Q: Why does Google Chrome suck?
A: From a web development standpoint, it's more of a pain in the rear than it is useful.
Don't get us wrong, it has many features such as built in spell check, tons of plug-ins, fast browsing speeds and very slick minimalistic GUI. However certain aspects of the browser may make coders and webmasters want to pull their hair out more than it will make them say, "That's cool.". Where we gained a few bald patches was during a session of QA testing with VirtueMart and integrating Google Adwords Conversion Tracking.
We had placed a tracking code into a 'Thank You' checkout page of Virtuemart, and upon testing a purchase, we couldn't find the code script we had put inside. We searched and searched through the source code as provided by Google Chrome, double checked our uploads, screamed a few obscenities at the computer, furiously drank a pot of coffee and we still couldn't figure out why in the back end of Joomla, it showed the code, but in the front end on the browser it was nowhere to be found!
We rewrote the code, made some test pages, re-uploaded the changes and once again, no tracking code to be found in the front end upon viewing the source. At our wits end, we then decided to switch browsers.We brushed off the dust of IE8 and viewed the source. Low and behold, we found the tracking code right where it was supposed to be.
So what was the problem? We realized that Chrome displayed the source code differently from Firefox and Internet Explorer. It displays each element in its own separate area, rather than all compiled together in one single window. In order to find the code later in Chrome, after figuring out exactly what the problem was, we found that we needed to select the item in Chrome, click the 'Inspect Element' menu item and expand the element just to find the general area that our code was placed.
Some might say, "But Google is doing that so you can see details of individual code! You can view things in a much more detailed aspect rather than all together.". Agreed, this idea is very cool, however we found that simply viewing the source and being able to do a search for a line of code we're looking for is so much easier than trying to figure out another browsers 'new' and 'cool' way of reinventing the wheel.
Again, don't get us wrong- Google Chrome is a fantastic browser, it has countless options/features and an ease of use for the intermediate to expert web surfer. However for someone who is attempting to bug test or manage a website's issue, Chrome may not be the way to go.
