The Mac version of Chrome doesn’t run extensions sadly. You need Windows Vista/XP SP2+ to access these goodies, at least for the moment.

Despite its lack of extensions, Chrome quickly became my default browser.

Although there are certain sites it had trouble with, I agree with Google’s promo blurb about Chrome. It does start-up and load lightening fast. And the search from the address bar feature is way better than typing into Firefox’s tiny search portal.

Developer Tools for Chrome

The best feature for developers is the Developer Tools found under the page icon to the right of the address bar.

Use this by pulling it up on the site you want metrics for. Check in Resources to see how long each element takes to load what the file size is.

Easily view CSS, HTML code and test JavaScript with an integrated debugger.

An article in Mashable says that Dev Tools is virtually identical to Safari’s Web Inspector. That may be true, but I can’t get Safari to play nice with Flash, so I have abandoned it.

And Firefox has some great extensions, such as Firebug and Web Developer, but that I find Firefox loads so slowly in comparison to other browsers.

What is your default browser? What do you think about the recent news – stemming from the Chinese hacks on a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 and Windows XP – that France and Germany have advised citizens to abandon Internet Explorer?