I tried the SHIFT Web Browser?and, hmm.

If you are like me and you work in the creative / tech field, you are likely always looking for more ways to optimize your productivity.

I like to connect with the CEOs and owners of many new platforms and tools every month because I’m all about supporting the start-up community, so when I received a random email out of the blue promoting a kool new web browser that promised to simplify my browsing and action-web workflow, I jumped on the opportunity, scored a sweet 50% off discount code and jumped at the pro version, so I could get a full-scope experience without being damaged from using the limited version first.

If you’ve never heard of this, Shift is the desktop app for streamlining your accounts, apps, and workflows. They promote that it was designed for anyone who manages multiple mail and app accounts including entrepreneurs, CEOs, designers, freelancers and those who perform the majority of their work online.

Here’s a video:

Let me share a bit more about SHIFT before I share my experience and thoughts about the Productivity Web Browser.

Shift pricing starts at $99.99 per year. There is a free version of Shift.

Yes, they do offer a free trial. It’s compatible with Windows/ Mac/ & Web.

Email Management features include:

- Archiving & Retention

- Signature Management

- Email Monitoring

- Response Management

- Shared Inboxes

Workflow Management features include:

- Calendar Management

- Task Management

- Workflow Configuration

- Business Process Automation

- Document Management

- Third-Party Integrations

Productivity features include:

- Collaboration

- Document Creation

- Presentation Tools

- Task Management

- File Sharing

- Office Suite

- Project Management

- Team Chat

Ok, so now that I’ve shared a bit about it, let me tell you why I bought the pro version.

As I said before, I love supporting startups and I love hacking my productivity so that I can be more efficient in my daily workflow but more specifically for this software, I wanted to try a browser that allowed me to stay logged into my 4 google apps accounts + Asana + slack + YouTube + LinkedIn + WhatsApp + bitly + medium + skype + pocket + Quora + medium + twitter accounts in a way that was more fluid and visually appealing. Reducing navigation friction would help me maneuver faster and get things done at 3x speed, or, so I thought. 

BTW, I have 3 very large monitors that give me maximal real estate to have all of my favorite apps open at the same time. My main screen (iMac Retina 5k, 27 inch, Maxed-out!) is used as my primary screen for my main tasks. I usually only have Google Chrome open on it (8 tabs max). My 2 other monitors are vertical and I use the left one for Spotify, Shift, iMessage, and WhatsApp. The right side monitor #3 is used for slack, Google Chrome (10 tabs max), Focus, and Finder windows.

At first glance, you may ask yourself, why is he not using Shift as the main app on my primary monitor and maximizing it, so I can have other apps open on my other 2 monitors, and well — that's what I originally tried but it didn't work out. Now here is where I start to very gently rip this app to shreds.

This browser is unfortunately extremely buggy and laggy. I find myself re-authing my Gmail and other integrated apps more often than I should. Around once or twice every 2 days. Also, sometimes when I'm in my Gmail, it reloads whilst I'm typing up a message or it will auto log me out of my Google Drive account. The overall experience just feels like I'm spending 2x-3x more time to do basic tasks than I would have - doing the same thing in Google Chrome directly. This seems to happen more so if you are a power user with more than 5 accounts integrated into the browser. I also happen to be a diehard user of Dashlane for my password management and unfortunately, they seem to not have any integrations for it yet, which means I must manually copy and paste my passwords from Dashlane to each app/website in Shift.

I think this app is perfect for people who only have 1 or maybe 2 monitors and maybe for people who primarily just need to use it for easy navigation between 5 tools or sites, but overall, the loss on fluid speed is just too high to abandon standard workflow. 

They have great potential to build a truly productivity-focused web browser but what I would do is hold on pumping out new features and app integrations to put full force focus into optimizing the speed and efficiency of what they currently have.

For now, "The browser for work", it is not.