Chrome Set To Take No. 2 Spot From Firefox

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."

I used to be a Firefox fan

[generikz]

... 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:Chrome

[alendit]

[...]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.

Re:Google Maps and Firefox vs. Chrome

[QuasiSteve]

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.

Re:Why?

[LordLimecat]

List of reasons:

1. Better built in insight into where the resources are going. Open the Chrome task manager, viola-- all the stats you could want, and even more if you click the "stats for nerds".
2. Better control over Extensions-- you can see extensions running in their separate process, and terminate them if theyre a problem.
3. Extension modifications dont require a browser restart-- installing, uninstalling, configging, activating, etc all happen immediately
4. Built in "view source" kicks the everloving crap out of Firefox's, and is only (somewhat) rivaled by Firebug (at least to my non-html coder eye). It is a breeze to modify a live HTML page, or execute javascript in the context of the page, or any number of other shady-business tricks you might want to do. I actually designed a splash screen for a simple launcher by going to my company webpage, and using Chrome to modify the look of it because it was easier than using paint.net.
5. Tab performance (creating, destroying, moving, tearing) is about twice as good as any browser except for Opera. Press and hold ctrl+t in firefox and in chrome, see which performs better.
6. Built in no-hassle translation that Just Works (TM). No need to hunt around for an extension that once in a blue moon I want to view a foreign webpage.
7. Built-in, auto-updating latest versions of Flash, and a PDF reader. The PDF reader is believed to be Foxit based, which is even better.
8. Much, Much, Much better auto-update system. Firefox is getting there, which will be wonderful, but its not there yet.
9. Native MSI support, with an official package (which Just Works-- even updating-- without everyone having to have admin!!!!), as well as official GPO templates, and the ability to push extensions to a whole network

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.

Re:Wrong

[Arker]

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.