOL, but it actually has been very reliable. When you first open AOL Desktop, it will give you a toolbar at the top which you can customize. It kinda reminds me of Webkit, except it has a better User Interface, and crashes a few times. But remember, we’re talking about AOL. The best thing is the browser. They fully changed the browser… and at some points it was actually faster than Safari. I went to Chris’ site from my AOL browser and my Safari browser at the same time (have them both as my home page). AOL desktop browser beat Safari by 7.62 seconds. I also tried websites like Plurk, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Friendfeed. AOL Desktop beat Safari by about 1-2 seconds every time when loading pages fully. That may not seem like that big of a difference, but it really is when you add up all the pages you load in a normal day.

Also, you can have AIM, E-mail, and your browser all in one app. Of course… Apple mail is MUCH better than AOL’s e-mail app. I wouldn’t recommend using the e-mail app. But, I definitely recommend you try out the browser.

Thanks, iPhone for passing this along. I’m sure several people will be checking this out in the near future. What other apps do all of you recommend that we may be skeptical about the quality of? Let’s hear what you’re using.

Have You Tried the New AOL Desktop?