Google Chrome is on the Move

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.cultofmac.com/chrome-browser-growing-faster-than-safari/41573?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+cultofmac/bFow+(Cult+of+Mac)&utm_content=Google+Reader' target='_blank'>http://www.cultofmac.com/chrome-bro...t=Google+Reader</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"As Microsoft's Internet Explorer falls to just under 60 percent of the browser market, Google's Chrome has jumped ahead of Apple's Safari, indicates a new survey released Tuesday. Although Mozilla's Firefox took the largest percentage of the market lost by Microsoft, Google's Chrome took 6.7 percent, versus 2.5 percent for Apple's Safari."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1272993060.usr105634.jpg" /></p><p>In two years, dropping 20% is not a good sign. Now Chrome has pushed aside Safari and heading upwards towards Internet Explorer. They have a long way to go to catch up to the roughly 60% market share that IE has but they have fired a warning shot over the bow it appears based on the new data. Personally, I pretty much stick with Safari, mainly because of the MobileMe syncing of bookmarks over several machines.&nbsp;</p>

[Dyvim]

Personally, I pretty much stick with Safari, mainly because of the MobileMe syncing of bookmarks over several machines.
XMarks plugin for Safari/Chrome/Firefox/IE will let you extend that to pretty much any browser on any machine (PC or Mac).

I'm a Firefox fan, so I use Firefox on both PC and Mac. XMarks for Firefox keeps all my bookmarks in sync. Then on 1 Mac I also run XMarks for Safari, that keeps all those Firefox bookmarks in sync with Safari. Then MobileMe bookmark sync keeps the Safari bookmarks in sync across my other Mac, iPhones, and iPad.

They recently added a nice feature that allows you to sync your open browser tabs too. So for example, imagine you're away from the office but you really want to load up the tabs you left open on your office PC/Mac. You can just grab your iPhone (or do this from your home PC/Mac) and by visiting the XMarks site (iPhone) / using the Plugin (desktop) open all those tabs you have open in your office. Cool!

Anyway, there's no need to stick with Safari just for the bookmark sync.

[doogald]

On a Mac, both Safari and Firefox start bogging down after time, and both use up free RAM like nobody's business. I've been using Chrome now (with the xmarks extension, so no matter which browser I use, my bookmarks are in sync) and I've been very, very pleased.

I use Chrome when I boot up Windows (every blue moon) for sure.

[crimsonsky]

You don't even need to use a 3rd party utility to sync Chrome bookmarks. You can do it with Chrome alone. Of course, this is only for Chrome to Chrome synching, but works fine for me.

[Jeff Campbell]

Have you ever had problems with XMarks though? I was using it, then I lost all my bookmarks for some strange reason and couldn't log on to the site to see what was up, I turned it off for now until I have more time to figure out what happened. Could be something else that caused it, I just haven't had the time to sit down and work through it.

That being said, great idea with the XMarks, then using MobileMe to sync up all the machines.

[Dyvim]

Have you ever had problems with XMarks though?
Not yet. I started using it soon after MobileMe came out when they were still Foxmarks and mostly supported Firefox and have been using it in conjunction with MobileMe ever since. (Knocks on wood.)

[doogald]

Xmarks keeps history of your synced bookmarks and you can restore back to a previous restore point if there is an issue. I did this once when the Chrome extension did a "replace on server" rather than a merge or "replace on Chrome from server". (It was my mistake, I think.)

[Menneisyys]

XMarks plugin for Safari/Chrome/Firefox/IE will let you extend that to pretty much any browser on any machine (PC or Mac).

I'm a Firefox fan, so I use Firefox on both PC and Mac. XMarks for Firefox keeps all my bookmarks in sync. Then on 1 Mac I also run XMarks for Safari, that keeps all those Firefox bookmarks in sync with Safari. Then MobileMe bookmark sync keeps the Safari bookmarks in sync across my other Mac, iPhones, and iPad.

They recently added a nice feature that allows you to sync your open browser tabs too. So for example, imagine you're away from the office but you really want to load up the tabs you left open on your office PC/Mac. You can just grab your iPhone (or do this from your home PC/Mac) and by visiting the XMarks site (iPhone) / using the Plugin (desktop) open all those tabs you have open in your office. Cool!

Anyway, there's no need to stick with Safari just for the bookmark sync.

yup, another Xmarks-user here - works just great in synching all my stuff across platforms (OS X, Windows, iPhone - the later via MobileME).

[Menneisyys]

I've pretty thoroughly tested the then-current version of Chrome against FF some 2-3 weeks ago under OS X. FF has turned out to be far better, far more powerful etc.

[doogald]

I've pretty thoroughly tested the then-current version of Chrome against FF some 2-3 weeks ago under OS X. FF has turned out to be far better, far more powerful etc.

Google just upgraded the Chrome beta, with better javascript, etc., etc. You may want to test it again.

And, again, you may want to do long-term use testing. Open up ten tabs in each, close them, reopen them, and keep the browsers going for hours. In my experience, Firefox eventually starts having performance issues over time that require a browser quit and restart. This never happens (in my experience, anyway) with Chrome.