Internet Explorer To Google Chrome Migration

Internet Explorer 7 is the most commonly used web browser over the last few years, being a old IE user I have decided to try out a new web browser and find out what it can offer that IE doesn’t. I will be migrating to Google Chrome; this is a new browser and is still in beta stages... After quite a while of research I found that this browser had some pretty impressive features.

This feature is called Incogneto, this is a functionality that can be able to browse the web leaving no history at all! This can be activated by going into the tools menu and clicking open new Incogneto window, this is handy if you are in a public sector and you do not want your private websites to be viewed again.

Upon opening a new tab in Google Chrome you are presented with your most visited sites and they are displayed in a convenient thumbnail view. This function is not available in IE however I think it will be integrated in their new version.

Google chrome uses a process per tab that is opened, this increases speed and will decrease crashes that will cause the whole of chrome to be closed down and restarted. The GUI that Google Chrome uses is very lightweight; this browser can virtually run on any windows machine. With a simple GUI this makes browsing faster and easier.

One other feature that is good for the everyday user is called “Omnibox” this allows websites to be inputted into the address bar. This seems normal however the address bar is also a Google search bar too!

As you can see Google Chrome is head and shoulders over the rival Internet Explorer, the score difference has a large range. Google will hopefully have a lot of new users by the end of 2009.

The download of Google Chrome is extremely fast and the installation is very simple and easy to understand, once the browser is installed you will be presented with a fresh copy of Chrome. The stock setup does not have the common features that you would expect with a browser. This can all be changed in the tools e.g.:

1.       Homepage Button

2.       Home Page

3.       History Settings

4.       Advance settings (Cookies, Temporary Files)

Currently Google Chrome does not support bookmark imports from Internet Explorer however there is a program that allows exporting and importing bookmarks to most common web browsers called Transmute.

When switching web browsers, the most important thing is to check that the websites you use are displayed correctly. This is very important because web browsers especially ones that are in beta stages like in this case can be coded differently and will require further support to get most common website to view correctly.

Google has a large number of developers who will fix any bugs they come across, they have a build in tool to report a broken website or a bug and the developers will try to fix the issue as soon as possible.

 

Useful links that helped me:

Benchmark Tool
http://v8.googlecode.com/svn/data/benchmarks/v3/run.html

Google Chrome Homepage
http://www.google.co.uk/chrome/

Transmute Bookmark Conversion Utility
http://gettransmute.com/

Browser Statistics
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp