4 ms·

May I ask what's so bad about Chrome on OSX?

by DeepDuh 14y ago

gurkendoktor 14y ago
Answering because I also think it's hideous: the tool bar style and color are different from the rest of the OS. The new icon is way flatter than anything else in the dock (save the new Messages icon, maybe; see [1]). Even though I found a nice-looking skin on my one Mac, there doesn't seem to be any way to find out the theme's name and install it on my other Mac. The right-click menu is different than in all other web views on the system (at least in the German localization). The built-in dictionary lookup support (what is triple tap nowadays) is getting there, but still worse than Safari in my experience. [1] http://maururu.net/2011/old-chrome-icons/ http://maururu.net/2011/old-chrome-icons/
- danso 14y ago
  I'm kind of relieved that you only think it to be literally hideous
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  Ok, so it's eye candy and the built-in dictionary from what I can make out from your post. I agree with the dictionary, the icon and to some degree the right click menu - two of those features I hardly use however. The toolbar looks just fine for me, I don't need uniform toolbar styles over all my apps. iTunes, for example, breaks the OSX style as well and it's an Apple app. Graphically Chrome looks much cleaner to me than Safari, but I guess that's all subjective. I have to say though, that they did some graphical updates lately I don't agree with at all - noticeably the removal of the "plus" icon on the new tab button as well as the change of the tools button icon from a recognizable wrench (or whatever it was) to a generic list icon.
  - tambourine_man 14y ago
    Graphically Chrome looks much cleaner to me than Safari, but I guess that's all subjective. Safari's only color is the favicon of the current selected tab. Chrome shows all tabs favicons, plus a ”blue folder” for every bookmark folder and white document for every bookmarklet. And the shades of gray are different from anything else on the system, and vary all over the place like crazy (Rollover, background tab vs foreground, etc). Safari's toolbar, on the other hand is a single gray gradient from top to bottom.
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
      And that's important because? What makes Chrome look cleaner to me is mostly the number of strong horizontal / vertical lines I have to orient my eyes at - and in what order those lines appear. In chrome I see First line = bottom border of OSX menu bar Second line = top border of tab Oh look, here is the content I'm looking for, website icon plus website title -> nice. In Safari: First line = bottom border of menu bar Second line = top border of URL bar Nothing of interest here, I know which site I'm at right now Third line = bottom border of URL bar fourth line = bottom border of toolbar Ok, now I see tabs. But NO ICON! It's very hard to make out the different websites I have open.
  - 89a 14y ago
    Not just the dictionary but all built in OS X cocoa niceties (of which the dictionary is one but only a small part of it) suffer in highly custom UIs like Chrome
- tambourine_man 14y ago
  Yes, that's mostly it. Ugly toolbar and address bar, can't use built-in dictionary, slightly worse text rendering, etc. Oh yes, and if you want to grab the window, you have exactly 11px for that. Try it after lot's of coffee. I find Chrome beautiful on Windows. In full screen, it's a natural fit, one of the best Windows apps. But on the Mac, it annoys me and hurts my eyes. And I know it's old fashion, but if you are among the 0.5% of the population that can actually distinguish a URL from a search query, you are out of luck. PS: if you do find out the theme's name please post it here, thanks.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    > slightly worse text rendering Huge, huge understatement. And I have a 2009 MacBook Pro (not a retina one). I just can't imagine how poor Chrome's rendering might be for those poor people who have rMBP...
  - nnnnni 14y ago
    The thing that I hate about these "omnibars" is that I used to be able to type a URL into the search box and get information about it directly without going there. It now takes two steps (google.com, enter URL).
    - graeme 14y ago
      I type something like "amazon.com q" then quickly erase the q and let instant search change the results. I just now realized that I should be typing "!g amazon.com", because I have duckduckgoog installed. (google search with DDG shortcodes)
- spartango 14y ago
  Also, Safari's multitouch behavior is far more sane and elegant than Chrome. The pinch to zoom continuously zooms into the page, rather than just scaling the font. The swipe forward/back is visually fluid, showing behind-this-pane previews of where I'm going back to. Double tap to focus on a block of text is convenient.
ludwigvan 14y ago
Pinch to zoom (double tap) doesn't work. (pinch to zoom actually work, but in noticable increments, not smooth.)
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  Yes that's true. That's the only feature mentioned here that I do miss as well on Chrome.
philfreo 14y ago
We're developing a OS X Cocoa app that has a large Webkit component which uses whatever Safari on your system uses for the inspector. So Chrome isn't always a good option.

May I ask what's so bad about Chrome on OSX?

by DeepDuh 14y ago

May I ask what's so bad about Chrome on OSX?

Answering because I also think it's hideous: the tool bar style and color are different from the rest of the OS. The new icon is way flatter than anything else in the dock (save the new Messages icon, maybe; see [1]). Even though I found a nice-looking skin on my one Mac, there doesn't seem to be any way to find out the theme's name and install it on my other Mac. The right-click menu is different than in all other web views on the system (at least in the German localization). The built-in dictionary lookup support (what is triple tap nowadays) is getting there, but still worse than Safari in my experience. [1] http://maururu.net/2011/old-chrome-icons/ http://maururu.net/2011/old-chrome-icons/

danso 14y ago
I'm kind of relieved that you only think it to be literally hideous
DeepDuh 14y ago
Ok, so it's eye candy and the built-in dictionary from what I can make out from your post. I agree with the dictionary, the icon and to some degree the right click menu - two of those features I hardly use however. The toolbar looks just fine for me, I don't need uniform toolbar styles over all my apps. iTunes, for example, breaks the OSX style as well and it's an Apple app. Graphically Chrome looks much cleaner to me than Safari, but I guess that's all subjective. I have to say though, that they did some graphical updates lately I don't agree with at all - noticeably the removal of the "plus" icon on the new tab button as well as the change of the tools button icon from a recognizable wrench (or whatever it was) to a generic list icon.
- tambourine_man 14y ago
  Graphically Chrome looks much cleaner to me than Safari, but I guess that's all subjective. Safari's only color is the favicon of the current selected tab. Chrome shows all tabs favicons, plus a ”blue folder” for every bookmark folder and white document for every bookmarklet. And the shades of gray are different from anything else on the system, and vary all over the place like crazy (Rollover, background tab vs foreground, etc). Safari's toolbar, on the other hand is a single gray gradient from top to bottom.
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    And that's important because? What makes Chrome look cleaner to me is mostly the number of strong horizontal / vertical lines I have to orient my eyes at - and in what order those lines appear. In chrome I see First line = bottom border of OSX menu bar Second line = top border of tab Oh look, here is the content I'm looking for, website icon plus website title -> nice. In Safari: First line = bottom border of menu bar Second line = top border of URL bar Nothing of interest here, I know which site I'm at right now Third line = bottom border of URL bar fourth line = bottom border of toolbar Ok, now I see tabs. But NO ICON! It's very hard to make out the different websites I have open.
- 89a 14y ago
  Not just the dictionary but all built in OS X cocoa niceties (of which the dictionary is one but only a small part of it) suffer in highly custom UIs like Chrome
tambourine_man 14y ago
Yes, that's mostly it. Ugly toolbar and address bar, can't use built-in dictionary, slightly worse text rendering, etc. Oh yes, and if you want to grab the window, you have exactly 11px for that. Try it after lot's of coffee. I find Chrome beautiful on Windows. In full screen, it's a natural fit, one of the best Windows apps. But on the Mac, it annoys me and hurts my eyes. And I know it's old fashion, but if you are among the 0.5% of the population that can actually distinguish a URL from a search query, you are out of luck. PS: if you do find out the theme's name please post it here, thanks.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  > slightly worse text rendering Huge, huge understatement. And I have a 2009 MacBook Pro (not a retina one). I just can't imagine how poor Chrome's rendering might be for those poor people who have rMBP...
- nnnnni 14y ago
  The thing that I hate about these "omnibars" is that I used to be able to type a URL into the search box and get information about it directly without going there. It now takes two steps (google.com, enter URL).
  - graeme 14y ago
    I type something like "amazon.com q" then quickly erase the q and let instant search change the results. I just now realized that I should be typing "!g amazon.com", because I have duckduckgoog installed. (google search with DDG shortcodes)
spartango 14y ago
Also, Safari's multitouch behavior is far more sane and elegant than Chrome. The pinch to zoom continuously zooms into the page, rather than just scaling the font. The swipe forward/back is visually fluid, showing behind-this-pane previews of where I'm going back to. Double tap to focus on a block of text is convenient.

ludwigvan 14y ago

Pinch to zoom (double tap) doesn't work. (pinch to zoom actually work, but in noticable increments, not smooth.)

DeepDuh 14y ago
Yes that's true. That's the only feature mentioned here that I do miss as well on Chrome.

philfreo 14y ago

We're developing a OS X Cocoa app that has a large Webkit component which uses whatever Safari on your system uses for the inspector. So Chrome isn't always a good option.