The Random Computer Stuff Blog

After playing with doing a detailed and meticulous review of Chrome, I have realized just how much I miss all the extensions I can get with Firefox.

Adblock Plus for the sites with annoying flash ad’s (notice the one’s on my site? No? That’s because I hate them). Flashblock for sites with annoying flash movies I don’t want to see.  Flagfox for when I want to make sure a site is really located in the United States, and not Nigeria. And many more  don’t remember, and am to lazy to look up.

Fortunately, Google says the inability to extend Chrome is “a Chrome weakness, but one which will be addressed soon. “  But as is mentioned in that same conversation, it is unclear what soon means. Is it already coded, and just waiting to be implemented? Is it in development? Or is it a feature currently being planned, on which development will start soon? Personally, I prefer the first option.

On a more positive note, the UI has started to grow on me. It is very minimalist, and the art style is somewhat like Aero, without going over the top like IE 7 and 8. It seems a lot like something Apple would produce, which makes kind of makes sense, as it is based on Webkit, like Safari (of course, the only time I ever use Safari is on my Iphone).

I just downloaded Google Chrome, and will be updating this post as I use it. I will be comparing it primarily to Firefox 3.

In terms of loading speed, it seems to be roughly the same as Firefox 3, maybe a little faster. However, comapred to the huge speed advantage both of them have over IE, it is not very noticeable.

Like Firefox, the application is only 32 bit. I would have preferred to have a native x64 version, but this is not critical. The browser does seem to be very heavily optimized for multi threading, as it opens multiple threads in task manager, compared to Firefox’s 1.

Picture of mutliple threads in task manager for chrome

In terms of the user interface, the much vaunted monobar thing is exactly the same as the one that comes with Firefox 3, although I prefer the drop down for recent sites in FF. One the other hand, the list of most visited sited is somewhat nice, although the functionality is replicated by the bookmark bar in FF. You can definitely tell that they took from the design of Firefox in many places, such as the bar that pops up asking to remember your password.

The images of recently visited sites displayed in Chrome, when you start a new tab

More to come.

Google recently released a beta of their new browser. I will do an in-depth look at this latter, if I feel like it, if I have time. But until then, I would like to comment on why I think Google did this.

In terms of competing with MS and IE, it seems Firefox is already doing that. While Chrome is slightly better at memory management than Firefox 3 when multiple tabs are open, both of them are so much better than IE it is a negligible advantage.

And while Chrome is mutli-threaded, it doesn’t seem like that is necessary. Unless your running a dedicated 50mbps fiber line to your house, your connection speed is going to be a bottleneck long before you CPU is.

I think they did it for one reason: Android. Google cannot control the content of Firefox, which was their previous browser of choice. By developing their own, they can create a more controlled (as much as can be for open source) environment.

Or it could be an evil plan to take control of the desktop market. But that seems unlikely.

As you recall, I wrote an article benchmarking the 4850. One of the benchmarks used was Furmark, and I commented on how performance left something to be desired, and scaling in AA was terrible.

It turns out it was, as a I suspected, a driver problem. But what I hadn’t suspected was that they did in on purpose.

It appears that since Furmark is stressful enough to crash ATI cards, they reduced performance to stop that form happening.

And when you change the executable name, performance goes back to normal.

This is completely unacceptable. With this and Nvidia’s g84/g92/g94 fiasco, I’m really hoping Intel or S3 produces a competitive card. Cause I’m starting to hate both of the big 2.

Source: expreview

Hello all!

This post will be, in my opinion, the best company that represents the loser company of the month. Hopefully by now you have realized I have a love/hate relationship with Apple, don’t we all? Well I am putting them on the Loser of month sheet, because when the 2.0 upgrade was launched, I had many issues with the upgrade, just like the rest of the country! The comment boards where filled and hardly any feed back came from Apple. Most consumers had to go to a Apple store location. I didn’t want to go to the store due to the long lines and the store would have been pack with people and make the entire store uncomfortable and hardly any room to bring out my iPhone.

So I emailed the costumer services and at the end the little message after sending the message said, “Thank you a message will be sent to you in the next 72 hours.” Five days later I got a reply which said, “Hello. This is an automatic reply, and costumer services employee with email you back with in forty eight hours.” Does anyone see the problem there? I DO!

So then about a day and a half later a email came in and the subject was, “iTunes Store services”, continuing to the message a actual person was there! So this person told me to give her my account to the iTunes store so she can see if this item is in your downloading dock. Well… it is! The download comes free to all iPhone users for free, it asks you if you want to upgrade!!! So why would you check my download for the purchase if I own an iPhone, which I stated in the first place…

She comes back and says, “Well everything is fine with the iTunes store and I see you account and download here. I think it might be you connection, try connecting it again.”

>_< Ok… so I tried that and tried to reload the upgrade, and guess what?!!? No upgrade… Back to the email

My email:”Dear Suzy (I don’t remember the lady’s name), I tried to reload the upgrade after resetting my network connection, and no upgrade.”

Response, “Hello Cody, trying loading the new iTunes.”

I already had the new iTunes… But I reloaded iTunes. Nope no upgrade.

My email: “Hello, Nope no upgrade.”

Response, “Hello Cody, Ok well try resetting your iPhone.”

…. OK now I am pissed.

My email: “WHY WOULD THAT WORK?! The problem is with the store, not my phone!!!”

Response, “Hello Cody, I understand it is with the iTunes, please try to reset your phone with iTunes store.”

Ok…Now if anyone reads this answer this for me, WHY WOULD THAT WORK? The only way to reset your phone with iTunes is to restore it and when you need to restore your phone, you need to upgrade first. Well to make a even longer story, short, trust me this is the short version, it was a problem with the upgrade going to my computer, it wasn’t completely sending all the information needed, how? I don’t know. But I got my upgrade never the less and yo soy contento.

So Apple your are the company I nominate for Loser of the month.

This is Cody writing for The Random Computer Stuff Blog.

Any question or want to nominate a company for loser of the month? Email me at, cody@randomcomputerstuff.com, or just leave a comment.