Google's Chrome browser — fast and simple

When Masoud Shadravan told me recently how fast the Google Chrome browser is, I decided to download it and try it. And yes, it’s noticeably faster — at least compared to Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Is it reliable? That is, can you use it without having lots of crashes? A web search for “Google Chrome browser reliability” indicates that Chrome had some reliability problems about a year ago, but that Google introduced and publicized a “distributed reliability testing” effort around March of 2009. Since then, reliability appears not to have been a serious issue.

Chrome has a “minimalist” user interface. It’s really easy to do all the things that I commonly do, I haven’t found anything that I had a hard time doing. To quote Masoud, who is a usability specialist, “My take on the UI is that it is simple and that’s what’s good about it. It eliminates the flashy stuff that I never use and doesn’t try to get you to use the specific services like IE does.”

So far I’ve had only two problems:

• It took me a few minutes to figure out how to exit full screen mode (which I had not used before in other browsers). I finally bumped against the center of the top of the screen and the appropriate menu item appeared. This is a small weakness in Chrome’s ease of use.

• When I first brought up my usual Bank of America site, Bank of America thought that I needed to update my login info from an older style, and asked me for all sorts of confidential information. At this point I decided to call BoA’s customer service, who told me to exit my browser and try again. It sounded like this occasionally happens to their customers already; the rep didn’t even bother to check what browser I was using, so this may have had nothing to do with Chrome.

It’ll be interesting to see how Firefox (Mozilla) and Internet Explorer (Microsoft) respond. Can either a(nother) large corporation or the open-source community meet the challenge of much improved performance at a possibly reduced range of functionality? Will the Chrome browser be a disruptive technology within the already “free” product space of Internet browsers?

Try it. I think you’ll like it.

Wifi on the Bus -- a New Equalizer

According to a recent article in The Boston Globe, bus companies are boosting their ridership — especially among the young — by offering free wireless connectivity (wifi). A few newer bus companies have been offering the service for over a year; it's also been available in Hong Kong for at least that long. Once again the Internet is equalizing opportunities not only across geographical lines, but also across economic class lines. Although most people seem to be using the wifi recreationally, there's nothing to stop you from doing computerized work tasks while you're on the bus. You can now do e-mail, IM-ing, research, or even web-based buying and selling while you're coaching at cut rates from Boston to New York!

The usual caveats apply against making your proprietary information visible (or audible) to fellow travelers.

Google Pips The Guardian to the Post

A Google doodle yesterday featuring Big Bird’s legs has triggered a number of tributes to Sesame Street on its 40th anniversary. Intriguingly, this includes online articles in more-or-less conventional media such as The Guardian and The Christian Science Monitor.

Even more interestingly, I probably wouldn’t have known about the anniversary and its upcoming celebrations myself if it hadn’t been for the Google doodle. One more example of how the Internet and the companies that dominate it are revolutionizing the way we get and distribute news.