Hehe. Type "about:internets" into Chrome's URL bar.

I'm wondering why Firefox seems to need the paint delay. What is it about the rendering engine that would get messed up without the delay?

Nothing. Just tidiness in not having to redraw too much as it gets new data.

I never said it messes up the engine. Its to make the page display in hopefully one go instead of loading in each part as it receives it and reflowing things. Less CPU load etc...

I kind of want to know if the url I've input actually exists, and that I've not been sent somewhere similar.

"Don't Clog the Tubes"

I can't stand plug-ins. Every time I ask "does Firefox (or Thunderbird or something else) have this feature?", the answer is "no, but there's a plugin for it". Great, so I go to the plugin site, and there's about a million plugins all claiming to almost-but-not-quite implement the functionality I want. None of them install cleanly, and they all suck in different ways.

Is it just me?

There certainly are some poorly implemented plugins, but many of them are very, very good. I can put my hand on my heart and say that the following work absolutely flawlessly:

Adblock Plus
Foxmarks
Google Toolbar
Hide Menubar
IE Tab

I really do have zero problems with them, they just work. Using Chrome has brought home to me how much I need Adblock Plus, I'd forgotten how many ads there were on the net.

It's not just you. The idea for plugins as a means of extension is a valuable one, however, most of the plugins available are there to make up for a deficiency or a perceived deficiency in Firefox's design and implementation.

Something like AdBlock plus is a fine example of what a plugin would ideally offer. In Safari I rarely missed plugins, save for the example I just gave of ad blocking.

I sincerely hope Google put together a good browser, but they have some way to go. I'll be very interested to see how the Mac version shapes up, for if it looks anything like the Windows version currently in Beta, it might just be a complete write-off.

The comic describing Chrome started off shakily but got better as it went. However what I can see in screen shots of the beta leave me sorely disappointed and quite revolted. I want a native looking application with the benefits that native development bring. Not something that looks like it was created IN a web page.

Plugins are important, else I won't get my delicious.com buttons and integration that I love so much in Firefox.

I've never (that I know of) had any sort of problem getting rid of extensions that I decided that I didn't want for whatever reason.

Better than not having the functionality at all.

Computing is so personalized these days that no single company making a general purpose tool (such as a browser, or an audio production studio, or an image manipulation program) can possibly implement every feature every user could ever want.

I think the concept (and in most cases, even the execution) of plug-ins is great. It is the future.

It's the next level, the next "layer" of of all general-purpose computing. In the old days, you had a computer that did one task only, such as calculating or census tallying. Then we had a general-purpose operating system with generalized I/O, and we could then run individual programs, each written by different people, each of which did different things in varying ways and we could pick and choose which ones we wanted to run. Now we've got the next layer: Those programs are like little platforms of their own, creating a generalized framework under which other little specialized programs can run. I think it's wonderful refinement of the overall computing experience, and I love it.

It also opens up the market more. Can't compete with Photoshop? That's OK, make your living by writing a great plug-in. Or, write another image-editing application that accepts photoshop-style plug-ins, and then suddenly Photoshop isn't as important as it used to be any more, and people might just use your application instead. (That's what I do, actually: I'm still using Paint Shop Pro.)

I agree that a lot of plug-ins suck. So there's some time I spend trying out a new plug-in, and sometimes deleting it if it sucks. But in general, I've found that plug-in architectures enhance my productivity more than they detract from it.

With apologies for being pedantic, but the proper term for Adblock Plus and so forth is "extensions." Firefox also supports "plugins" which are for things like PDF viewing, Flash, etc. I just now realized that you guys are talking about extensions but saying plugins.

The distinction is important, because, unless I'm mistaken, Chrome *does* support plugins, at least for Flash and various media players. It doesn't yet have the kind of extensions Firefox has, though, and it's not clear to me it has a mechanism for them like Firefox has with XUL.

Oops, yes, Extensions. Even Safari supports plugins for things like PDF and Flash.

I love Foxmarks, but it seems to waste a good bit of CPU time.

I have had almost nothing but problems with IE Tab. It almost works, but then things just fail for mysterious reasons. Virtually everything I need IE for fails to work quite right in IE Tab.

That said, it's not as if they crash the browser or anything.

Interesting. I've had exactly the opposite experience. I'm curious what sorts of problems you're having.

We might be using it for completely different reasons though. I use it to check the rendering of web sites that I compose, and to access a couple of internal company web sites that don't quite work right under Firefox.

I think the problem is the attitude: there's no need to roll this functionality (which everyone is using) into the core product, because there's a plugin/extension/addon that implements it.

That'd be fine, if there was some kind of editorial control over the addons available. For example: the "We recommend" addon at the moment is "FoxyTunes", which allows you to listen to music from your browser. WTF? It's a web browser, not a music player.

Similarly, number 5 or 6 in the list is a management console for SQLite databases.

I thought this was a mail client.

I vaguely recall seeing an addon that showed you whether it was hunting season or some such nonsense -- in the status bar in Thunderbird.

Hey, sure, if you release an extensible application, people are going to write stupid plugins for it. There's no need to put them on the front page of your friggin' website.

I have the impression that many ideas for features in FF come from the popular extensions. It's part of how FF3 got to as nice as it is.

The extensions also allow for the FF team to distance themselves from behavior that they can't associate with- i.e.; adblocking.

The list of the most recently updated? I guess I don't really have a problem with that.

Strange, I've not had any problems with it at all, across an whole range of machines and Windows versions.

I've thrown loads of odd stuff at IE tab over the last few years, ActiveX heavy online banking sites and lots of IE only Intranet apps. I can't remember anything that didn't work just as well in IE tab as it did in IE.

A fine example of an add-on (extension) that should never have been written in the first place. If you need to run IE, then run IE - while putting pressure on the site/page/app developer to remove their reliance on IE and/or ActiveX.

What bugs me about many extensions is that they end up suffering the same issues that inspired their creation. There might be enough there to make it compelling, but there's just enough missing to make it complete. Then you have other extensions that offer that missing bit but miss something else. Installing multiple will often result in unwanted duplication and possible conflicts.

Trying to get everything to play nice with themes only further complicates things. I suppose it's always going to be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, as they say, when you have as popular a platform as Firefox.

Back onto the Chrome topic for a bit... I think the most unfortunate outcome of Google's entry into the platform space will be the loss of market share for pretty much every other player out there except IE. At least in the shorter term.

The loss might be quite significant given the smaller numbers of some of the players out there. IE still commands at least 70% market share according to most quoted sources, much of that due to use in the workplace/enterprise.

Does anyone know if Google published aggregate browser data from the sites it serves with Analytics? Most of the research companies providing stats have sample sizes ranging in the tens of thousands of sites (40000 for example). Even publishing the agent stats for their own search site would be infinitely more meaningful.

Why on earth should I be forced to fire up IE just because I need to use a brain dead web app ? Having IE Tab makes life so much more convenient when you have to have IE to make something work.

As to putting pressure on the app/site, that can be a very long wait when it is your bank or employer's site/app. Thankfully only one of my three banking websites needs IE now.

I can't agree with that. The people that wrote IETab wrote it because it was necessary. They didn't invent the environment that brought about its necessity.

The environment that made it necessary is the irritating differences between IE and non-IE browser rendering and functionality. Don't blame that on the people that wrote the add-on. Don't blame it on the people who write the web sites. Blame it on the people who are responsible for the differences in the browsers.

Edit: I guess I could agree with the statement if it were worded "should never have needed to be written in the first place." That I could get behind. That would place the blame properly.

I'm not trying to place blame with my comment. But I don't think it's a good idea to facilitate using IE within a firefox wrapper. It just keeps people using those same IE-only sites and keeps the developers of those sites thinking nothing's wrong. It helps perpetuate the problem.

Have a bank that only works in IE? Close your accounts and tell the bank why. I would email one bank weekly telling them to make sure their site was working with the Gecko engine and telling them to remove any user agent checks. The last few times I threatened moving my business elsewhere which coincidentally brought a follow-up email stating they had just removed the agent checks and the site should now be accessible though they could not guarantee it would render perfectly. It did and I stayed.

IE is so much a part of WIndows that "firing up IE" doesn't really mean that much. No more than opening the IE engine within a Firefox tab anyway. Hopefully the inconvenience will be incentive to voice your dissatisfaction in the right direction.

When I try Chrome I'll be doing it for the ability to run one tab without affecting the responsiveness of another. Safari is killing me in that respect at the moment and the memory issues are why I am looking at Firefox in the first place. I need some theme adjustments and extensions solely to make up for deficiencies in Firefox's design at the moment. I only wish all its issues could be remedied with these types of band-aids.

What do you suppose the chances are that Google, in its relentless march towards total global domination, is working on its own operating system to go head to head against Windows?

Google (at the moment, at least) is probably the only outfit on the planet with the cachet to pull it off.

tanstaafl.

Unless you meant "coincidentally" non-ironically, yeah, I'm suuuure that that was their impetus.

Having web sites that you know won't work in Firefox automatically be rendered using IE is a huge time saver: activate the URL bar, type in the URL, and hit return, as opposed to Start->Programs->blah blah blah->IE, select URL bar, type in URL, remember that when IE finishes loading its start page it resets the URL bar, enter the URL again, etc.

Either you're inclined to complain or you're not. Saving yourself time isn't going to modify that.

Try entering "about:%".

Out of curiosity, have you ever been satisfied with any piece of software ever?

Zero.

How could that expenditure possibly increase their ad revenue? People who are willing to not use Windows are already using Linux. Those not willing aren't inclined to change. Those using Linux aren't likely to go to something else that's ad-sponsored.

OUCH! Hehehehe.

Maybe it was different in the US, but here in the UK when online banking first started all the online banking sites only worked on IE for quite some time, so there wasn't another bank you could switch to*.

The one remaining banking site that I use IE tab for does actually support other browsers. However they also have a handy service on their site that lets you display all your online bank accounts on a single page. That service does require ActiveX and IE.

It lets me see the details of two current accounts and half a dozen credit cards on one page and automatically logs me into them. No one else offers this service, so I am more than happy to keep using IE Tab to make use of that unique service.

* the first couple of online banking services here insisted on you dialling into the bank's own vISP to get connected !

I disagree.

1. We've already had many years of multiple-browsers-working-differently. Without IETab in the mix. Some web developers are still not getting the message. IETab is just easing the pain of a long-existing problem. From this point of view, your argument is like saying band-aids perpetuate the problem of paper cuts.

2. IETab is used by only a small fraction of Firefox power-users. Not enough to make a dent in the general attitude of web developers. If a web developer is on the brink of making his site cross-compatible, the existence of IETab is not going to sway his decision.

3. IETab might actually have the opposite effect. Here's my reasoning: Let's say that I have certain IE-only web sites that I need to use as a part of my day to day work. If it weren't for the existence of IETab, I might not have switched permanently to Firefox as my default browser. I might have stuck with IE. But hey, here's a plugin that lets me use Firefox as the default, and band-aids the rare situations where I need IE. Do you know what that does? It increases, by a count of one, the number of users who have switched to Firefox. Web developers often use marketshare numbers to decide which browsers they're going to support. By allowing me to use Firefox 100 percent of the time, I've increased that marketshare number, thus increasing the chance that a web developer is going to "get with the program" someday.