what's the significance of making Google Chrome my browser?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

IE: This one is generally avoided because its not stable and has a nasty habit of crashing PCs

You know, I keep hearing that, but I have very, very little trouble with it. Less, by far, than firefox, and the user interface on Chrome I hate, and I don't trust Google.

I have found that a lot of plug-ins for IE are crap. Tool bars are, universally, malware in their own right, and way too easy to get installed if you don't pay close attention. But easily dealth with in the long run - let the crap install, then disable it. That way, the next time you run in to a pre-checked "install this crap" add-on, it's already installed and turned off.

But aside from that, I have never really had much of an issue with it.

[carld]

Originally Posted by PeterT

You sure about that? Go to chrome://settings/ and then expand the show advanced settings section; look for Web Content; select the Customize Fonts button, and then the Minimum font size slider.

I don't have Chrome installed right now. When was that option added? I went all through those settings multiple times, and hit up Google to find it. Finally went with an addon. I'll take a look at the newest version.

Edit: Yep, it's there now. Interesting, thanks. I'm going to give Chrome another workout, see if I can get the page appearance close to what I like.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by taustin

You know, I keep hearing that, but I have very, very little trouble with it. Less, by far, than firefox, and the user interface on Chrome I hate, and I don't trust Google.

I know a lot of people who still use IE. I think they just quietly go about their business most times and stay out of (or are oftentimes ignorant of) browser wars. I honestly don't think any of the big players on the desktop browser scene are any more or less stable than any of the others. And they all seem to offer most of the same features in one way or another. I can manage equally well with any of the three being mentioned (although I prefer the overall experience of one slightly more than the others; so I go with it ... because to do so is trivial).

[SallyElliot]

You can make any of the browsers your default browser. Google chrome is no exception..

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by taustin

You know, I keep hearing that, but I have very, very little trouble with it. Less, by far, than firefox, and the user interface on Chrome I hate, and I don't trust Google.

I have found that a lot of plug-ins for IE are crap. Tool bars are, universally, malware in their own right, and way too easy to get installed if you don't pay close attention. But easily dealth with in the long run - let the crap install, then disable it. That way, the next time you run in to a pre-checked "install this crap" add-on, it's already installed and turned off.

But aside from that, I have never really had much of an issue with it.

I think you missed the part the op said he was using xp and ie 8 the latest versions of ie don't support xp.
And browsing any website is faster with chrome or Firefox has been for a few years now. Ie 9 or 10 might have caught up but they don't support Xp that still 40 % of the world uses specially businesses.
I shifted to chrome from Firefox 2-3 years ago because Firefox used to crash or freeze a lot but now I am addicted to chrome with its sync and login features for Google properties in windows Linux and Android

[taustin]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I know a lot of people who still use IE.

I use it becaus $WORK has a dealer support web site that only works in IE (because of a slew of ActiveX controls - don't get me started), and I refuse to deal with the differences unless I absolutely have to.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I think they just quietly go about their business most times and stay out of (or are oftentimes ignorant of) browser wars. I honestly don't think any of the big players on the desktop browser scene are any more or less stable than any of the others. And they all seem to offer most of the same features in one way or another. I can manage equally well with any of the three being mentioned (although I prefer the overall experience of one slightly more than the others; so I go with it ... because to do so is trivial).

I don't know of any browser that is completely compliant with published standards. They all implement custom extensions. Microsoft is the worst, of course, but until recently they were the defacto standard because IE was the most common broswer, so everyone did their testing on that. Now, it's just a mess. HTML5 won't help any, either, because it's already fragmented, and it looks like the standard will include non-royalty-free patents. Sigh.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

I think you missed the part the op said he was using xp and ie 8 the latest versions of ie don't support xp.

And? I have quite a few users who are still on XP, with IE8, and they don't really have any problems either, for the same reasons I don't. Other than, of course, the occasional web site that whines about old versions. IE8 still gets security updates and bug fixes, too.

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

And browsing any website is faster with chrome or Firefox has been for a few years now. Ie 9 or 10 might have caught up but they don't support Xp that still 40 % of the world uses specially businesses.
I shifted to chrome from Firefox 2-3 years ago because Firefox used to crash or freeze a lot but now

Any browser can be the best choice under the right circumstances. I didn't advocate that anybody should use any particular browser. I just wanted to comment on the comment about IE being unstable. In my experience, that simply isn't true. Add-ons for it are buggy as hell, if you allow them to run, but IE itself (even 8) is at least as stable of Firefox. I've had issues with Chrome, too, at times.

Originally Posted by Dopedangel

I am addicted to chrome with its sync and login features for Google properties in windows Linux and Android

I'm not overly fond of being Google's product, to be sold at a profit to whatever advertiser thinks they know better than me what I should buy.

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by SallyElliot

You can make any of the browsers your default browser. Google chrome is no exception..

^ This.

The only difference it makes is what browser opens if you click on an HTML file, and which browser when opened generates the "make this the default browser" dialogue box.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by taustin

I'm not overly fond of being Google's product, to be sold at a profit to whatever advertiser thinks they know better than me what I should buy.

This always makes me scratch my head. I can understand people not wanting their personal data to be farmed, but not this reason that's often espoused, i.e. that Google (or someone else) are going to provide targetted adverts.

You don't get any more adverts than you would otherwise, you just get adverts more tailored to your habits. You're just as free to ignore them as you were for totally random adverts.

Graham

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Graham

This always makes me scratch my head. I can understand people not wanting their personal data to be farmed, but not this reason that's often espoused, i.e. that Google (or someone else) are going to provide targetted adverts.

You don't get any more adverts than you would otherwise, you just get adverts more tailored to your habits. You're just as free to ignore them as you were for totally random adverts.

Graham

I don't get overly worked up about it, mind you. But I find Google to be a bit hypocritical, given what their motto is, and their apparent determination to take over the world. One gets the impression that if they though they could get away with it, they'd recruit an actual army, and make war on anybody who got in their way.

The real objection (more than the others) is that Google has a pretty well established history of making stuff that people get to depend on, and when they don't make as much money off it as they expected, just dropping it. They've made it very clear they just don't care what effect that has on their users, because the users aren't the customers, the advertisers are. The users are the product, and any product that isn't profitable enough gets dropped.

It isn't that I don't trust Google with the tracking data so much as I don't trust Google to not leave me hanging at an inconvenient moment by dropping a service I've been using.

(All advertisers think they know what you want better than you do. The fundamental essence of all advertising is to sell what you want to sell rather than what the consumer wants to buy. All advertisers can kiss my rosy red ass.)

[cromag]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

To take it even one-step further: I've had the non-free version of MBAM (memory-resident, realtime scanning) running in conjunction with Avast antivirus for several years (on multiple machines) without a single hitch.

Ditto.

[forgottenbooks]

Originally Posted by SallyElliot

You can make any of the browsers your default browser. Google chrome is no exception..

True, its nothing to worry and you can always click that Don't ask me again check box so that the browser never prompts a default browser message every time you run it.

[soulfuldog]

Firefox used to be my browser of choice but the CPU hog it turned into got me to switch to Opera. I really liked it (so much faster & sleeker than Firefox), but there was always one or two websites that didn't work properly with it. So now using Chrome and so far, despite being under control of the Googlemonster, it's pretty good.

[GlenBarrington]

I'm reasonably certain that in terms of privacy, Google is no worse than Yahoo which is no worse than Apple, which in turn is no worse than Microsoft. So, for me, the issue is who seems to do the best to make my life easier?

Right now, it seems to be Google, but I have no loyalty to them. I'm a fickle whore, I guess, the minute I get a better offer, I'm getting a new pimp.

[PeterT]

If concerned about Google maybe look at chromium which is the underlying project upon which chrome is based.