Chrome 15 Overtakes IE 8 For Top Browser Spot 507
An anonymous reader writes "If you're reading this on Chrome, you're part of a wave that has ditched Internet Explorer or Firefox and helped vault Google's browser to the top Web browser spot worldwide." Are you reading this on Chrome? (I'm using Chromium right now, but that's pretty close.)
First post from firefox (Score:5, Funny)
IE lagging behind again.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
An excellent point. It's also worth noting that Firefox is the most popular browser in Europe. Probably due to those EU regulations about Windows offering a default choice. Y'know the ones that people said would have no effect anyway.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/01/04/us-internet-europe-idUKTRE70324F20110104 [reuters.com]
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, most of them I had to explain what FF was....
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Do you live in Cuba? Or a war-ravaged African country? Or bumfuck Utah?
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Informative)
I use Chrome at work (my choice) but Firefox at home. Chrome is usually very fast and being able to just hit ctrl-T and start typing to search with suggestions is very nice, but there are some annoyances that stop me switching over for personal browsing on my own PC.
That is the problem with Chrome: a lack of customisability and APIs for extensions. It's fine if you happen to like the way Chrome works, but if it doesn't you probably can't fix the annoyance.
- Smooth/fast scrolling. The SmoothScroll extension takes care of both of these but seems to have been removed from the Chrome extensions site. I found the last version and installed it locally.
- RSS reading. I use Brief in Firefox and there is nothing even half as good for Chrome. Google Reader is bearable I suppose.
- Cookie permissions. In Firefox I use Cookie Button to whitelist ones that I want and have the rest deleted when I close the browser. There is nothing like that for Chrome. There are similar looking extensions but they maintain their own whitelists instead of integrating with the built in one.
- Search from the context menu switches to the search tab instantly. Again there is an extension but it still makes the screen flicker.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. I had a friend once who used anecdotes very successfully.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:4, Interesting)
Meanwhile, you go to the high school where my husband works and they use a mix of Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and IE, depending on their own preference.
Re: (Score:3)
Parent poster may sound like a troll, but he has a point - software piracy is widespread in Russia (and was even more so), and one of the reasons why Opera grew so popular there was because it was a decent alternative browser long before Mozilla/Firefox were usable, and no-one cared about it being non-free back then - I've never seen a legally licensed copy of Opera back in the day, everyone just used keygens.
Also, 50% is a bit of an overstatement - the real number today is more like 30%, tied for the top s
Re: (Score:3)
Parent poster may sound like a troll, but he has a point - software piracy is widespread in Russia (and was even more so)
That was exactly the point I was trying to make, although it seems to have got lost in the giant whooshing noise: If you're trying to make money from your software then being very popular in a geographic region where piracy is the norm isn't terribly useful. This will no doubt again get modded as a troll by people who haven't lived there and don't know how it works - you pay whoever runs your microraion for net access and it's sort of understood that that comes with access to all the pirated software, musi
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Informative)
Back in the day Opera /was/ worth the $39 license fee. This was in the days of Netscape 4 (ptui!) and Internet Explorer 4 (bletch), and it was really the only decent browser; didn't crash your system on a regular basis or bring it to a crawl.
Re: (Score:3)
This may have been a bit later, but there was the ad supported version, which was fine.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
I also want to add that all the popularity of Firefox is due to it's own quality.
Chrome is aggressively advertised in all Google services, specially Youtube.
It also has TV ads including Super Bowl ads, using celebrities like Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and even Hatsune Miku!
It also tries to sneak installs by sponsoring freeware downloads with chrome bundled. Opt-out of course.
They even messed up with the opt out option to make it hard to opt-out. I am specially offended by that *because* it is such a petty thing to muck with. It was a simple, straight forward Windows form but the opt-out option was semi-disabled. Oh come on that's just childish!
So I'm not impressed by Chrome's market share. It mostly shows the efficacy of strong marketing. I'm not saying it is a bad browser, or that Firefox is perfect, just that Chrome's success isn't really due to some sense of superiority.
And another thing.
What is with Chrome fanboys? Google is a for-profit corporation vent on market domination. It is NOT a good thing if Chrome kills Firefox, the last thing we need is another browser monoculture.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
I also want to add that all the popularity of Firefox is due to it's own quality.
True. Firefox is now a rock-solid, stable and mature browser. Having said that, I have actually been using Chromium as my default browser for a few months, for just two reasons:
1. Chromium loads webpages perceptibly faster, and
2. because Chromium by default takes up marginally less real-estate on my laptop screen with menubars, toolbars and whatnot that are not necessary.
However, if Chromium were not available, I would not be persuaded to use Chrome, as I am not happy about the possibility of anything I do being relayed to Google.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully 1. will be fixed soon. Chrome and Firefox are roughly as fast. Some pages load faster on Firefox. Some faster on Chrome.
But ALL Google pages load faster on Chome (and Chromium of course). That's because they all use Google-only protocols (such as SPDY) which do make a difference.
That's how you segment the web by the way, even if it's using open source stuff. Thanksfully, for that very one (SPDY) it's going to be in Firefox soon, hence, 1 would be fixed soon. But I'm *sure* Google will find other ways.
They're probably going to include Chome-only tags (oh wait, they already do that! offline gmail anyone?) or NaCl components, or Dart only component.
And that's why Google's actually turning evil after all.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:4, Interesting)
I also want to add that all the popularity of Firefox is due to it's own quality.
By "quality" I assume you really mean "qualities", i.e. the combination of its appearance, UI, stability, compatibility, and so on. And that's the problem with FF today, the market is broken up into people sticking with 3.6.x because it's a significant improvement on all of its successors, people on a random spread of versions up to whatever we're on this week (I don't want to post a version number because by the time this post appears it'll have changed), and people who've abandoned it for Chrome, which FF seems to be trying to copy, but badly.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:4, Interesting)
Chrome's marketing is downright deceptive. After running a test on speedtest.net you'd be presented with a ad for Chrome that read something like: "Internet speed not what you expected? Try a faster browser." That's, in my opinion, a lie. Google isn't the saint we thought it was. It's a fucking advertising company. That's worse than any operating system or office suite company that was once the market leader.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
So you have the source code for Chrome and have built it from source?
You have any of the really important Google software, i.e. the backend source code?
Re:First post from firefox (Score:5, Funny)
It's that song from Lion King... you know, Hatsune Mikuta.
Re: (Score:3)
Who?
The synthetic singer. A holographic pop idol from Japan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
We no longer see it important to teach people real math so the group who can come up with MaGiCaL numbers must be right.
Mozilla needs to get their shit together. (Score:5, Insightful)
The ones who should be worried about this are not Microsoft. Rather, they are Mozilla. This news just goes to show how irrelevant Firefox is quickly becoming. Luckily for them, they still have time. All they need to do is stop doing the stupid shit that they've been doing the past couple of years.
First, bring back the fucking menu bar and the status bar by default! The space gained by not showing them is much less valuable than the time saved by having the browser's functionality easily accessible (using the menus) and by having informational messages shown much more obviously (using the status bar). It was a really fucking stupid decision to hide these by default, and it has crippled Firefox's UI. No, I don't want to dig through about:config trying to find the right options to re-enable this functionality that shouldn't be disabled by default.
Second, go back to a sensible release schedule! Put out solid, well-tested major releases once a year. Use version numbers that are actually meaningful. Don't succumb to stupid release policies or version number shenanigans just because Chrome does. Using a sensible release schedule will also help prevent the UI from changing drastically on a monthly basis, which only serves to drive users away.
Third, fix the really fucking horrible memory and CPU consumption that Firefox has exhibited for years now. This alone is one of the major reasons why people use Chrome. It's not that they like Chrome, but rather they just don't like how Firefox consumes so much fucking memory even after short browsing sessions, and even when using a fresh installation with no extensions or add-ons installed yet. It's even less pleasant when Firefox feels so much slower than Chrome, Opera, and even IE these days.
Fourth, show the damn protocol in the URL bar by default! Yes, it's important, and no, it doesn't waste space. It was a pathetic decision to remove it, and it really made Firefox much less usable. No, I don't want to dig through about:config trying to find the right option to re-enable this functionality that shouldn't be disabled by default.
Mozilla had their most successful years before Firefox 4. It has been all downhill since then. It's also been long enough that it should be obvious that this new approach isn't working. It's driving away the core Firefox users who made Firefox what it once was. If Firefox is just going to be a poor imitation of Chrome, and inferior in many ways, then why the fuck don't people just use Chrome? Well, that's what's happening. Maybe Mozilla can get their shit together and fix this problem before Firefox is completely irrelevant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Well, people obviously prefer the way Chrome does this... let's go the opposite way!"
Sounds like dumb geek theory to me. It doesn't win you converts... you've just admitted defeat and rolled back to the old stuff so you can die quietly.
Re:Mozilla needs to get their shit together. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your first two points kinds are meaningless since people have fled FF for a UI exactly like the one that you claim is a reason that they left FF.
You are correct about FF's performance, but people will not just come back to it because it gets better performance... I left FF because I LIKE Chrome.
Your fourth point is meaningless again because people have not left FF for a browser that does the same exact thing.
Re:Mozilla needs to get their shit together. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The ones who should be worried about this are not Microsoft. Rather, they are Mozilla. "
If they cared, they'd change. They don't.
Re: (Score:3)
The "no we won't listen to what users want" mentality also spread to their handling of bug fixes. I know one datapoint doesn't make a pattern, but a former coworker of mine submitted a bug report to the FF team, and the response was something along the lines of "FF is open source. You're a software developer. Why don't you submit a patch yourself rather than just complaining about it." Never mind the fact that said former coworker was a web developer, and even a pro at HTML/CSS/Javascript may know when a br
Re: (Score:3)
It's just stupid comparison. Chrome automatically updates all old versions to their newest one while IE doesn't. This compares two exact versions, Chrome 15 and IE8. If you compare just browsers, IE is still easily number one at 50%, while Chrome has 25%.
Didn't Microsoft just release a statement [geek.com] saying they were going to be doing the same thing? So we'll have to wait for that to happen before the comparison could possibly be a valid judge of what browser is most used. My web logs still say IE, which does make me sad like bull. }:(
IE 9 still not available for Windows XP (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's it matter? I'm much more interested in what percentage of web sites are W3C compliant. When that approaches 100%, then browsers will compete on true merit (speed, UI, etc.), not their support of proprietary extensions and how well they put up with badly coded HTML.
I'm sick and tired of "browser x isn't supported," and "this site best viewed with..." crap, which is just indicative of clueless website developers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
50%? No, more like below 40%, Chrome 27%, Firefox 25%, Safari about 6% and Opera 2%. At least according to statcounter it's a loooong time since IE passed the 50% mark. Like september last year or thereabouts.
Re:First post from firefox (Score:4, Funny)
Chrome automatically updates all old versions to their newest one while IE doesn't.
So basically, it does the exact opposite of what Google does for Android.
Re:IE 6 and IE 8 are different animals (Score:4)
Re:First post from firefox (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:First post from firefox (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't like chrome very much. I like chromium even though it's kind of a bitch to compile if you go that route.
I have to say though that I'm kind of offended. It isn't really "Google Chrome" its chromium with google branding.
This hideous self promotion (and misinformed peer promotion) of the search giant has to stop!
Re: (Score:3)
well, they did V8 (and they did it brilliantly, not that it wasn't always apparent that it should have been done that way since the beginning). Webkit they didn't do nor did they do SQLite or any of the other libraries chrome uses [wikipedia.org].
Anyway, my intention isn't that much on criticizing Google on putting their label on a collection of libs, after all they did do a good job at putting them together. I just want to stress that Google is getting praise for putting together some tech (and who wouldn't do a good job
Version war? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is complete nonsense, if you take into account all versions of said browsers, IE still comes out on top. Who cares that a particular version (numbering incompatibility?!) is more used than another?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say that a lot of people who have to provide support care a great deal whether you're using IE 6 or IE 8.
No?
Re:Version war? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say that a lot of people who have to provide support care a great deal whether you're using IE 6 or IE 8.
No?
No, just us web devs. :)
Re:Version war? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because IE6, IE7, IE8 and IE9 are more or less four completely different browsers. My experience is that there are usually more differences between two IE version's HTML / JS parsing than the difference between Opera, Firefox and Chrome combined.
IE9 is the first browser where Microsoft actually tried. It's not perfect by far, but at least it's trying. IE6 is from the days where companies competed over who could make the most batshit insane browser. IE7 were a major change from IE6, and IE8 was a small change from IE7. But still carrying the El Batshitto legacy from old IE6. IE9 is, as said, a completely different ballpark (it's generally around the same level as firefox v3.6).
Don't be fooled by the name similarity. They truly deserve to be counted separately for each major version.
Re: (Score:3)
IE9 is the first browser where Microsoft actually tried. It's not perfect by far, but at least it's trying.
Sorry, but I have to nitpick here. IE3 was the first browser where Microsoft actually tried. It was so beyond anything that Netscape/Mozilla offered, feature- and interface- wise. IE3 is the reason why IE is still in the lead 10-15 years later. Posting this from Chrome ;)
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure what you're remembering. Netscape 3 was obviously better than IE3; the only thing IE3 offered was a browser good enough to be described as clearly worse than Netscape 3. It was IE4 that was marginally better than Netscape 4, and IE5 where it was obvious that IE was the leading browser because Netscape/Mozilla decided to just completely shit the bed with evolving the whole communicator suite.
Re: (Score:2)
Hardly anyone uses IE 6 or IE 7 in the US besides a few corporations. Maybe 4% of users according to statecounter. IE 9 barely has 10% as average Joes do not like the UI and many businesses feel IE 8 is fine.
IE 8 is still over 80% of the IE market. It wont go away and it is the next IE 6 of the 2010s. So the article is pretty accurate.
All versions of IE combined still beat everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems misleading...
Re:All versions of IE combined still beat everyone (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Also are they lumping all versions of Chrome together? All versions of Firefox together?
...
Yes, they are. It even says so in the article, but someone just dedicated to copypaste one really specific sentence from it to Slashdot. IE still has 50% market share, while Chrome has 25%.
No they are not lumping all versions of Chrome together.
The reason is that Chome auto-updates. Look at the graph, you can see the rise and fall of each chrome version.
Hardly anyone is running old versions of chrome.
IE is starting to Auto-update too, but this did not happen on older releases, so many people are stalled out on older IE releases and will never update until they get a new machine.
See this statement in TFA:
But wait, there is a caveat to this: Chrome 15 beat IE 8, specifically, this one week at the end of November, with 23.6 percent of the worldwide market, compared to IE 8's at 23.5 percent. With all the versions of IE floating around, IE is still No. 1 in the world, but Chrome is right behind it.
The cherry picked statistic was version specific: Chrome 15 overtakes IE 8. And as s
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome is pretty much autoupdating anyway, FF (If I remember right) is almost as much. IE isn't that far behind in autoupdating, and on par if you are using Win7. And it really isn't that misleading: either you prefer Chrome, regardless of version, or you prefer IE, or FF, regardless of version. It still provides useful info.
Re: (Score:2)
If you look at the graph, chrome 15 has a bit over 24%, while all other versions of chrome are down around 0.1%.
They are not lumping versions of chrome together.
I'm completely baffled (Score:5, Insightful)
I simply can't understand how a browser with such a godawful interface could get so popular.
Re: (Score:2)
That and the people who promote it probably doesn't give the free software virtue speach.
Re: (Score:3)
Probably because all the other browsers are adopting Chrome's layout and practices. In some cases it's a detriment to usability.
For example, IE used to use a favorites sidebar to sort favorites as the default. This was nice because most bookmarks were easily accessible in one click (two with a folder) as long as the bar was in place, where chrome has a drop down menu for their bookmarks. IE9 adopted the chrome interface, so now you have to click favorites, then click on the link. (and yes you can get the si
Re:I'm completely baffled (Score:4, Insightful)
I simply can't understand how a browser with such a godawful interface could get so popular.
Because only a small percentage of users are like you. The vast majority really like Chrome's interface.
Why? A big part is that it removes a lot of clutter that didn't ever mean anything to them anyway. Just yesterday I watched my brother-in-law using Firefox; he went to google.com and searched for gmail to get to his e-mail. I asked him why he didn't type gmail.com into the location bar, or gmail into the search bar. He responded that he'd never quite understood the difference between them, and had found that just typing what he wants into Google worked best.
Now, this is a man in his 40s, who's been playing with computers for about 15 years now (since his early 30s), is something of a gamer, understands something about the internals of his computer and has upgraded video cards, processors, hard drives, etc., and done it by himself. He uses Windows (reinstalling it every few months, seems like), but has experimented with Linux, dual-booting Ubuntu for a while. He's not a geek, but he's a moderately-knowledgeable computer user.
Next time I have a chance, I'm going to have him install Chrome, and I guarantee you he will love it. The unibar is perfect: "Just type whatever in here". The lack of status bar won't bother him in the slightest; I noticed yesterday that when a site was a little slow, he didn't even bother looking at the status bar to see what was happening: The icon on the tab was still moving, so he knew to keep waiting. He may or may not like the fact that the bookmarks bar only shows on a new tab. If he doesn't, it's easily changed. I'm sure he'll really like the default home page, with its display of commonly-visited sites. I know he'll love Chrome Sync, since he has three computers he uses regularly. And I know he'll like the speed.
IMO, people try Chrome for the speed. But not only does the UI not drive them away, the vast majority like it better. It gets rid of stuff they didn't understand anyway, and makes the browser easier to use.
Another data point: while typing this I asked my wife what she thinks. She's a heavy web user, but not at all technical, at least not in the way slashdotters would interpret the word. Lots of people ask her computer questions. Her comments on FF UI vs Chrome UI:
Re: (Score:2)
To take just one example, the way you can drag the tabs.
You can do all the same stuff in firefox, and have been able to since before Chrome existed.
Microsoft do a browser? (Score:2)
Well I never. Next you'll be saying they do a mobile OS, or even more far-fetched: a search engine.
Ummm what about both? (Score:2)
Switched within the last fortnight. (Score:2)
Used to at least like to think of myself as a free thinking, rebellious edgy kind of guy.
Now just part of the herd, I guess.
*sigh*
Firefox still rules (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you've got used to some of the better add-ons (adblock, noscript, peraperakun, tabmixplus, treeestyletabs) it's hard to make a change.
I don't care enough about slightly lower memory usage or slightly shorter start-up times (4GB of RAM, browser running for a week on average).
I don't get the advantages of chrome.
I've used chrome, and I experience more of a vendor-lock-down feeling with it. Of course there are a lot of extensions, but they seem more of an afterthought as compared with Firefox.
The biggest problem of Firefox ATM is that they are copying chrome too much instead of choosing their own direction.
That's all.
Re:Firefox still rules (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that firefox's development model fosters the creation of cool, innovative add-ons more than chrome.
Even though their faster-than-light release cycle of late may put and end to this...
Re:Firefox still rules (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I just don't understand how bookmarks work on Chrome. Why can't I have what I have on Firefox - a menu item I can click on to get a scrollable list of bookmarks? I don't want a whole empty row just for a single bookmark button, and I don't want a bookmark `frame` or tab, or whatever. Why can't I have an icon somewhere which gets me my full list of bookmarks. Just like in Firefox.
Tree style tabs (Score:5, Informative)
The one thing that keeps me off Chrome for serious web browsing is the lack of a **full** equivalent to Tree Style Tab [mozilla.org]. I've found various attempts, but until something with all the critical features is available, I can't leave Firefox.
And yes, it's that important. I find serious web browsing without tree tabs is basically unusable.
Some analysis of Chrome extensions I've tried follows below, along with a longer explaination of why tree tabs matter.
-----
Why tree tabs are important
Critical features:
* Arrange tabs in a hierarchy (subordinate/superior relationships)
* Links middle-clicked to open in a new tab, open under the current tab
* You can collapse branches of the tabs tree, like a folder tree in Explorer/Outlook
* You can drag tabs around to restructure the tree
For example, my current top-level hierarchies at work are "PVI clusterfsck", "vern buerg list", "to read", "vmware ctrl alt del", "new server", and "training". "training" has four immediate subtabs, each for various training providers we use at $WORK. Each of those is an exploration of their course hierarchy. I can expand or collapse any section or subsection as my focus changes. I can also bookmark branches for later.
For me, at least, knowledge isn't linear, it's tree structured. The Back/Forward paradigm is totally inadequate for the task.
-----
Tree Style Tabs (Beta)
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ffididlaalcoegfcalmeldjfnihmoech [google.com]
Unfortunately, it's lacking some features. The biggest is that it
doesn't actually replace the tab bar across the top of the screen.
Rather, it gives you a new toolbar button, which, when clicked, drops
down a tree structure. No way to make that appear permanently, that I
can see. (TreeStyleTab appears much like a "side bar" in Firefox.)
The tree structure does reflect which tab opened from which. But I
can't drag tabs or branches to organize them, nor can I
collapse/expand branches.
-----
Tab Sense
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oiabeebnmckkdjloeofbfladabfhedlg [google.com]
Similar to the "Tree Style Tabs (Beta)" above. Same
button-not-a-sidebar issue. Does allow collapse/expand, which is
good. It opens up a new Google Chrome window to hold collapsed tabs
(with the message to minimize it and forget about it), which is rather
kludgey. Still can't drag tabs.
-----
Tabs Manager
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ioigddmjfpphkbamgbaolfkpifddnaje [google.com]
Same button-not-a-sidebar issue. Tab structure doesn't appear to
reflect browsing history. Seems to have only two levels, a "folder"
it creates, and all your tabs. Does allow dragging of those tabs, but
I'm not sure what the point is. Can't find a way to create a folder.
I'm not quite sure what the point is.
-----
Some of these limitations might be due to Chrome's architecture,
rather than the extension programmers. In particular, I suspect
Chrome just doesn't let extensions have enough access to the UI to do
anything really useful. Which is a shame, because Chrome feels so
much faster than Firefox.
Re: (Score:3)
The one thing that keeps me off Chrome for serious web browsing is the lack of a **full** equivalent to Tree Style Tab [mozilla.org]. I've found various attempts, but until something with all the critical features is available, I can't leave Firefox.
Wow, I had no idea such a thing existed. I've stuck with Safari out of familiarity, occasionally missing the old OmniWeb and its window sets (or whatever it called them). But this is exactly the thing to make me look into changing my primary browser. I deal with a lot of web pages at once, and the windows + tabs paradigm is really inadequate, and leaves me trying organize URLs in an external program, which is really tedious...
Re: (Score:2)
For me, at least, knowledge isn't linear, it's tree structured. The Back/Forward paradigm is totally inadequate for the task.
In reality, knowledge isn't tree structured, its a graph. The Tree paradigm is totally inadequate for the task. ;-)
Good (Score:3)
Is it accessible yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does Chrome have the ability yet to make text a readable size without widening the page so I have to scroll sideways?
Does it have the ability to selectively stop/play animations?
No? Then I'll be sticking with Firefox a while longer, I guess. Come back when your browser's accessible and then we'll talk.
Re:Is it accessible yet? (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps you should try Safari. It defaults more modern zoom-everything behaviour, but has a "zoom text only" setting to bring back what you want.
Anyone who hasn't tried safari for a while (especially on windows) really should give it another try as it's improved a lot. There is a list of small features ten miles long I can't live without, that are only in safari.
PS: Be sure to check out the third party extensions as well.
Re: (Score:2)
There's an extension called Gif Stopper [google.com].
Re:Is it accessible yet? (Score:4, Informative)
Chrome doesn't support DPI changes. And for that alone, it's UNUSEABLE for me. 1080p screen on a 13 inches.
Misleading...but still significant (Score:2)
For those of us with SSDs however... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've used Chrome a lot and like it even more. Unfortunately, a mere day's browsing generates 700,000 writes according to windows (almost an order of magnitude over any other browser). As an SSD user, this just isn't acceptable and all the fixes are a complicated way of 'shoving the cache onto a spinning disc drive'.
Re:For those of us with SSDs however... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:For those of us with SSDs however... (Score:4, Interesting)
Firefox also lets me move the browser cache and profiles to my hard drive or any folder I want. Chrome only supports writing to the same folder to which its installed. There's not much point to an SSD if I have to install applications to a hard drive.
When I tried Chrome, it read 20GB+ and wrote between 2-4GB every time I did a cold start. I ditched the browser very quickly. Aside from wondering what the fuck this advertising company was doing reading and writing so much data on startup, I wasn't going to let Chrome thrash my SSD to death.
I've since discovered that Chromium and Iron don't torture drives. Not only have I banished Chrome from my system, but all other Google apps as well.
Chrome isn't spying on anyone (Score:3)
The SafeBrowsing stuff does keep SQLite files, but the one I see in my Chrome profile is only 5.1 MB. My Firefox urlclassifier3.sqlite file is 44 MB. My Chrome's "History" file is 151 MB. I'm on Linux.
I don't trust Google completely, but I'd be very surprised if Chrome were snooping on files all around the system. In fact, I just used strace to record every file accessed by Chrome during a quick session in which I launched it and shut it down, and the only files it accessed that weren't strictly related
Bloat? What Bloat? (Score:5, Insightful)
People keep claiming that Chrome uses less memory than Firefox so I decided to take a look.
Memory used:
Initial start up, no pages open:
Firefox 39 MB
Chrome 56 MB
5 tabs open:
Firefox 135 MB
Chrome 152 MB
Size on disk (Windows version)
Firefox 44 MB
Chrome 75 MB
There are things that I like about Chrome and over the past couple of years Firefox has really pissed me off with their never ending bonehead design decisions. But the "Firefox is bloated" claims just don't make sense.
Re:Bloat? What Bloat? (Score:4, Informative)
With a stock firefox that's true.
But throw in a few popular third party extensions, and leave FireFox running for a day or two. It will start consuming all your available RAM and a good chunk of virtual memory too (growing more and more the longer you leave it open).
With other browsers, memory consumption is rarely even noticeable. I can leave safari running for *months* and it'll happily sit on around 200MB with my usual 15 or so tabs. And yes, I do have a bunch of third party extensions installed. Pretty much the same ones I had when I was using FireFox every day.
Re:Bloat? What Bloat? (Score:4, Informative)
I've done a lot of experiments with Firefox memory usage and extensions, and I've concluded that memory usage depends less on extensions and plugins, and a lot more on what sites you visit. I tend to surf image gallery sites, especially those that use a lot of JavaScript (such as Deviantart). After only 10 minutes of surfing, memory usage usually goes up to 500MB. After just an hour, not a week, I'm up to the 700MB mark. It might be the JavaScript, or it might be due to surfing through a hundred megs of images within an hour.
I just updated from 3.6 to 8.0.1, and I've seen memory usage go up quite a bit, even without extensions. Given all the hype about lower memory usage, and fixed memory leaks, I was surprised. Firefox is indeed faster, but memory usage is even worse than ever.
Why care about memory usage? The problem is that Firefox has always had issues with freezes every 10 seconds or so, and I presume it's due to garbage collection. The more memory Firefox uses, the longer the freezes are, resulting in interrupted browsing, typing, and lost mouse clicks. I ended up downgrading back to 3.6. The freezes actually lasted longer in 8.0.1 because the browser uses more memory. Until Mozilla adds some wait states into their memory manager, or otherwise fixes the regular freezes, I won't upgrade beyond 3.6.
Examples please... (Score:2)
Please provide some examples. I my case, the problem is with Chrome: The inability to rearrange the tabs the way I see fit.
Re:Bloat? What Bloat? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, my primary measure has been if I leave it open on Friday, how will it react on Monday when I get back. And on that FF has failed like horribly, both Chrome and IE respond much faster. Using process explorer it seems Firefox is busy reloading a billion stack pages which a) it'd has no reason using anyway and b) even if it did, just load the few I need and display those. Maybe I'm hitting some kind of issue that leaks memory like shit, but at least that's what I find. I haven't filed a bug because honestly I don't know WTF to file the bug on, I just switched to Chrome. If I got too paranoid about what Google is doing, I'd get Chromium.. but FF is really fucked up and I don't know what'd bring it back, it'd certainly be no quick fix.
Re: (Score:3)
Chrome includes flash and a pdf viewer and both are binary. Also a terminal client, native code implementation, yada yada. if anything chrome's "bloated"
But the asynchronous UI is good. Fennec (Firefox for mobile) adopted *FINALLY* a truely asynchronous UI and let me tell you: it rocks. pure and simple.
I just wish this will happen on Desktop too. That's the one thing to steal from Chrome (albeit it's a different technical implementation of it).
It basically means UI never blocks, nothing ever feels laggy.
At this point (Score:2)
And now for more misleading statistics:
Windows 7 usage has surpassed all Linux and Macintosh usage*. Windows XP retains 15% share.
*statistics based on my household machine usage.
Nightly (Score:2)
Ironically, I just switched back again. I mainly use Chromium for light-weight browsing, because it starts faster, and Firefox (or rather Nightly) when I need extensions or non-broken plugins. Apparently they still haven't managed to integrate a proper PDF viewer in Chromium, even years after one was included in the Windows version of Google Chrome.
The real new - chrome vs firefox (Score:4, Insightful)
In totally unrelated news... (Score:3)
I read it on Firefox (Score:4, Interesting)
Truth be told, I read it on Firefox, though I also have Chrome running. In fact, I do my "throwaway" browsing on Chrome and "serious" browsing on Firefox. Chrome not being able to bookmark all tabs to a folder is a serious deficiency that prevents me from saving sets of links that are the result of possibly lengthy research. Another constant annoyance is Chrome saving all files to Downloads instead of giving me the option to open. This litters my Download directory with lots of junk, a problem I do not have with Firefox. And Chrome cannot be trusted to remember its open tabs after an unexpected shutdown (such as a reboot).
I'm not helping the stats much (Score:3)
Firefox: Usual generic browser with NoScript on.
Chrome: My Google+ games account, YouTube and Topless Robot (since half the links on there are YouTube videos anyways.)
Internet Explorer: My "private" G+ account.
Opera: My Google Apps email account.
Along with making it easy to log into different Google related accounts without worrying about fiddling with settings, it makes it easy to switch tasks quickly based on the icons in the taskbar.
I probably ought to do some research and figure out something else to replace the IE slot with though. It feels kinda embarrassing to be using IE for anything at all on a regular basis =P
Re:I'm not helping the stats much (Score:4, Informative)
Excuse me for enhancing your worst fears, but if you are using IE for your "private" (and supposedly sensitive) stuff, IMHO you must be doing something wrong. Please find the time to do this research and act accordingly as soon as possible.
FF ignored speed for too long (Score:3)
I used to use Firefox all the time. But I like fast software (I'd be using Dillo if it could handle modern web needs) and FF just seemed to get bigger, slower and more bloated all the time and no-one at Mozilla cared. Then Chrome came out and wiped the floor with Firefox: it opened much faster (still does) and had the faster experience I was looking for. I immediately switched to Chrome/Chromium along with many other people. Firefox then improved the responsiveness of their browser considerably but they'd already lost some key market share.
A lot of desktop application coders, including some notables I used to work with, do not seem to care about the sluggish responsiveness of their frankenstein creations until someone jumps up and down and hits them with a big stick. Cases in point: Gnome, KDE and other monstrosities, massively endowed with alleged "features". On Linux I use fast light software where possible. I always enjoy watching applications and windows open instantly on five year old hardware. Posting from Chrome on Mac now.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not browsing speed that is my main issue with Firefox. And if I really want browsing speed I choose Opera instead.
But one reason for Chrome to get up on the ladder is that it's today bundled with a lot of other softwares which means that you may get it even if you don't want it. (not very different from how IE acts) while Firefox never have been seen bundled with any apps that I have seen unless the app itself required it.
One thing that I like Firefox for is all the available add-ons like Firebug and A
Not suprising (Score:3, Interesting)
Although I don't understand the resurfacing argument that IE6 is mainly kept alive by corporations. Would that not contradict some sort of evolutionary process? Those unwilling to change should be left behind, just because advances in web technology could provide advantages to internal applications of competitors, so if they decide not to upgrade, the competition should decide it for them. But this seems not to be the case. So my bet is that the majority of IE6 users probably come from bootlegged vanilla XP installations with (surprise-surprise) automatic upgrades turned off in regions like China.
And then there once was Firefox, in its heyday the only alternative to The Microsoft Way. Now, it tries to maintain a release schedule that is only rivaled in speed by some out-of-whack neutrinos. Somehow its upper management got deluded into thinking they needed to mimic their new-found rival to stay relevant. While that sentiment has some truth to it, the way it was executed hurt their core user base more than they could siphon off users from either IE or Chrome. Because people who like Chrome, will use Chrome. And not something that desperately chases Chrome, but fails to address other critical issues in the process.
Re:But (Score:5, Funny)
Probably, but the Googlelluminati have now put it in second.
Re: (Score:2)
What has happened to Opera! Opera has always been in the lead
{argument Here} I'll download and use the 64bit version, thank you.
It's just so many sites don't work with Opera anymore
http://i39.tinypic.com/ke8ztj.jpg [tinypic.com] directv.com for one.
Opera is not only being overlooked but rejected by many. I notice you've
been mod'ed down, even here...
Battlefield 3 requires Firefox or Chrome, folks can't understand why
I don't care for those browsers, and I can't understand why I can't use Opera.
I've used Opera forever, sinc
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe, I personally haven't looked into it too much. The usability of Opera wins me over. I just visit known sites, and close any obnoxious sites. They don't deserve any traffic. For anything questionable, I suffer with Firefox.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think Chrome should depend on the underlying OS to handle video. This allows them to both support and NOT support h.264. Most people will get h.264 support, and those who want to vote with their wallets won't.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that as long as MPEG LA expects to be paid for use of the standard you're going to have a two tiered net the way that it used to be with Flash. Granted most folks would have a license via MS, but it's a really shitty situation to have to either a licensing fee to use the web or violate somebody's patents.
Re: (Score:2)
Some people do.
Re: (Score:3)
I used to like Iron a lot too (the portable version) until in a recent Slashdot comment somebody pointed to a debunking of it at http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam [hybridsource.org]. I must admit at first I was a bit disappointed, but then I said to myself "welcome to the wonderful world of FOSS".