(Including a short list of ways to add some of Chrome’s best features to Firefox.)

About six weeks ago I converted to using Google’s Chrome browser, after getting truly fed up with Firefox’s issues. Today I decided to slink back, and add some new extensions to add the Chrome functionalities I’d otherwise miss.

Why? Because Chrome, or at least my installation of it, is buggy. I had three problems with Chrome when I first installed it. The first was that tabs were too easily dragged outwards into new windows, and then way too difficult to drag back into the old window. I managed to train myself not to move the mouse too quickly, so that became less of a problem. The third problem was that it was hard to block ads. I resolved that one, though.

However, the second problem — that Chrome is really not motivated to load the pages I tell it to — continued to plague me for as long as I used the browser. In addition to its claims of, “I don’t think this page exists. Are you sure it exists? I really don’t think so,” it started to find new and creative ways to not load the right pages. For example:

  • If I had Facebook open in one tab, then tried to browse other parts of the Internet in other tabs, Chrome would randomly redirect links to Facebook. That is, it would replace the domain.tld part of the link with facebook.com, and then throw me error messages like, “Are you sure that jayeless.facebook.com/admin exists? I really don’t think it does.” No, of course it doesn’t Chrome, because YOU MADE THAT LINK UP YOURSELF.
  • Often after I downloaded music from the Internet, I would find the entire Internet abruptly cut off from me, every page replaced with a level-one heading: “Not Found”. Except for google.com, which would be replaced with, “It works!”

Today was the final straw. I was browsing a forum, and the same 200x150 image had been inserted randomly into people’s posts. It wasn’t an offensive image or even, at first, a really annoying image (it was a list of someone’s top-ten songs…) but it was always completely out of context, and I wondered whether people were pulling a prank that day. Then came a post in which this image was displayed five times in a row. Remembering Chrome’s penchant for randomly altering pages, I decided to check the forum in Firefox. Funnily enough? No images pasted all over the place. The image appeared once — in the post in which it was in context.

At that point, I decided I’d had enough of Chrome censoring and rewriting the Internet, and decided to return to my eternal stand-by, Firefox.

I may be cynical, but believing that Google’s programmers deliberately inserted code into their browser to censor and rewrite the Internet sounded more conspiracy theorist than cynical. Google wouldn’t do that, surely — what would be in it for them? (Unless Facebook is paying them kickbacks.) I thought perhaps my computer had been infected with a virus, but one ninety-minute virus scan later, Avast! tells me my laptop is clean.

I have no idea what the cause is, if not a virus, and if I’m dismissing the idea of Google maliciousness because that sounds too conspiracy theorist. In the end, though, I don’t care what the root problem is. So long as the problem doesn’t spread, infecting Firefox as well, I’m happy.

The sad thing about the story is that there were some Google features which I became so used to that I just don’t want to go without. However, I felt sure that Firefox, with its extensibility and dedicated userbase, would be flexible enough to allow me to replicate these “essential” features. And I was right. These features include:

  • The more compact design. Actually, almost every other feature I wanted replicated related to the compact design. The first step didn’t require any extensions at all. What I did was, I right-clicked on the toolbars at the top of the screen, and selected “Customise…”. I rearranged things to put the navigation (i.e. back/forward, reload, stop, home, address bar, search bar) in the same toolbar as “File”/”Edit”/”View”/etc.. Then I got rid of the now-empty navigation toolbar.
  • The “omnibar”. Chrome merges the address bar and the search bar together. If you type in a URL, it goes to a website; if you type in a word or phrase, it searches a search engine (I forget what’s default, but it’s actually not Google — I remember needing to change the settings to make it Google). This is so EASY and OBVIOUS that when I returned to Firefox, which forces ME to do the differentiating, I immediately set about looking for a way to change it. I found this way: an extension called Omnibar merges them together, just like in Chrome. It’s awesome.
  • Chrome’s “new tab” page, which offers me my most-frequently-visited sites in a lovely visual, 3x3 grid of screenshots kind of way. I don’t need this feature, but I can’t resist pretty screenshots. So I found Speed Dial, which is even better than Chrome’s feature because:
    • I can choose which sites go in it! This is very good indeed, because sometimes I spend a lot of time on a site that’s more functional than pretty, and then the grid of screenshots doesn’t look so nice. If I want to actually visit a functional site I use often, I’m sure I’ll remember the URL.
    • I can have more than nine sites: the “edit group” option lets me define a larger grid (e.g. 3x4).
    • I can also have more groups of sites (like if I wanted to group other blogs together, then stuff relevant to school, then forums, etc.).
  • The compact downloads manager. Chrome puts everything in a bar along the bottom of the screen, while by default Firefox presents you with a pop-up window. But with Download Statusbar, information about what you’re downloading is instead placed in (wait for it…) the statusbar. Even more compact than Chrome, and no more pop-up windows!

With all of these changes made, I’m hopeful that browsing with Firefox will be much more pleasant than Chrome and even than Firefox in the past.