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Time for this Special Education Teacher to come out of hiding again and talk about a tech solution he has been using with good results.

I have used PCs & Macs and all the major web browsers and even some of the less popular ones, in hopes I would find one that I really like and does what I want, when I want.  Some of my more important personal requirements that I require from my browsers are:

1. Stability – What good is a browser if it crashes too often?  Not much in my opinion.
2. Extensibility – Most browsers today have the ability to add tools that I want to use in my browser.
3. Customizable – The ability to change the appearance of the browser interface to meet my preferences
4. Speed – If it takes forever to load a webpage I won’t use it, I tend to get impatient and speed is relative to the other browsers available today.

All of the major browsers today are far better than anything we had access to in the past, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera Flock and yes even Internet Explorer (which I can’t use on my Mac), they all work well and you can surf the web quite adequately with any of them.  I currently have 5 browsers on my laptop and until recently I have always found myself switching back and forth between those ones, while I kept searching for the right browser for me.

I believe that I have found the one that works best for me right now – Google’s Chrome Browser.  Chrome has improved tremendously over the past 2 years and it seems as though its improvements are still coming at a fast and furious pace. I used Chrome when it was first in beta on the PC and then had to wait for it to work on a Mac.  Chrome is fast, somewhat customizable (enough to meet my personal requirements), and since Google added the ability to have extensions this year, Chrome meets my daily needs very nicely.

The only problem that I have with Chrome now is that I see the “ah snap” screen more often than I would like, but even that issue has come down to much more acceptable level over the past couple of months. So much so that I have steadily been using it more and more during this time. It has gotten to the point where I find myself automatically clicking on the Chrome icon whenever I am going online.  I guess I made the switch a couple of weeks ago without really realizing that I had done so.

Looking at how I use my computer today, it seems that I have become partial to Google products.  My start page is iGoogle, Google Docs/Apps is my primary Office Suite, gMail, gCalendar and Contacts, I almost always use Google Search, recently returned to Blogger and now have switched over to Chrome.  What comes next trading in iPhoto for Picassa?  I don’t know about that, but I do use Picassa as my backup Photo application and am seriously thinking about adding some storage and putting all of my photos in one place online, once Picassa is added to Google Apps.

Some people worry about putting too many eggs in one basket or giving Google all of your data…sorry but if Google wants your data, (if you have been online at all) they already probably have most of it and like other major corporations or governments they could get the rest if they really thought they needed to.

I am rather fatalistic as about the Internet and its lack of privacy, it’s pretty simple in my opinion, if you want privacy don’t go on the web.  As far putting too many eggs in one basket, I just keep hoping Google continues to live by its motto of “do no evil.”  Time will tell.

What browser do you use?  Have you thought about whether it still meets your needs or are you always fussing at it (or should that be cussing?).  It might be worth your time to try Chrome, it works well for me and I like it better than the other options out there right now.

Next up – what extensions did I finally decide to use in Chrome – more than you might think.

“There is no try, only do.” – Yoda

No one has asked or given me any money or swag to write this article – these are simply my thoughts on something I am currently using.