Missing conveniences in Google Chrome

The new browser from Google created quite a stir. Lot of speed tests & comparisons with Firefox were available in the net. Please visit Googlebooks if you love comics and want to know the technology used in Google Chrome. Or read a much shorter & quicker coverage at Nettuts. For a brand new browser, Chrome is quite an achievement. The features that I miss in this browser were not available in default Firefox browser either. These nifty features were largely Firefox extensions. But I miss them nevertheless. If Chrome allowed Widgets, Plugins of some sort, it will quickly gain in features & an involved user experience. I'm sure it will become my default browser then. For now, it is my strong second browser, pushing Opera to third place.

Features I miss in Google Chrome

1. Drop down at Forward / Back buttons The layout is spartan, true to google style. But I certainly miss the drop down of recently visited pages next to 'Forward' & 'Back' buttons. It might be dropped because Chrome clears the cache of previously visited site. But I often need to go back 4, 5 or 8 pages quickly. Usually to click a link there.
   
2. Download speed & expected time for downloads The download works neatly in Chrome. Much similar to the 'download statusbar' extension in Firefox. In fact, I wished this extension is built into Firefox as default. But in Chrome, it just shows the amount of file size already downloaded. If you wish to know the remaining time duration or the download speed, you can't do that. I often need to know the expected remaining time to plan my activities.
3. A robust FTP It might seem out of place to expect a robust FTP out of a browser. But FireFTP has been my default FTP software both in Windows & Linux for more than a year. If I have to make Chrome as my default browser, I certainly have to repeatedly go over to Firefox for FTP.

As you can see, my wish list is small. Ofcourse, I would miss the 'web developer' extension of Firefox & 'ColorZilla'. But I do not need them often & I can always go back to Firefox whenever I need this. I need them only if I was working on layouts, and I definitely need to check in multiple browsers. So not a big issue there. Another wish I have is that Google Chrome should soon come out with a Linux version. But I'm not expecting Google to grant this wish quickly. After all, Google Talk is still not compatible with many IMs in Linux.