For years I’ve been a big fan of Firefox, but things seem to have gone a little askew lately. It was only a couple of months ago that I blogged about version 4, so I was extremely surprised when a ZDNet tech update arrived in my mail box today and announced Firefox 5. I momentarily thought it was a prank.

At the moment, having given my ThinkPad back to IBM (and being without Windows until next week), I’m a 100% Mac user. But I’m not using Firefox. Shortly after installing Firefox 4 on the iMac I started to receive complaints from another member of the iMac’s user base (known to you, dear readers, as the current Mrs Adams). And actually I was suffering the same problem. For all of it’s life the iMac has performed well, but now, for some strange reason, it was entering into long periods of ‘thinking about what it was doing’. Or in layman’s terms, not responding for minutes on end. This started around the same time Firefox 4 was installed, and the problems occurred when Firefox 4 was running (Mrs A tends to leave it loaded in her logged-on account, as do I). The problems stopped around the same time that Firefox 4 was downgraded to 3.6.something. No need for the jury to retire, m’lud.

However, that wasn’t the end of the Firefox issues. Shortly after downgrading Firefox, it upgraded itself (just a bit) to 3.6.17… and then the spinning beach-ball (a sight well-known to, but not welcomed by, Mac users) started to appear with annoying frequency. The browser would often be in a death spiral of unresponsiveness for up to two minutes – but at least this version had the good grace not to tie up the entire OS. I stripped out the plug-ins but to no avail.

At this point I decided to give Google’s Chrome a go. I did say back in 2008 that there was nothing to make me switch, but back then it was in beta. Now it’s up to version 12 (what, already?). Since installing Chrome I’ve never looked back. It’s fast, it never shows the beach-ball, and I’ve realised I can live without the Firefox plug-ins (apart from one that mimics Firefox’s live bookmark feature).

Anyway, back to Firefox. Version 5? It took thirty-three months for Mozilla to take Firefox from version 3 to 4. There were fourteen months between versions 3.6 and 4. But the gap between version 4 and 5 was just three months (a day less actually). So I’m not going to bother with version 5, I’ll just wait for version 6 in September. Think I’m joking? Wikipedia states that Mozilla hope to ship versions 6 and 7 in 2011. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes:

The Mozilla Foundation, following in the footsteps of Google’s Chrome web browser, seems to believe that if they keep popping out new “major” releases every six weeks, they’ll convince people they’re better than the competition.

Well, that would seem to be the way that Chrome got to version 12 in less than three years, so maybe he’s right. Mr Vaughan-Nichols states that this is a mere point release (a minor one at that), rather than a major release.

Personally, I’ll be selecting my browser based on speed and reliability rather than who has the highest version number.

Let me set my stall out first. At home I use an iMac, and for work I use a Windows-based laptop (previous job and new job). I tried a few times to get into Linux, and while I quite liked the operating system itself, some key applications were either flaky or missing, and I always ended up back in Windows. As I’ve mentioned a few times, for a number of weeks I had possession of an iPad but barely used it. I heard from some people that they were taking an iPad with them on business appointments and leaving the laptop at home – even though I liked the idea, I don’t think there was ever an occasion where I could have done that.

In defence of the iPad, and of the Android tablets I’ve played with, there’s a lot of functionality and applications. Yes, they have their limitations, but they’re tablets – I don’t believe that they’re supposed to be personal computer / laptop replacements. Not yet anyway.

So here’s my issue… if you’re going to purchase something that has the form-factor of a laptop, why wouldn’t you buy a laptop that features a tried-and-trusted operating system with lots of available applications and that provides all of the support you need as a computer user (stuff like printing for example)? Or to turn the question around, why would you buy a Chromebook? If users are going to make that leap, there has to be something really compelling on offer.

A lower price maybe? Well, there’s a slew of cheap tablets on the market, but that hasn’t dented Apple’s dominance. But that’s an irrelevant fact – one of the first Chromebooks to enter the UK market (provided by Samsung) is expected to start at £349, and I could easily get a Windows 7-based laptop for that price (and cheaper).

A lightweight OS which boots up in seconds? Now this is attractive. However, Windows 7 and Mac OS X will come out of sleep mode in the same time, so unless the computer has been shut down this isn’t much of a compelling capability. One benefit of that lightweight OS, with it’s reduced CPU utilisation and hard disk access, will be realised in terms of battery life… and that’s important for the mobile user.

I think the major gotchas will be the following:

• You have to be on-line – with almost no off-line capability I think Google are making a massive assumption about always-available Internet access
• Printing – Google Cloud Print sounds like a major headache (but I’m willing to be told that it’s quick, easy and convenient)
• Applications – I should say “lack of” applications, and therefore lack of access to their data… oh, I’m on an aeroplane but want to write a document / review a spreadsheet / create a presentation

If you’re someone who can afford to have a device for every occasion, then I can see a Chromebook nicely fitting into the scenario where you need long battery life, a simple speedy user interface based mainly around web access, and all of your data in the cloud without having to worry about managing the data locally (and where you’re permanently connected to the Internet). But most people need more than that, so a Chromebook couldn’t be their only option. Sorry Google, I don’t get it. And if I’m being a bit obtuse, let’s just say I don’t think I’ll ever fit into that category.

What do the Nokia 6310i and the Palm Vx have in common? Is it that they’ve both been consigned to a distant corner of a drawer in my office? Is it that my daughter turned her nose up at both of them? Well, I did (jokingly) offer the 6130i to her a couple of years ago when she wanted her first mobile phone, but she politely declined. The answer I’m looking for is that they both have monochrome displays, and as such would now most likely be regarded as technology that Noah’s dad would have used. With the plethora of tablets on the market boasting high-resolution colour displays, surely the days of monochrome displays are well in our past. Maybe not…

I’ve never agreed with the idea of ‘one device to rule them all’. While many people see the iPad as the must-have, I have a few issues with it. It’s expensive for what it offers, it’s quite heavy (I’m thinking of the weight added to an already-heavy bag full of stuff), and it doesn’t fulfil some of my requirements (like the Archos 605′s ability to record from Sky Plus). A few months ago I had the Lotus team iPad at home for a couple of weeks and hardly ever picked it up – in fact, it was something else cluttering up my desk.

Rewind a few months… remember Christmas? Rather a lot has happened since then. On Christmas Day I was admiring Rob Hayden’s Kindle and started to warm to the idea. I love reading, but generally only ever do it on holiday, although I made an effort to put time aside to read some of the books I got for my birthday right after Christmas. However, I’d never take anything more than a paperback on the train or on a plane because of the extra weight. Mrs A picked up on the fact that I often looked at Kindles if we happened to pass Currys (or looked at the other e-readers on offer in other shops), and bought me one as a wedding anniversary / new job celebration gift.

Now, there are people who would say “you could have bought an iPad and used the Kindle application”. But let’s look at the Kindle advantages:

• It costs £400 less than an iPad
• It’s ridiculously light, even with the added protective case
• The power consumption is amazingly frugal – twelve days of use (with WiFi switched on) and the battery meter is showing two-thirds full
• The display doesn’t suffer in direct sunlight
• It doesn’t have a touch-screen, instead it uses a rocker switch to navigate – if you don’t think that’s an advantage just take a look at an average iPad screen caked in finger-grease and think about reading through that
• It offers text-to-speech, which means you can pop in some headphones, close your eyes and imagine that Stephen Hawking is your personal narrator
• It does what it does – it’s designed to be a reading device and doesn’t compromise on anything around that core capability

There are some great things about the Kindle which are true of any supported device (e.g. Mac, iPod touch)  - the book opens to the page you were last on, and your books are stored with your Amazon account (which means that if you lose the device everything is backed-up).

As I have some time on my hands over the next couple of weeks, the Kindle will be getting some extended use (I wonder when I’ll have to charge it for a second time). In July I’ll be heading to Denver, and the Kindle will be going into my bag alongside the Archos 605. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to get back to reading 1000 Years of Annoying the French.