Chrome Gripe
While I'm at it, I'm going to gripe a bit about Chrome.
First, lets begin by setting up some formalities. I've been very impressed by Google Chrome, both in terms of product but also the speed of their market penetration. The increased competition by a well funded and important player has really increased the innovation in this area.
As with all things, I'm not going to spend as much time on the things that they have done right and instead nit pick. I realize I'm sitting in the cheap seats and for that, I'm sorry. If you are a chrome developer and want to know what I think is done well, feel free to email me ;D.
Gripe 1: Delay after opening a background link
After opening a link as a background window, the page that I'm viewing stall for a significant and noticeable amount of time. I often read a page and open interesting links to flip through later and stalling interrupts my train of thought. My uneducated guess is that opening a new process has something to do with that lag, but isn't unsolvable. The mere fact that I opening it in the background means that I don't want it immediately. Feel free to put it on the backburner but I want the current page to remain reactive.
Gripe 2: The Back Button
After going back a page, it takes a chunk of time for Chrome to reload the page and to scroll to the section of the page that I was at previously. I haven't taking a look if they do a full reload or a cache load, but either way, this is just irksome. I want to go back, instantly, without seeing the top of the page and then scrolling.
Not Really a Gripe 3: The Gradient on the Tab
Have any of you noticed that when you hover your mouse over a tab, it does a bit of a gradient that follows your mouse? I hope that some engineer had some fun doing that because that doesn't add to the user experience in any imaginable way.
I've tried to screenshot it, but it is still very subtle. On the first picture, my mouse was hovering over the left side of the tab and on the second, the right.
As a side note, has any one noticed the similarities between elections and browser selection? IE as the large, well funded candidate that tries to be everything to everyone and fails. Opera, as the candidate that you know will never make it out of the primaries, but is able to bring some important issues to the debate, such as web standards. The large majority of people using what they have or have been told by their friends to use, without really paying close attention to the features. Granted, I've got some thinking and cleaning up to do with this idea, but if I was working for one of those companies, I'd definitely spend some time thinking about how elections are won and lost, how issues get media coverage, and how to reach out to swing voters.
