Let me provide some background information on my near-violations: Chrome has been my go-to browser for longer than I can recall. I know, I know, typical tale, right? But it’s accurate: Chrome generally provides me with all I need in a browser, plus more. We’re well established in the happily married stage of our relationship: although the early excitement of the wooing may have subsided, we now have a complete understanding of one another. And we’ve developed a degree of comfort, familiarity, and trust that is difficult to match.
Even still, occasionally, a seductive new thing appears and flashes its glitzy characteristics in my direction. Perhaps Microsoft Edge is to blame, with its alluringly novel strategy of placing tabs on the side of the screen rather than at the top. It might be the aptly titled Sidekick, not the early T-Mobile phone that served as an Android precursor but the Chrome-rivaling desktop browser that aims to reinvent the browser window as a kind of web-based operating system for work. It provides a clever search system that serves as a universal finder tool for all of your online content, arranges your tabs as apps in a persistent vertical sidebar, and gathers your alerts in a single organized location right alongside your web window.
I’ve spent a lot of time flirting with attractive young creatures like these, and I’ll admit that I’ve even engaged in a brief affair with one of them on occasion. But I always come back to Chrome in the end. It is always just too expensive to pay for some new feature or interface concept to have to get used to a totally new browser environment, give up all the helpful cross-device syncing and Google service integration I’ve come to rely on, and let go of my many learned shortcuts and time-savers from the Chrome environment. I’ve got excellent news for anyone who uses Chrome religiously but is also drawn to some of the newest browser ideas that promise increased productivity: you can now have your cake and eat it, too. Ironically, for something that will prevent you from switching browsers, its name is Switch.
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