Google Chrome? Life changing? The statment is also bold. But never have I been so behind a product as this. Those of you who know me, know that I have been a fan of Google for a while now. You may have heard me talk about how my brother Geoff lived on the same floor with Larry Page (yes, he was really born in Lansing) at UofM their freshman year. So that's my little connection, it's not a big one, but it was enough to make me prefer Google's search engine over Looksmart's. If you're not familiar with looksmart.com, it's an old search engine, so that tells you how long ago I've been using the internet (man, that make's me feel old for some reason). The company that you'll find on that site has come a long way since it's beginnings as an internet search engine.
Either way, that's not the point here. The point is, I like Google a lot, and I've been liking it for a long time here. I hope you can see that I'm starting to build a defense for my bold title. I was happy with just the Google website, you know, just the search. I liked that it found me a lot of relevant results, what I was looking for, and was easy to use. In fact, now that I think of it, I remember looking for Pokemon games I could download to floppy disks rather than going to a store and buying them. And yeah, I've been a nerd for a long itme too. And I liked that if the Google search just wasn't cutting it, I could always go to an advanced search, which is extremely helpful if you know what you're doing. By the way, do any of you ever use the I'm Feeling Lucky button on Google? Hmm, I never do, I guess I'm never that confident. I mean, if I'm using a search engine, and I'm that confident in what I'm looking for that I hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button, then why am I using a search engine? I mean, it seems like I know what I'm looking for, so I don't need to search. I don't know, maybe I should use that button more. After all, Google did send me a t-shirt after Austin Ellsworth emailed Google and asked if he could have any free things. It's a fun hobby to begin with, you look around the internet, find any company you want, email them and just ask. Most don't respond, a lot just say no, but some actually say "sure, why not". Heinz sent me a like 4 little pins that you can put on sweaters or something, and like 2 pens. It was cool. But Austin hit the jackpot, Google sent him a T-shirt and some cool pens and a note, right to his house (within a week!). So I was like nuh-uh, and I emailed them too. They sent me the same shirt and the same pens and a hand-written note that said "Hey Alex, We're glad you like Google so much. Tell your friend Austin we said 'Hi.'" It was crazy.
[[Random Cool Link]] A cool think about Google is they make caches of the internet, and they save them. You can actually search a cached copy of the internet in 2001, it's amazing how much Wikipedia has changed, huh? Facebook is old too!
Anyways, then Google came out with email (they came out with a lot of other shit too, but Gmail was the next big seller of Google for me). I had been using Hotmail, under some stupid name for a long time and I was ready to grow up, right when Gmail hit beta. You need an invite to get in, and fortunately I got one, because it was a lot harder to get one back then. It had everything I liked in an email service, it held a lot of emails, and it was free.
After using Gmail a while, along with other a host of other Gmail products like Google Maps, Google Earth (who hasn't used that!?), Google SketchUp, and...Blogger, I was thinking how awesome it would be for Google to come out with a browser. Lo and behold, Google did exactly this, and a lot soon than I expected. They released Google Lynx, faster, better cleaner than the rest. Unfortunately it was an April Fools joke. But oh well, they came out with Chrome not much later.
So giving me a browser when that's what I wanted was enough to make it a life changing event? Of course not. Google Chrome, like Gmail, had all the features I liked in my browser (Firefox at the time), it was simpler, better and, as we've come to expect: free. Some of the differences between Chrome and Firefox are simple, some of the differences are drastic, and everything, in my opinion, is easier on Chrome. "Everything?" you may ask. Everything. Otherwise it wouldn't be the best thing that's happened to me. The first time I excitedly opened it I said "Oh no..." it was so empty. I thought, "Where's all the stuff I need?" But, as is common with new browser releases, the first page that opens after installation is a sort of help page, or 'here's what's going on with this browser.' I read through that, as you might expect me to by this point in my dedication to Google. And as I used the interesting features that I read about, I realized all that shit I thought I needed, I never used anyways. So far, I've never had to look for something in Chrome that I needed, and not been able to find it. I could spend a long time listing all the shit I like about it, but you could look it up yourself, and I imagine that if you're still reading by now, you're wondering when I'm going to wrap this thing up. Now.
