Solo Engine

I bought this domain a year ago and drafted a review of the then newly launched Google Chrome. But, due to my iconic laziness, I started blogging after 12 months. When reading the year old draft, I found that almost all of the annoyances still persist even after 4 versions of Chrome.

1. Gmail Certificate FAIL

The most pathetic and irritating annoyance of Chrome is that it fails to validate its own SSL certificate. If you visit https://gmail.com, Chrome will suggest that you might be stupid enough to visit a wrong site. So much for developing a brand new browser for “enhancing” the user experience with Google’s services.

2. Atom feed FAIL

There is no feed icon in the address bar. All “modern” (Google’s favorite term) browsers, including IE, now allows users to subscribe to a site’s news feed from the browser. Blogs and websites have feed link icons all over the page and the browser should facilitate a streamlined subscription option.

Also, Chrome’s support for RSS feeds is pretty spotty like the AT&T 3G network. On the other hand, Atom support is all the way broken. Congrats Google.

3. Cookie FAIL

Another pathetic insult to Chrome is its inability to identify it’s OWN cookie when opening Google’s sites. I logged into my Gmail account and Google Reader accounts and then tried to open the Youtube link from the link at the top left hand corner.  Sadly, I was not logged into my Youtube account automatically. It is laughable that the “Cookie King” of the planet falls flat in its core competency. Firefox does this perfectly though.

The same kinda cookie snafu occurs when you try the Bookmark Sync option, even when logged into a Google account.

4. Links FAIL

Why is the order of the links at the top left hand corner of the Gmail/Reader/Google Accounts in total disarray in Chrome and Firefox for the SAME account?

Firefox

Chrome

5. Status bar FAIL

The tacky status bar overlaps at all the wrong places in the webpage. For example, it covers the Next item and Previous Item options in Google Reader rendering them unusable most of the time.

6. Scrolling FAIL

I use a lot browsers and software that involves scrolling up & down. Except for Chrome, NONE of them gave me the rubbing-on-the-skin-with-salt-paper type of scrolling.

7. Settings Import FAIL

When I tried to import settings from other browsers, Chrome asked me to close all my open Firefox Windows and those that are open in the entire office (Not really). But hey! Really need to close all open browser windows? Firefox imports settings with other browsers open.

8. UI FAIL

The stop button is on the omnibar, almost at the extreme right. Back, Forward and Refresh buttons are on extreme left. Users have to move the mouse from left to right like a typewriter’s head to stop and go back. What logic drove the Chrome team to do this?

9. Clear private data FAIL

There is no option to clear private data upon exiting the browser. Forget Firefox, even IE has that feature. Am not going to emphasise the need for this feature in a multiuser environment. That’s the job of the fat ass program manager/ lazy ass developers at Googleplex.

10. File Download FAIL

There is no notification when the file downloads are complete. FF pings you even when there is a movie playing in fullscreen mode. At this point it is pretty insulting to even compare Chrome with Firefox. They are yet to catch up with IE 6.

There is an old saying, “You are as strong as your weakest link”. So how strong is Google if Chrome is its weakest link in the chain?

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