I love pretty much everything Google does. I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Docs, I create my own Google Maps when I travel, and I’m even holding off on buying a new cellphone because I want to try one that uses Android, Google’s cellphone operating system.
So I really love them, but today they released a web browser called Google Chrome, and I have never used a more worthless piece of shit in my life. It’s worse than terrible, with few features, horrendous usability, and no customization whatsoever. Google Chrome is like using toilet paper your entire life and then suddenly being forced to wipe your ass with your hands. I understand it’s a beta and features will be added, but Jesus Christ, why release this thing in its current condition? It’s an embarrassment. Here’s just a few of the quirks of this “intuitive” browser:
• There is no way to manage your bookmarks. Something as simple as deleting a bookmark requires you to click the bookmarks pulldown menu, right-click on the bookmark, and choose “Delete”. You have to repeat this process for each one you want to delete. That will waste a good hour of my time every week.
• The address bar doubles as your search bar, and even though it gives you a huge list of default search engines to choose from, it’s impossible to switch between them without a hassle. It also constantly tries to auto-complete any search term you start typing. These two forms should not have been combined. It’s a solution in search of a problem.
• Tabs are located at the very top of the toolbar, which makes them hard to reach. You can’t customize their location. In fact, you can’t customize any part of the toolbar. Or the rest of the browser. When people say they want “simple” programs, they’re using the word as a synonym for “easy to use”, not as a synonym for “borderline retarded”.
• No ad blocking, no RSS indicator in the address bar, no add-ons (a la Firefox), no importing bookmarks from Safari or Opera, no exporting bookmarks to other browsers (despite Google bragging about being “open”), no page setup or print preview, no fullscreen mode, no Mac or Linux versions (they’re “coming soon”, which in Google lingo means anywhere from six months to six years), the downloads bar is hard to read and previous downloads remain in the bar and can’t be deleted. I could go on, but this browser has wasted enough of my day already.
Granted, Google Chrome is fast, but that’s not hard when there’s nothing in the goddamn thing. The only salvageable parts of this disaster are the startup page that lists your most-visited websites, the built-in task manager, and how it automatically adds search engines to your list of possible default ones (it added a Daily Ramblings search option as soon as I visited this page). Other than that, Chrome is merely a turd painted silver.