From Navigator to Chrome. My Epic Browser Journey

The first browser I ever used was Netscape Navigator. Wow. That brings back some memories. I paid $45 for a year license. Yeah, you heard me. Back then you had to PAY for a browser. Silicon Valley wunderkind Marc Andreesen was the master-mind behind what was at that time one of the hottest companies in the internet world. The year was about 1997 (or ’98).

However, Navigator’s hegemony as a browser, and Netscape’s viability as a company, was trounced when a little ol’ company from Redmond, WA released THEIR browser…for FREE. It was called Internet Explorer. Game over man!

Then I used IE for a while. Ugh. Even typing the letters irks me. This was back when I primarily used Windows computers.Yeah, I know. It’s hard for even me to believe there was a time when I actually preferred working on one of those things. (To this day, whenever I see anyone at an airport pull out a Windows laptop, I actually feel sorry for them. I’m not even joking. For a split second I really and truly feel bad for them. Anyway, I’m seriously digressing from the point of this article.)

Then in 2002, after leaving my job at Intuit to start my video business, I knew there was no way in the world I was going to use a Windows machine to edit videos. I could care less how passionate and gung-ho all those Vegas Video users were. I was going to use a Mac. That meant using Safari my browser.

Switching to Safari from IE was like being emancipated. It opened up a whole new world in internet browsing. It was elegant. Clean. Cool. Everything that makes Apple products wonderful.

Then along came “the Fox.” Firefox to be exact. (Which, coincidentally was born out of the code for Navigator, so it was kind of a homecoming I guess). I don’t quite remember why or when I started using it, but I remember thinking that it was the freaking bomb! It seemed to have all the obvious features a browser should have. I couldn’t even tell you what about it I liked over Safari. But it got to a point where whenever I had to use Safari again, I found myself desperately missing Firefox.

But alas, my fickle romance with internet browsers has kicked in yet again. It all started earlier this year when I updated Firefox and all my Delicious plugins broke. The new version didn’t support the universal bookmarking plug-in. That really bummed me out. I loved me some Delicious. (Of cousre, Xmarks.com is my new favorite ubiquitous bookmarker.)

Then I noticed that my computer often worked slower when Firefox was open. I’d have to close it if I wanted to render a video. Sites would run much slower. In April I was doing some video training and consulting at a client’s and I noticed that my laptop was running dog slow. I assumed it was a weak internet connection. Then one of the employees at my client suggested using Google Chrome. I had heard of Chrome, and you’d think being the Google junkie I am, I would have already been using it. (Side note: for the November issue of EventDV magazine I’ve submitted what felt like a feature length script of my entire Cloud-based business management system, and Google products play a huge role). For whatever reason, I never made the Chrome switch. This time I did. And I haven’t looked back ever since.

This article is already way longer than I ever expected it to be. But I’m currently on a plane to L.A. for Shane Hulrbut’s big cinema event, and I have nothing better to do. Regardless, you’ll have to tune in tomorrow to find out the specific features of Chrome that have me even more ga-ga for Google.