Chrome Set To Take No. 2 Spot From Firefox 585
CWmike writes "Google's Chrome is on the brink of replacing Firefox as the second-most-popular browser, says the Web statistics firm StatCounter, which shows that Chrome will pass Firefox to take the No. 2 spot behind Microsoft's IE no later than December. As of Wednesday, Chrome's global average user share for September was 23.6%, while Firefox's stood at 26.8%. IE, meanwhile, was at 41.7%. The climb of Chrome during 2011 has been astonishing: It has gained eight percentage points since January 2011, representing a 50% increase. During that same period, Firefox has dropped almost four percentage points, a decline of about 13%, while IE has also fallen four points, a 9% dip. That means Chrome is essentially reaping all the defections from Firefox and IE."
Chrome (Score:2, Insightful)
The climb of Chrome during 2011 has been astonishing: It has gained eight percentage point since January 2011, representing a 50% increase.
Well is that really a surprise? Google pushed it really hard in their search engine and YouTube, and pays software developers to include it in their programs like all those toolbars and adware do. Of course it gains matket share so fast as software distributors are pushing it for the money they cain from installing on users computers and Google uses their huge market share to push it.
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
And??? Microsoft has even bigger market share, and IE has been consistently losing ground.
Have you ever pondered the possibility that the reason Firefox is slipping is because the project itself has become an unresponsive beast who is now pissing off even its core supporters in the IT industry with its absurd release schedules?
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Absurd release schedules?
http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/search/label/Stable%20updates [blogspot.com]
Chrome was 12 in July, it's 14 now.
If Firefox is losing to Chrome it is NOT because of the "absurd release schedule."
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets see... Firefox changes release schedule, and in doing so screws up addons and creates irate IT staff. Firefox usage decline accelerates.
Yep, we know for sure that pissing off your users has nothing to do with dropping market share!
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The big difference is that Chrome doesn't seem to be breaking half of it's plug-ins with every new release. Their browser updates are seamless, and just seem to WORK.
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"Funny" thing is, Firefox has supported the same type of extensions as Chrome has (non-platform specific/non-binary) for as long as Chrome has.
Firefox developers recently made it even easier for extension developers to move to the new type.
Of all the binary-extensions that break, more than 75% are not on addons.mozilla.org.
Yes, it is somewhat bad. But it might not be as bad as some people say it is.
Re:Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
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And??? Microsoft has even bigger market share, and IE has been consistently losing ground.
Have you ever pondered the possibility that the reason Firefox is slipping is because the project itself has become an unresponsive beast who is now pissing off even its core supporters in the IT industry with its absurd release schedules?
I didn't like the way the newer Firefox browser was behaving. I found changes were not for the better. People offered work-arounds, but it's not the same as Keep It Simple Stupid for making a winning browser.
Chrome isn't too bad, it's got it's idiotic side, too, usually the fault of Google ("Hey, let's make a sweeping change and default everyone to opted-in!", like that ill-conceived wallpaper episode.) I do like the ability to examine objects, but wish my ability to filter crap was better.
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Re:Chrome (Score:5, Informative)
[...]yet is claimed to be an "open" browser.
Which Chrome developer, of cause, never did, but hey, don't let the facts stop you from hating!
PROTIP: Chromium - open source, Chrome: closed source, based on Chromium.
First Post (Score:3, Funny)
Through Firefox... see it's still fast. Unless someone got here first. Then it was through IE.
I'm one who recently started using Chrome. (Score:2, Interesting)
Just goes to show... (Score:2)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Interesting)
Chrome's silent, background auto-updates don't hurt either. What? You've already installed a new version and I just need to restart the browser? AWESOME *restarts browser, tabs restore* boom, new, updated Chrome.
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And adblock and no script doesn't work with this new upgrade.
Ohh, guess it didn't work with the previous one too.
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I don't use AdScript, but I use Adblock+ on Chrome v. 15.0.874.51 and not having any problems whatsoever with it.
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I don't use AdScript, but I use Adblock+ on Chrome v. 15.0.874.51 and not having any problems whatsoever with it.
The trick does seem to be, however, how to find the object the ad is being driven in through. Sometimes I use it for things other than ads, like those stupid notifications which keep popping up on eBay and Farcebook - you made a change or want to badger me about something, kiss off!
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really?nobody else has ever had a problem with either one. maybe you are just trolling?
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This is actually quite common with modern software... nothing special... it just works.
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Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the schedule. It's the process.
When chrome updates to a new version, I don't even know about it and everything just works (including all my addons). When Firefox updates, I have to wait an additional few seconds while it updates, I have to close out a splash page informing me of all the new features that I won't use and I have to figure out how to update and re-enable my all addons which have now magically turned off.
When I open a web browser, I want to do something. If you get in my way of me doing something for 30 seconds every few weeks plus spend 5 minutes trying to get selenium or other addons up and running again, you have failed at your purpose as a web browser.
It is even worse when you have a scenario where you have a few dozen firefox installs across various VMs.. I dread FF updates now because it means that I'm either reimaging test machines or going through a bunch of updates.
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't even know about it and everything just works (including all my addons)
How does the number and functionality of your Chrome Add-ons compare to Firefox add-ons?
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How does the number and functionality of your Chrome Add-ons compare to Firefox add-ons?
Remember that most add-ons are (a) redundant or (b) too esoteric to be used by most people (Just what I need! Another kind of stock ticker! Ooooh! And here's a nuclear waste countdown clock!). As such, for what most people need, Chrome and Firefox are basically equivalent. They weren't when Chrome started, but they are now. To seal the deal, Chrome has a more appealing download page for their add-ons, so I tend to sear
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Bit by bit the Firefox developers are fixing all the causes of that.
It wasn't the brighest idea to do rapid releases before they addressed all of that.
Maybe the underestimated the impact ?
But to keep doing that probably makes it worse.
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Firefox is not losing users because of the new rapid release schedule.
What do you mean? They've lost me because of it.
My experiences. (Score:2)
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There is one reason, and one reason alone that I stick to Firefox: Chrome doesn't give you control over the cache settings. I have seen it take up over 50GB of disk space for a cache, which is simply ridiculous. While there are ways to clear the cache, there's no way to tell Chrome not to use a disk cache at all.
Sure, there's a launch-time option for the amount of disk cache to use and where to store it, but there's nowhere you can go in the options to set it permanently. For that reason alone, I keep going
Unsurprising (Score:2, Insightful)
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Opinions != facts (Score:2)
Chrome is simply easier to use than IE or Firefox.
My own usage does not bear this out as a fact. I have my company using Chrome as our primary web browser since we use gmail for our email communications. However, printing in Chrome is clunky and slow, it handles PDFs and other files rather clumsily, and I do not find it to be meaningfully better than the latest version of Firefox overall. You may like Chrome better and that is fine but I reject your argument that it is "simply easier". That is very much a matter up for debate.
The minimalistic design is actually a triumph
A "triumph"? That is very
Firefox is VERY crashy lately (Score:2)
Not sure why, but the 6.x releases all seem to have a bunch of crash problems. If it weren't for all the plugins I use that can't port to Chrome, I'd seriously consider migrating. It's worst on the Mac ...
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Yup. Constant crashes are what is driving people away from firefox.
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I'm not getting crashes, but memory usage always spins up from about 500MB baseline (with all my tabs open) to over 1.5GB where the window itself becomes unresponsive to the OS. Version 7 claimed it fixed a memory leak, but I still get that behavior.
They need to stop with all the UI updates and new features and fix the bugs in the system. I'd love for it to contain metrics telling me how much CPU or memory the plugins are taking (I have AdBlock Plus, the Java crap, BugMeNot, and maybe 1 or 2 other small o
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Presumably, Google pays double-agent coders to commit bugs to the Firefox codebase and attract more users to Chrome. :-p
speaking of Firefox... (Score:2)
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There's a known bug where in some cases the updater says you're up to date when you're really not. They've released a couple versions without fixing that one.
I figure maybe they'll look at it by FF 18.
Firefox's Memory Hassle (Score:2, Interesting)
I switched to chrome only recently after firefox started taking 1.6GB of RAM while running the latest version, with almost no add-ons installed. It seems many people had issues like this, but it wasn't believed by the Firefox team.
Why? (Score:3)
I've never understood why people preferred Chrome to Firefox
Both of them have similar UIs, more or less the same features (if I'm not mistaken, Firefox has more), and they're both reasonably fast. Firefox has a more extensive add-on catalog, more configuration options, and as of Firefox 7 is the fastest browser currently released outside of maybe Opera. Chrome is nice, and I don't mind using it, but I can't think of a single major advantage Chrome has over Firefox that would make people want to switch. The only reason I know of for why my friends are using Chrome is because "it's faster", but as of 7 that's null and void.
Can anybody help me out? I'm not trolling here, I seriously want to know what Chrome has over FF.
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If you're less than 25 years old, Chrome is cool. Firefox is not.
Why? Beats the crap out of me.
NOTE: I'm certainly NOT less than 25.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm 17 and I don't get it :/. Normal kids weird me out anyways, always liking things for the most immature reasons.
I'm sure there was a point in time where Chrome was faster than Firefox, but there's really no reason to stick with it anymore. Chrome lets you import Firefox settings, so that might have something to do with it. All we need now in Firefox is a feature to import all of your Chrome settings and people will be switching both ways instead of just one.
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Chrome still starts up much faster than Firefox. And swapping tabs is much nicer in Chrome as well. And you get a Reload button as well.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
List of reasons:
It is also POSSIBLE that firefox js speed has caught up... but when I was designing a Debian based live CD for troubleshooting last year, chrome was a no-brainer because on low-performance systems I might be working on, its CPU usage was just plain lower.
There are a bunch of reasons, but it basically boils down to, Google has a ton of money, and can pay for full time devs to keep churning out massive progress every few weeks. googlechromereleases.blogspot.com is fun to visit and see what crazy thing theyre working on this week.
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This eats up a lot more memory and those processes are probably doing a lot of RPC all the time. (And besides, you shouldn't NEED to kill them in the first place.)
What about when some idiot JS dev had an infinite loop thats killing performance? Def a good idea to A) have Chrome catch it and ask if you want to halt it, and B) have the option to kill the page yourself if you dont want to wait that long.
So do FF add-ons written with the mozilla add-on SDK. Updates are done on startup and you can always opt out of a restart. So in practise, this isn't a concern.
Updates can only happen before the browser has fully loaded. Once the browser is fully loaded, any change requires a restart. With chrome, I can install and remove extensions instantly. Trying to argue that Chrome isnt better in this regard is ridiculous; why should
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Firefox broke MSFT's grip on the internet. (Score:3)
Firefox was really the browser that broke the internet out of MSFT's painful grip. There is good cause for brand loyalty there.
In the early 2000's, Internet Explorer 5 and 6 had nearly 90% of the browser market share. The only real competitors were Opera, which was basically adware at the time, and Mozilla Suite, which still felt like a re-branding of the godawful 90's Netscape browser even though it used the Gecko engine.
When Firefox came out in the 0.x stages around early 2003 (named Phoenix then Firebird
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Because Chrome is advertised extensively on TV and firefox is not?
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That might have something to do with it. Another part of it would probably be how Google's paying companies to include Chrome installs with every other program you try to install on Windows (thankfully this doesn't happen on Linux due to the way package management usually works). I used to be annoyed at applications asking me to install pointless toolbars and whatnot, but Chrome is actually annoying more as of recently because of this.
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The reasons I switched (and switched my family) are below
The biggest one, Chrome doesn't just .... pause.... randomly for no apparent reason for seconds at a time
FF doesn't clear it's download history automatically (at least if you've been upgrading from old versions). This makes it get slower and slower as that grows.
It crashes a LOT more than chrome
It sucks memory like... well I'll let you add something colorful ;). Supposedly better in 7, but it'll get just as bad again in a few versions.
Chrome has the e
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I'm not trolling here, I seriously want to know what Chrome has over FF.
It's new and shiny.
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Well, here are my reasons:
1. Considerably less memory usage. When Firefox (7, mind you!) starts using more memory than running a Linux VM does, you know the browser has issues. Pro-tip: to reduce Firefox memory usage, run it in a Linux VM. That way you can cap the memory usage via the VM.
2. Considerably faster. And, yes, that's faster than Firefox 7. Note that part of this is just rendering speed or something, Chrome just "feels" faster than Firefox. I'm fairly sure if you carefully benchmarked performance,
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And your attitude is why Firefox is losing. I had the same memory issues reported over and over by people, and the response from the Firefox people always was, "Oh, well, it works for me! It must either be a bad plugin or your imagination. In short, YOU suck, it's not Firefox's fault."
Well, I don't use plugins and it WAS Firefox's fault. When I can open a web site, close it, open it, close it, open it, close it, and observe the memory going up and up and up and up, it's a memory leak. Submit the bug you say
Why people use Chrome (Score:3)
You were asking why people use Chrome, saying you can't understand it.
A user kindly took the time and extensively explained it. You dismissed all of his reasons, and continue to express puzzlement on why anyone would use Chrome.
It's not anecdotal if it's happening to a person personally, it's a fact. Similar to the anonymous user above, I switched to Chrome because it was faster than Firefox, and used less memory. I don't care that this doesn't happen on the Firefox dev's machines. It doesn't happen on my m
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Plus advertising helps Chrome tremendously.
"A faster way to browser the web" (Score:2)
Chrome is advertised extensively on all Google properties, but you don't see the ads as a Firefox user because they don't want to tarnish their image with happy Firefox users. Chrome is advertised on TV and the web. Advertising works, that's how Google rakes in the profit.
Can anybody help me out? I'm not trolling here, I seriously want to know what Chrome has over FF.
There's not really any reason to use Chrome over Firefox any more, but many reasons to use Firefox over Chrome (customization, open previous session as it was, better extensions, better rendering, etc).
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Would that be the 7 that only came out a few days ago?
The same 7 that still doesn't have an MSI installer?
(yeah, I hate it too.. but Microsoft has made things such that only MSIs work smoothly with the system, the rest require odd kludges. As much as cursing Microsoft is a stress-reliever, practical thought dictates that an MSI should be written. Yes, I'm familiar with the 3rd party solution that even allows us to wrap the standard installer into an MSI, thanks. )
The same 7 that wasn't (and still isn't) offered to me as an update? (apparently due to phased rollouts)
The same 7 that suddenly was no longer offered because it mysteriously hid addons?
( Thankfully, there's an Add-On Recovery Tool. *groan* http://lifehacker.com/5845069/add+on-recovery-tool-restores-missing-add+ons-in-firefox-7 [lifehacker.com] )
The same 7 which, when it was offered at random (I guess that uses a different path from the About screen one), told me 3 Add-ons were not yet compatible (they are now) even though none of the changes in FireFox 7 were likely to have affected them?
( yes, blame the add-on developers... no, wait, blame checking for a version number tag... no, blame needing add-ons at all. )
No, I couldn't imagine at all why people would have tried Chrome years ago and stuck around with it while the team behind FireFox sort of, almost, got its act together... but then decided to be more like Chrome (yes, I read the denial write-up that was covered on Slashdot.) and alienated a chunk of their existing userbase as a result because they took some of the perceived worst aspects of Chrome rather than the good ones.
Example: They removed the 'http://' in front of addresses in the address bar. All good and well - apparently this makes it look less cluttered and people who have never used the internet before won't be scared off by the "ache tee tee pee colon slash slash" thing. ( But then FF scares the bejeebus out of them when they visit a 'secure' site by still leaving the 'https://' in front. )
A common knee-jerk reaction was "zomg how am I supposed to copy/paste a link now?"
To which the defendants said "it will still add the 'http://' when you copy the URL".
And sure enough, click in the address field, copy it (ctrl+c, ctrl+insert, right-click and choose Copy) and voila... 'http://' is magically inserted in front.
Now, accidentally press ctrl+v or shift+insert or right-click and mis-click on Paste.
Not to worry, ctrl+z (undo) restores the URL.
Select it, copy it, paste somewhere.
Whoops - now where did my http:/// [http] go?
Now, yes, obviously that's a bug in a completely different section of FireFox that has nothing to do with the 'http://' insertion code. But back when 'http://' wasn't removed, this was a non-issue. The bug may have been there, but you wouldn't have hit it.
I guess it's a good thing that new features expose old bugs... but a typical end-user is just going to be annoyed.
I still use FireFox for the add-ons, but they're pushing their luck with a lot of people.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep seeing people claim they prefer Chrome because it's faster. But every time I see benchmarks, the differences are negligible. My best guess is that something about the way Chrome draws the screen gives the impression that it's faster, even though overall it isn't.
Myself, I primarily use Firefox, mostly because the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit whose raison d'etre is to work towards the common good, and its history bears out that intention.
I used to be a Firefox fan (Score:3, Informative)
... but I keep my Firefox up and use hundreds of tabs/day (opening/closing),
In the end, the memory leaks of FF6.0.x just made me switch to Chrome. I would eventually plateau around 2.2GB of RAM (peak 2.5GB) with few tabs open, system crawling down to slow pace, *seconds* of waiting before a click makes FF react at all, Flash video pausing every 12s or so. PDF viewing freezing all tabs. Unusable.
I'll give FF7 a try though.It's "only" at 600MB right now (1GB peak) with the same usage pattern.
Re:I used to be a Firefox fan (Score:4, Interesting)
The memory issues people have with Firefox must be really frustrating for the devs, because they've got to be insanely subtle. They clearly don't affect everybody. For example, I use firefox (still at 6 here) and currently have 37 tabs open in 3 "tab groups" (OMG I love this feature). Some of the tabs contain embedded Adobe Reader plugins that are viewing PDFs. I have several addons, including flashblock, cookie monster, foxyproxy, and delicious. Firefox has a resident size of 260 MB, and a shared size of 700 MB. By modern measures, that's downright lean. Other people have vastly different experiences.
As as already been covered here [slashdot.org], Mozilla is looking to address the memory usage issue. I wish them luck, as it's obviously not an easy problem to tackle.
noah
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Firefox has always had issues that seem to affect a small subset of users. I remember a time when some people had memory leaks, others couldn't install the flash plug in, and others couldn't get it to close without end tasking. Over the years the number of affected users has gone from small to very small and the issues have slowly dwindled away until now it seems that all that is left is the phantom memory leak which the version 7 appears to finally address successfully for many, possibly everyone.
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If you've updated all your plugins to their latest versions, disabling all of your addons and enabling them one by one until you find what's leaking can be helpful.
In my experience, Firebug is an awesome and flexible tool, but it leaks. I only enable it when I need to. That's one example.
Hold up, wait a minute (Score:5, Interesting)
May eventually happen, but It's going to be a bit...
Stats from from a real world web site over the last 30 days...
MS Internet Explorer No 891,058 47.4 %
Firefox No 317,909 16.9 %
Safari No 264,506 14 %
Google Chrome No 162,473 8.6 %
Android browser (PDA/Phone browser) No 93,691 4.9 %
Unknown ? 54,509 2.8 %
IPhone (PDA/Phone browser) No 28,603 1.5 %
Mozilla No 25,610 1.3 %
Opera No 12,074 0.6 %
BlackBerry (PDA/Phone browser) No 9,396 0.4 %
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As TFA says, different measurers come up with different stats. The article highlights one company that shows Chrome a lot higher up on the list. Two others disagree, though those statistics show a pretty remarkable share for Chrome even if it's not passing Firefox.
Re:Hold up, wait a minute (Score:5, Insightful)
Your sample size is 1 site that gets only 50k hits per day, and you think you're the one with better numbers?
Rejoice (Score:2)
As of Wednesday, Chrome's global average user share for September was 23.6%, while Firefox's stood at 26.8%. IE, meanwhile, was at 41.7%.
Maybe it's not as dreamt of as the year of linux on the desktop (mine was 2007 FWIW) but this is what we wanted. We wanted there to be options. Remember when IE controlled 80 - 90% of the browser market? Remember how much IE6 sucked? Firefox and Chrome (two open source browsers to boot) now have a bigger market share then IE. MUCH bigger. Throw in Opera & Safari and we have five capable, world-class browsers which to choose from.
We fucking won
Sometimes (Score:2)
I've switched to SRWare Iron for a large chunk of my personal browsing, mostly forums. It is Chrome with all the Google removed. There is a noticeable improvement in speed over Firefox.
I still use Firefox for most of my work, mostly because I like Firebug, and I use it for browsing sites that I don't already have accounts with because there is no Chrome equivalent for NoScript that I've seen, and there are a few other plugins I don't want to give up entirely. If there was I would probably switch to it at ho
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The WebRequest API (experimental) is promising but at this time it doesn't touch what Firefox has; Chrome/Chromium simply do not permit extensions the same level of access.
There are only a few real wor
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Hm, thanks for the tip. I just installed FF7 a few minutes ago, so I haven't really had a chance to compare.
Firefox has kinda sucked lately (Score:5, Interesting)
Firefox had been my browser of choice for years, but lately (is mozilla listening?) it's kinda sucked. I used it regularly on three desktops and a laptop, and sometime this year it's started to hang regularly and exhibit extremely slow behavior. Task Manager shows MASSIVE memory usage and significant CPU usage.
Needing a browser to verify a website I maintain, and with Firefox taking forever to do anything, I tried Chrome and have switched to it. Chrome renders significantly faster and doesn't appear to consume nearly the resources of Firefox. I'm sold.
I'm not getting religious here -- I am happy to go back to Firefox if some future version performs well. But in the meantime, I gotta get work done.
There's a lot of reasons ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Chrome seems to be faster and more responsive.
The update cycle for Chrome may be faster, but people knew that from day one. Those who didn't like the update cycle didn't adopt it. On the other hand, Firefox went from a slow update cycle with easily distinguished bug and feature updates to something similar to Chrome. So people who are more conservative with updates (rightfully) feel burnt.
And did I mention the user interface? Chrome and Firefox may be quite similar these days, and are liberally borrowing from each other. On the other hand, Firefox's UI has changed dramatically over the past few years while Chrome has been more of a steady evolution.
In short, all of this change has alienated existing Firefox users. All of this change also gives a sense that Firefox lacks any real sense of direction. Is it any wonder why people are slowly ditching it?
I'm one of them (Score:2)
Web Inspector gained the ability to live update CSS and I gained the ability to switch to Chrome. Between the addon compatibility problems that come from rapid-fire releases and the general slowness Firefox suffers from, I was eager to leave it behind. I still think Firebug is better, and still have it installed, but Chrome is just so much easier/faster/mindless. So I switched.
1 source ? (Score:2)
Google Maps and Firefox vs. Chrome (Score:4, Interesting)
In recent months, I've noticed that Google Maps satellite view has been pretty hideous in Firefox. Satellite view tiles get updated on a haphazard basis with long delays, and that wasn't the case beforehand. It's just as much a problem on fast machines as it is on slow ones. Recently, I decided to fire up Chrome, and, lo and behold, the satellite views work quite nicely.
It makes me wonder whether it's Firefox's fault, or if Google Maps has been tweaked to work better in Chrome, or perhaps both.
Re:Google Maps and Firefox vs. Chrome (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed - and FireFox 7 doesn't seem to have changed anything here.
The following is with all add-ons enabled, statistics from FireBug, zooming in from one level to another over Lancaster, PA:
First, it just enlarges the existing tiles.
Then I get a bunch of blue/grey tiles.
Then I get a bunch of green/brown larger tiles.
Then I get the enlarged tiles again.
Then it just sits there.
Time taken: at this point: 7.something seconds (disappeared from view)
Then all of a sudden, some more accesses and a bunch of the correct tiles pop into view.
Total time: 8.32s
Now again in Safe Mode, for the people who like to blame Add-ons:
Same visual behavjor
Total time: about 7.5 seconds (timed by watch, so give or take a fraction of a second).
But it's not just FireFox. Trying the same area in Internet Explorer version 8.
Same visual behavior.
Total time: approximately 12 seconds.
Now let's try Chrome (latest version, just downloaded).
First the existing tiles are a bit enlarged.
Then the correct tiles are loaded.
Total time: approximately 2 seconds.
I don't know if they have specifically optimized something for Chrome there - but the performance difference is staggering.
But, as I don't generally enjoy using Chrome, I usually start up Google Earth instead when I need to browse around. That's even faster. If I need a route or whatever I can type in the 'From / To' and the delay in drawing the map doesn't bother me that much.
Google Funds Mozilla Foundation - Conflict? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm amazed more don't put two and two together. Most of Mozilla Foundation's income comes from Google. Seems like a huge conflict of interest...
And many others feel the same way - below is an excerpt from a cnet article from a few years ago to ponder when considering what's happened with Firefox lately...
"However, the open secret in the tech sector is that at the end of the day, Google calls the shots. As this blog post will explain, when a pro-user security feature in the browser threatens Google's business model, it is the feature that is made to compromise--not the search engine."
Read entire article at http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9776759-46.html [cnet.com]
One has to wonder whether some driving Firefox development are really in cahoots with Google with the objective of marginalizing Firefox as a Chrome clone.
Regardless of whether that's the case, Firefox is looking to be more like Chrome all the time ... and, hence, imho, it's no surprise so many Firefox users are flocking to Chrome.
Most importantly, it's a standards issue (Score:2)
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Privacy and customization are paramount... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still happily a Firefox user. Mozilla has given me an open-source browser with nigh-limitless user customization and control, with seemingly the least amount of conflicts of interest embroiled in its development. The entire Chrome ecosystem seems to be part of Google's recent wave of bad decisions that seems to highlight they can no longer be trusted to act in the best interest of the user and privacy, when there is money to be made; contrary to the Google of five years ago who seemed to be able to resist the void.
Chrome as a browser seems to be better serving Google's needs than the user's needs. Be it the lack of comprehensive AdBlock,NoScript, and HTTPSEverywhere addons (and tons of others) and other user privacy settings, Chrome vs Chromium "conveniences" and other issues, its appearing more and more to me like a better version of IE - integrated and serving Google instead of Microsoft. That's not what I want in my web browser.
Especially amongst the educated, open-source and privacy knowledgeable community I'm surprised how many have switch to Chrome, typically citing resource or speed uses. I really don't think its acceptable to be the sort of person who runs 20 high-end addons including a ton of Stylish and Greasemonkey scripts and then says the browser is using a lot of memory with your sixteen tabs open.
Firefox, Thunderbird, and other Mozilla projects are more important now than ever - open source, standards compliant, privacy respecting, user focused and customizable. Everyone here would balk if I suggested we should all switch to Internet Explorer, Hotmail, MSN, Bing, and Skype because of convenience - Why kowtow to a monoculture just because its Google? This is not to say never use Google products, but we need to make it perfectly clear that we do so because they offer terms that serve our needs, including privacy, as users - not because we have so much invested we're now locked in. Google's gleaming facade has dulled considerably with some of their more recent decisions and spots of possible greed, arrogance, and apathy may be showing up - they need to know that we won't stand for it.
While Firefox isn't perfect, I urge everyone to be alert and make their usage decisions with the long-term ramifications in mind. In a world where most business interests would rather have you access their "cloud" services through a dumb client, completely on their terms, we need to stick up for some of the last bastions of user focused software that can be introduced to laypeople with ease and show them a real difference in the experience! How many of you introduced a friend or relative to open source software with a Mozilla product, which they found to give them better security, privacy, features, and customization? That's worth its weight in gold, so to speak. Sure, the geek community will always be able to roll up Midori or Lynx or some sort of other custom Gecko/WebKit browser from the bowels of a repository, but Firefox is relatively unique in that its features are nearly as accessible, secure, and powerful for the layman as they are for the guru. Trading that in for a product which is controlled by a corporation who's shortest distance to money infringes on user privacy and security is not a smart idea.
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, you are wrong.
The firefox extensions actually do their job - they screen out what they are supposed to screen out from the first reference. Scripts that you refuse to run, for instance, arent even downloaded.
The chrome versions are cosmetic only. They still download all the crap (ultra-annoying when on a slow connection,) and from what I understand even execute much of it, they simply remove the results from the final rendered page. This is not an acceptable substitute, and I have been told that because of basic design decisions true no-script on chrome is impossible.
As corporations go, google has a pretty good reputation, and they have earned it for the most part. But they make their money from advertisers, and therefore they have to play to what the advertisers want. The last thing advertisers want is for you or I to have any privacy from them. It would be stupid to expect google to put our interests above the interests of the people paying their bills. So I dont even blame google for making chrome the way they did. I just wont use it.
Stats include Android devices? (Score:3)
Yes, I RTFA and it doesn't seem to say. Growing sales of Android phones and tablets would give a huge post to Chrome's marketshare, and while you could count it as the same browser, the distinction should be noted.
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The problem is that Mozilla's revenue is directly tied to the number of installs (i.e Google searches). If their marketshare goes down, it might as well be the end of Firefox soon. Their CEOs have failed to diversify the revenue in spite of getting paid > 500k/yr.
Re:Who f****ng cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
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really, most the sites that are clients for my employer left IE in the dust years ago because it's a malware spigot. That's thousands of financial services and municipal/state government PC. Since they stay with a particular set of versions for so long this current version churning might not be issue for them though.
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Are you kidding? Every other software I install is trying to convert me to Chrome. :)
Except for iTunes, Quicktime and similar, which jam Safari down your throat.
Dependencies on a particular browser is SOOO 1999.
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If you're someone who develops any sort of web property for a living, you care. And that happens to be quite a lot of people.
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Hear, hear. I use Konqueror, and I don't care what anyone else uses.
There had to be one...
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You've now asked a herd of web-addicted sheep to behave against the will of their omnipresent God(dle).
I'm with firefox exactly because of the same reason (be it against google, webkit, almost-nearly-opensource-ware, or whatever). Sadly this reason counts as a 'feature' only for some of us.
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What's the problem with Webkit? It's not even a Google project.
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...if only for preventing giving Google more power/data.
On my netbook I use Chromium, for exactly this reason. (Also, it can't really handle Firefox.)
On my desktop I use Opera. It's not open source, but I think they do good for the web, and it's Really Fast.
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You do know that most of Mozilla's budget comes from Google, right?
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Me, I'm waiting for 8.0, which is due out next Tuesday... Unless of course I have to work late, in which case I'll just wait until the Thursday afterwards for version 9.
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And Chrome will be on 21.8.235.876 by then
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When we're talking about browsers, the geeks that fix their parents computers and install a browser for them are a fairly substantial marketing presence. They helped FF go a long way... and now they're not.
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User Agent strings aren't the only way of identifying browsers. Generally these days, you do UA strings and object detection. Basically the latter is running JavaScript with a whole bunch of if statements to see if certain objects are defined. document.all is an IE only thing, and window.performance only exists in IE9 for instance. window.opera only exists in Opera (duh).
With WebKit browsers (Chrome, Safari), you can detect to see if they have Canvas and WebGL support. With IE, you can even use conditional