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.by Anura Guruge

A Few Pertinent Posts:
  +++++ Do a SEARCH (>>>>) on ‘FireFox’ or ‘Chrome’ for others >>>>>
1. Switching from FireFox to Chrome  — Mar. 23, 2013.
2. Two things I like about Chrome … — Mar. 25, 2013.

I have now been using Chrome, exclusively, for just under a month. On the whole it has been ‘seamless’. I can’t believe that I was able to walk away from FireFox that easily, without nary a backward glance after over 12 year association. I really haven’t encountered any insurmountable problems with Chrome, on Windows 7, though I will continue to contend that I find it a tad sluggish compared to FireFox!

Last night I used Chrome on my Windows XP machine (which I still keep around because I still, alas, use FrontPage 2003). I was all excited that Chrome was going to automatically sync all my bookmarks, extensions etc. as soon as I signed in. It did all of that and I was happy.

But, I noticed that it would not render [i.e., display] my Bookmark Toolbar icons! That is a bummer because in some cases, especially with the very distinctive icons [e.g., Marketwatch, Bloomberg, Yahoo] I do not have any text next to them. Just the icon. On Windows 7 this works like a champ. On XP you get the generic ‘page’ icon for all. I thought this was a screen resolution issue so I ‘reduced’ my screen resolution to make the icons bigger. Still no joy.

Then I went to access my e-mail and I nearly fell off my kneeling stool seat. I reloaded and reloaded again. I even restarted XP!

GoDaddy e-mail, the e-mail service that I have used for eons (if not longer), just does not render in Chrome!

So I fired up FireFox. E-mail is just fine. I fired up this Windows 7 PC. Accessed e-mail. Just dandy. Went back to XP. Damn thing looks like somebody puked on the screen.

Here. This is what it looks like on Chrome on Windows XP.

Remember how GoDaddy rushed to my aid when I ran into traffic issues on my blog when the pope resigned. That is GoDaddy. Google should learn from them (though I have to say that Google was pretty awesome when we have had hardware issues with our Google Nexus 7 pads).

Click to ENLARGE.

For a start, look at the parts I have underlined, twice, in red. Look at the BIG button. Notice that you can’t read the TEXT … which actually says ‘Move’ because it is displaying white text on a white background! All those little blobs you see, like bleached mouse droppings … those are supposed to be full size buttons.

This is crazy. This is stupid. This is unacceptable.

So, I Google. A known problem, going back to at least 2011. That is diabolical.

Click to ENLARGE.

Notice that there is now a Chrome APP to access GoDaddy e-mail. I refuse to go that route. I have accessed GoDaddy e-mail from a browser for longer than most Google programmers have been out of diapers. I am not going to go down the slippery slope of relying on an APP to access Web-based e-mail.

That Chrome can be site-specific, depending on the version of the Operating System is beyond pathetic — and I am here talking as an ex-professional programmer for IBM, an ex-microcode programmer, a person who started programming in 1969, somebody with both a B.Sc (Hons.) & M.Sc. (Distinction) in Computer Technolgy/Science and somebody who taught computer programming at College level. This is just piss-poor programming. Simple as that.

I am not amused. Can’t believe that Google hasn’t fixed this or that GoDaddy, with their enormous clout, hasn’t leaned on Google and forced them to do the decent thing. Amazing.