Ever since the first public beta release of Google Chrome (Chromium) was published I have been interested in the project. It took a little time to get used to but I have made Chromium my primary browser. After switching to Mac OS X nearly two years ago I used Safari as my primary browser. I personally have nothing against Safari, but in comparisons that I have conducted Chromium feels less sluggish on page rendering. The better performance was large factor when it came to my decision to make the move.

When making the decision to switch I also considered the use of Firefox and Opera. During the time that I used Ubuntu Debain as my operating system prior to moving to Mac OS X I used Opera for everything, but like Firefox it feels heavy on Mac OS X. I know that several of my friends use Firefox as their primary browser, but when I tried to use it, it took several seconds to open even when it was not a cold boot. It could just be how I have it configured or that my Mac is slow, but it is not something that I desire.

Not much more to say. I will announce if any changes happen that may result in me switching back, but for now I am happy.

For several months now I have used the service Web of Trust (WOT) to gauge the trustworthiness of many websites that I visit, but recently I have grown concerned over the actual accuracy of those that rate websites for the service. The problem that I see, which can happen on any website where a community is involved, is that there are those that have had personal conflict with site owners and use the WOT service to backlash against them. WOT provides any registered individual the ability to rate and comment on a website. It then provides software protecting users based on these ratings.

The thing is, the openness may be a bad thing per se, but the idea of the service itself is good. There just needs to be some moderation. I actually use WOT in a project that I have developed to determine whether content being published to the service is malicious or not, but I see many times false positives. Sites that do not deserve a bad rating at all. What WOT needs to do is place each comment or rating in a query based system and require that proof be provided if the comment may be damaging to a website. This way a bias person cannot rate poorly against a website based on personal conflict.

It really is a good service, just needs more work.