[Tomis]

So what you're saying is that a new Chrome user, in order to get functionality that other browsers have out of the box (I'm thinking of Opera, I'm biased like that), have to start digging after extensions.

That's fine and dandy for experienced PC users like you and me but what about regular people? Housewives, pensioners, working people who want to use a browser but don't have much time to invest in learning its intricacies.

History has shown that people can live with screwed up technology for a long time without looking for improvements because they think it's normal or they're used to it (floppy disks for file transfer in the 21st century, for instance) and sometimes new technology or features have to be forced upon the user for them to take it up. In the case of Chrome, regular people get a truncated version of what a browser can do (no significant difference in features from Internet Explorer except speed). This creates a large entry barrier for regular people.

Do you think your average grandpa using Chrome (or Firefox, for that matter) will have a revelation at some point, thinking "gee, I'd really like to have mouse gestures, they would make my life so much easier for my poor hands"? Or "wow, I'd sure like a speed dial whenever I open my browser so that I can go with one click to the pages I most often use" (no, I don't want "most visited" as chosen by Chrome, I want speed dial). No, of course it's not going to happen; grandpa has never heard of RSS, mouse gestures, speed dial, and so on; someone (or something) has to explicitly tell/show him these features so that he becomes aware that they are possible.

I also have a personal beef with the people who thought that on startup Chrome should have "open the home page" as default option instead of "reopen the pages that were open last". This is the most retarded default option I could think of in our day and age - if someone wants to get rid of their tabs then they will CLOSE THEM. It's that simple. Just because I have to close the browser does not mean that I finished what I was doing and that I want my tabs closed. Opera got this right more than 10 years ago but some people still have the Internet Explorer 6 mindset. It's as if all your Gmail messages were marked unread when you logged in to your inbox because hey, it's a new session.

TL/DR - extensions are a poor substitute for built-in functionality in a world where the majority of users still are regular users (non-tech savvy). Grandpa Joe will not go digging for extensions.

[Goronmon]

That's fine and dandy for experienced PC users like you and me but what about regular people? Housewives, pensioners, working people who want to use a browser but don't have much time to invest in learning its intricacies.

I think you are vastly over-stating the cross-section of the population that both has no idea what a browser extension is, yet knows about RSS and cares about using it.

[Tomis]

That was my point. If they don't have that functionality in the browser they certainly won't go looking for it. If it's built-in there are ways to make the user aware of it (startup tips, random info pop-ups or even suggestions from more advanced users - "did you know you could do X very easily?").

[davidcollantes]

I agree with you. I am very careful about which extensions I install because I dislike clutter (one of the many beauties of Chrome is it's simplicity). Also, I do not want to end up having extensions that might disappear. If the extension functionality were part of the browser, that would not be a problem.

I am sure those who used Firefox with all addons/plugins would love extensions. For me, extensions are to 'extend' the browser functionality, not to fill-in for the lack of functionality the browser should have.

[jodoherty]

Just out of curiosity, what observations concerning the way regular people use computers are you basing all this on? Most of the people I'd describe as regular people don't even know what RSS feeds are, and I don't know a single person who uses them.

Then again, a good number of the people I do know don't even understand the concept of a web address or even how to use bookmarks -- nevermind speed dial. Usually when I watch someone try to find a site, they just search for it in Google, and if Google isn't the default search provider, they search for Google in whatever search engine is the default. They also rarely use any browser "feature" except the back button, and they're afraid to try out new features. Even tabs and multiple windows are often underutilized or avoided by simply using one window at a time and closing it if they want to start over or visit a new site.

In fact, whenever they accidentally activate a feature they don't use (history, right-click context menu, rss feed view, gestures, etc.), it often just leads to confusion because they weren't paying attention to what they did to set off the unfamiliar feature's action. As a result, they just close the window and start over, and if it happens again they get frustrated and do something else.

Also, learning new features isn't free. There's a cognitive cost involved and it takes a certain amount of training and repetition to solidify the ability to use new features. For some people, it's higher than for others, and eventually it gets to a point where people like my Dad have to basically relearn the same features over and over again every time they use a computer. Listening to older relatives talk about their computer experiences, it also sounds like most of the time they're too deeply afraid of accidentally breaking their computer by clicking or doing the wrong thing to learn features by experimenting, further reducing the ability for them to solidify their learning through repetition and practice.

By comparison, those individuals I see who are willing to learn new features or who can notice what they did to set off a feature are usually pretty tech-savvy (or soon will be) and would be able to figure out how to use and install extensions anyway.

So personally, I think it's a good idea to aim for a default, minimalist interface and avoid gestures and interactive UI elements that users can accidentally click or activate. But that's just based on my casual observations of people using computers, which is why I'd love to hear yours, since apparently you disagree.

[Tomis]

There are various levels of "regular" people, you could almost classify them by ADD rules such as "regular curious", "regular neutral", "regular adverse to learning" and so on.

> By comparison, those individuals I see who are willing to learn new features or who can notice what they did to set off a feature are usually pretty tech-savvy (or soon will be) and would be able to figure out how to use and install extensions anyway.

Those would be the "regular curious". Sure they could figure out by themselves how to install extensions but why would they? Before speed dial nobody felt the need to have such a feature (so why search for an extension?), but now a lot of people can't live without it (same for multiple tabs, sessions, mouse gestures, integrated search, closed tabs bin, and so on). Until you have a feature at your finger tips you will almost always not feel the need to have it, thinking "meh, I can live without it". Once you start using it your perspective changes.

Basically, a regular user who always had a minimalistic browser will hardly feel the need to go looking for extra functionality except for dire cases (ad-block or something). So the fact that he is technically capable of installing extensions is a moot point. He first needs to become aware of that functionality and the process of testing it out should be easy enough for the curiosity to surpass the "don't need it" feeling. Sure, you could live with just a unique tab and an address bar. it's nice and minimalistic. How many regular users would bother installing extensions?

> Then again, a good number of the people I do know don't even understand the concept of a web address or even how to use bookmarks -- nevermind speed dial.

These would be "regular adverse to learning". But seriously, have you ever used speed dial? It's much easier to use than bookmarks. I explained it to a lot of regulars in 50 words or less "click the 'plus' button, enter the address of a website you want to visit later". It's difficult to explain this to people who can't quite hold a mouse in their hands but for regulars like my mother, girlfriend, whoever, it's very easy to explain.

Let's take the case of my mom. First I showed her how to open Opera instead of IE. Then, after she got used to it, I showed multiple tabs. Then, after a while, speed dial. Then I moved the tabs on the left side so that she had more space. In the case of my girlfriend I also showed her RSS so that she wouldn't check every day for new blog posts.

The trick is to introduce these features/changes gradually, depending on one's level of comfort with technology. At one point I actually managed to get a person with a rather ossified brain to use speed dials and multiple tabs.

Obviously, if a person were using a browser without a certain feature then I wouldn't go about installing extensions for them. For one, I would have to search for a decent extension since their quality is most of the times inferior to the out-of-the-box feature, the user would most likely receive strange notifications about them and wouldn't know what to do, they could pose a security risk, and so on. I'd just say "oh, you're using browser X? I could try installing an extension... ah, screw it. Carry on with business as usual, searching on google the website that you visit 10 times a day".

> So personally, I think it's a good idea to aim for a default, minimalist interface and avoid gestures and interactive UI elements that users can accidentally click or activate.

Well it's not a mutually exclusive affair. Opera has a truckload of features and a minimalist interface. The speed and resource consumption are as good as Chrome's (and much better when large amounts of tabs are involved, because of the one-process-per-tab slowness). So what is the reason for choosing Chrome over Opera then? Just curious.