Google Chrome, Chromium, and Linux

Apparently, Google has released a developer preview version of Chrome. Though I’m not a developer, this is good news to me. I’ve been spending more time in Windows lately working on school projects, and Chrome 2.0 has become my default browser in Windows. My favorite features of 2.0 are:

• Tabs in the window border. This feature (a duplicate of Apple’s Windows versions of Safari) saves a lot of screen space.
• Incognito browsing. In Chrome, instead of having to clear private data to maintain your privacy and anonymity, you can open an “incognito” window. Basically, when you browse in an incognito window, all history and cookies associated with that window disappear when you close it.
• The download fucntionality. In Chrome, instead of dealing with dialog boxes when you download files, an arrow appears to direct your attention to a download bar at the bottom of the window. In the download bar, each downloaded file has its own button with an arrow to the right. Clicking on the arrow gives you the option to open the file. One drawback of this feature is that Chrome automatically saves files, rather than giving you the option to open them without permanently saving them. However, the visual slickness of this feature makes up for that minor drawback.

Thus, I am encouraged by Google’s new attempts to make a Linux version of Chrome. While you can download Crossover Chromium, the open-source core of Chrome, Chromium has a few issues. Though it has the first and third of my favorite Chrome features, it runs slow on Ubuntu on my machine (the download arrow creeps down the screen), and it sometimes flickers in and out in a strobe-like pattern that might induce seizures if I had such medical conditions.

Opera

Since switching to Linux Mint, I’ve started using Opera as my default browser. Opera is available in Mint’s default repositories, or you can download the very latest version as a Debian package from Opera.com. My initial reason for trying opera on Linux again was as a workaround to the problems with the bugs in the latest version of Flash. The plugin still has some problems in Opera, but it works a lot better than in Firefox. Basically, Flash doesn’t work on some sites at all in Firefox for me, but most will work for at least a while in Opera.

Opera is a major inconvenience if you like your desktop themes, though. Unlike Firefox, which adopts your desktop theme in both Ubuntu and Mint, Opera keeps its own theme even if it clashes badly. Fortunately, some members of the Opera community have developed different skins, some of which mimic Linux themes. For example, here’s a screenshot of my desktop with the Nimbus theme, including a matching Opera skin.

Another minor inconvenience of Opera in Linux is that, once in a blue moon, it will crash randomly. Fortunately, with Opera you always have the option of resuming your previous session. That makes this a minor price to pay for the ability to view Flash content.

Epiphany (The Browser, Not the Religious Experience)

Since I like the new version of Evolution, the native GNOME e-mail client, I decided to try the update of the native browser, Epiphany. Apparently, on most GNOME-using versions of Linux, Epiphany is pre-installed as the default browser. However, Ubuntu chose to go with the better known and more extensible Firefox. I had tried Epiphany out once before. Back then, it was minimalistic to the point of feeling useless, at least to anyone who had ever used another browser in their life. That and the lack of autoscrolling soured me on Epiphany.

The new version is a distinct improvement. Mostly, this is because of the availability of extensions to add some common features that the might miss from other browsers. Just click Tools —> Extensions and you’ll get a menu of “loaded extensions.” You can install an extension from the list in the resulting dialog box simply by clicking a checkbox next to it. This feature allowed me to add autoscrolling, mouse gestures (duplicating my favorite Firefox extension), and the ability to subscribe to news feeds. Among other interesting extensions was Epilicious, which allows you to synchronize your bookmarks with social bookmarking sites like Delicious, if you’re into such things. There was also an extension to add a sidebar and the ubiquitous Greasemonkey. Thus, while the default features set is pretty thin, the most common features of more popular browsers are available with little effort.

It looks like the biggest problem with the latest version of Epiphany is stability, at least on my computer. It literally won’t run for more than five minutes without crashing. It’s true that, like Firefox, Epiphany has an automatic session-recovery tool that will let you open your previous windows and tabs when you restart the program. However, it’s still an annoyance to do this routine, however simple, every few minutes.

All in all, though improved, Epiphany still doesn’t seem ready for prime time. I would recommend sticking to Firefox as your default browser for now.