Above the Sea and Fog But Still Perpetually Obscured.

So, for the past few years I’ve been a devoted Firefox man. Really. Like many people, on every new computer (or any computer I got my hands on) I would put Firefox on it for one main reason, default browsers are terrible. Ever since Mac OS 9.5, I’ve deviated from the default browser. But then again, who really hasn’t?

But since 2004, I’ve been using Firefox with several forays into Opera. But even though Opera is great, I’ve always gone back to Firefox. When Google’s Chrome was first released, I used that for about 30 minutes before I couldn’t stand it and once again, went back to Firefox.

The question remains as to why?

Well, I guess it all came down to reliability. That coupled with extensions. NoScript, AdBlock, Ubiquity and XMarks for the past couple of years have been crucial and must-haves for me. But, several months ago, Ubiquity started screwing up a bit. It failed to load commands, it froze either the tab or the whole process and sometimes it would just drop-down but I couldn’t enter any text. Fine, I could live without Ubiquity but it would mean I would have to do things the long way. Then XMarks started sync with bookmarks I had deleted and I started to get lots of duplicates occurring. After a little bit of time, I could sort through that mess and I did. But after that, Firefox just refused to play nice. Period.

I would have to wait about 25-30 seconds for it to start and then once it opened, I would have to wait another 10 seconds before I could click anything or type anything. When I would close or minimise the window, the last bookmarks bar link I clicked on would remain on the screen at which I point I would have to re-open Firefox to get rid of. A few other minor problems got in my way at which point I had to find an alternative.

Opera was first on my list but remembering the amount of times I had gone to it and stopped using it shortly after. Also, its kinda limited customisation abilities and it’s horrid download manager.
Next on the list was Google Chrome. I’ve been using Chromium on my netbook for several months and love it. Super speedy, very few errors and a minimalist design. The last time I had used Chrome on Windows was before extensions was a feature. So, I had a brief look through the extensions and found XMarks and AdBlock. Win. Very big win.

To put it simply, I installed Chrome, synced my bookmarks and I was settled.
But what about a Ubiquity replacement? Well, sadly, there is still not a Chrome equivalent but with the Wikipedia toolbar extension, about half my Ubiquity needs are met. That was that. I made Chrome my default browser and haven’t looked back.

I was a Fox hunter but now I’m a Chrome nut.

Well, hasn’t today been interesting for Australia’s future. The paper for the proposed internet filter came out today and gave the Government the green light to go ahead with it.

Urg? Really? Wonderful….

Since this fodder for the internet masses was released approx 5 hours ago, there have been approx 5600 tweets that contain the tag #nocleanfeed.(source) A staggering amount.
Of course, there are now several ways to show your disdain.

• Reply to @KevinRuddPM with your feelings on #nocleanfeed. You may also like to follow the #blockrudd movement.
• There is a Twibbon cause which will give your avatar a black overlay. Go to http://twibbon.com/join/nocleanfeed-3
• There are of course several thousand petitions. The latest one I have signed is http://www.petitiononline.com/nocleanf/
• There are quite a few retweet chains going around.
• You may like to hunt down your favourite MP on Twitter at http://tweetmp.org.au/
• Write a letter to your MP of choice. I know, how old school. Find out here http://www.aph.gov.au/House/members/mi-elctr.asp
• Visit this http://nocleanfeed.com for more ideas and information.
• The be all and end all list http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=cleanfeed

There are of course many articles to read about this now so here are a few interesting and slightly scary ones.

The paper that started the avalanche. (PDF)

The Greens official stance.

The Democrats official stance.

Interesting article titled “Can the blogosphere topple a government?”

The scary religious type people appear with their view.

One may also like to take a glance at the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I suggest articles 18 and 19 would be of interesting reading.

Comments with more links, opinions and whatnot would be appreciated.

Thanks to many twitter users especially @renailemay, @nicolejensen, @oliyoung, @gomisan and the others whom I have presently forgotten.