Google Chrome > 3 Things Needed to Seal the Deal

Google Chrome, a web browser released by Google a little over a year ago, has finally become available to Linux and Mac Operating Systems. I was impressed with it last year when it first came out, but it was only available for Windows and I mainly use Ubuntu at home.

So far the new releases of Chrome are striking all the right chords with me, but here a few things lacking when compared to my Firefox experience:

1) Profile Manager:
Being able to choose (and create) separate profiles in Firefox has been important for me and my significant other in order to keep our passwords and bookmarks separate. This way she can log into her pages with her saved passwords and I can do the same. Apparently there are work-arounds for Windows Chrome users, but I use mostly Ubuntu and Mac computers. We shall see...

2) Extensions:
Similar to Firefox's "Add-Ons", these are valuable programs which are installed through the browser, to "enhance" or "add" functionality. They are only missing on the Mac install of Chrome, but I do use a Mac for a lot of my daytime work. One I use most often is "LastPass", where you can store all your passwords in one online storage vault (instead of in your browser) and access them when needed from anywhere with an internet connection.

3) Clear browsing history on close:
I am a fan of the progression computers are taking towards what is called "Cloud Computing", where everthing we do is on the internet, including word-processing, games and photo storage, to name a few examples. That is great for my personal files, but my browsing history and cache are all stored locally on my machine. I would like to think that if my computer was ever stolen, that the person who takes it would find as little information about me as possible. Almost anybody can find out things about you just by viewing your browser's history, including places you go on the web and saved passwords. This is why I always set Firefox to clean out my browser everytime I close it. Though you can do this manually in Chrome, it has yet to integrate an automated option.


I am still going to use Chrome because I find the speed, footprint and experience are great advantages over other browsers, but if the people working on Chrome can figure out these little "perks", I will be "très" happy ;)