Google Chrome: The Novelty is Wearing Off

I love Google.  They’re a great company.  I have Google Apps on my website, Google everything on my BlackBerry, and I hopped onto Google Chrome as soon as it came out. 

Knowing it was in the introductory phase, I dealt with certain facts of Chrome, such as the inability to use plug-ins or extensions.  Chrome is a fast little beast, and I enjoy it immensely.

But recently, I have had need to open Firefox once or twice during my work, and I see some of the extensions that I used to use that I no longer do.  I started getting frustrated with the lack of synchronization of bookmarks (Delicious), the inability to check out advanced details of CSS when working with web design (CSSViewer), and my popups. notifications and other various tweaks (FaviconizeTab, Google Reader Watcher, to name a couple.)

Google Chrome is nice and clean, but the bottom line is starting to dawn on me:  It is less functional, in its current form, than Firefox, and even Internet Explorer.  The amount of time I’m spending on bookmarks and dealing with CSS in Chrome is far outweighing the time I’m saving in the fast streamlined browsing experience I get from it. 

My opinion:  Google Chrome can’t compete unless it gets with the program.

And getting with the program it seems to be.  The net is abound with rumors and such that Chrome is getting extensions eventually.  According to Chromeplugins.org, and confirmed by Google, there seems to be a session dedicated to the development of extensions for the upcoming Google I/O Developer Conference, scheduled for May.

It’s just a few months away, but my patience is wearing thin.  I’m tempted to jump back to Firefox for now, and come revisit Chrome after the conference.  If extensions start getting coded.