I have used Google Chrome as my full-time  browser for at at least the last six months.  Lately, as my interest in getting into web design again has peaked, so has my disappointment with Chrome. My whole issues revolves around the fact that Firefox does an awesome job at display all the resources of a web site. Also, while Chrome may have a far superior basic interface, I feel like at the moment, you cant do enough with it. Firefox on the other hand gives you access to thousands of community driven plug-ins that give the browser unlimited potential. I don’t feel like Chrome offers quite the same experience. I feel that is definitely not as straight-forward.

What have I done to customize Firefox? Here’s a list of my active plug-ins and modifications:

• DownThemAll! “The mass downloader for Firefox”
  This is a great plugin for anyone who visits sites that list tons of images all on one page, or open-directories full of “goodies”. All you have to do is “DownThemAll!”

• Fast Dial “Visual bookmarks”
  Every tab I open now has an Opera-like page with 9 customizable bookmarks, with previews.

• Personas “Themes, skins, fur coats and more.”
  A simple skinning tool for Firefox, that allows you to customize the interface with creative images and when your done, you can share them with others online, via http://www.getpersonas.com/. I personally use the Gray and Black persona.

• Download Statusbar “View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar”
  One of the big flaws of Firefox is it’s download window, but this plug-in solves the problem completely. It really makes me wonder where Google got it’s idea for their download bar on Chrome, LOL.

• Beyond Plug-ins: I compress all of my bookmarks on my bookmark bar to just their individual favicons. This worked out well because every site I visit has it’s own unique favicon, so it just made sense to get rid of the name and just leave the icon. Less is more!

Other things…

One thing I have noticed is a lot of sites that I visit do not like using Chrome, especially sites from Microsoft. Firefox seems to be able to disguise itself and work with all of those “IE Only” sites. This has worked out well for my situation, since I completely uninstalled IE8 when I installed Windows 7.

BTW, thumbs up for Windows 7!

To sum things up

Use the browser that works best for you. If you’re just a casual internet surfer, Chrome is great. It has the best interface out. Now if you’re like me and you’re looking for something more, something with complete customization without getting nitty-gritty and compiling your own browser, Firefox is by-far better.

Comments and Discussion is welcome! Please be sure to share your internet surfing setup and also if you have any suggestions, please post’em up!

-Jeremy