Firefox and Chrome

**Glencore** · June 8th, 2011

It is not new news that Firefox has slowly been losing market share while Chrome is making decent gains. A quick look at the Mozilla community sites suggests a fair few people unhappy with Firefox (mainly v4). A lot of people are under the impression that tech savvy people that shouted Firefox in the past are moving over to Chrome.

Personally I don't think I will use Chrome, I do not feel I should support a browser from a company that has a potential agenda. I feel that while Mozilla is neutral, Google feel it is important they own the WWW platform (like Microsoft before them) - especially as their services are web based and that the WWW (browsers) could become more important than the platform they run from.

How do you guys feel about these recent trends?

**BigSilly** · June 8th, 2011

I do love Firefox and prefer it to Chrome as a nicer browser to use generally. But Chrome, especially on Linux, makes a compelling argument to change. It's just so much quicker on Linux than Firefox, and that makes it hard to ignore. Plus, aren't Mozilla botching the WebGL for Linux users a bit? I'm sure I've read that they won't be enabling it for us, which would be a real shame.

**fontis** · June 8th, 2011

In a perfect world, Chrome would never have been developed and everyone (including me) would still be on FireFox. But the truth is, Chrome is just that much better than FireFox.

As much as it pains me to admit, Chrome is faster, lighter, much more stable than FireFox is, and has ever been.

**aeronutt** · June 8th, 2011

I have problems with both. I'm flopping between the two right now. here are my problems in a nut shell:

- Chrome (and chromium). About once every 30 minutes or so, randomly shows 'url not found' for a web site. (as in, a web site that I have bookmarked and that I know is ok.) This doesn't happen in Firefox.

- Firefox, can't remove that title bar, taking up valuable vertical space.

**uRock** · June 8th, 2011

Moved to Recurring Discussions.

**Glencore** · June 8th, 2011

Originally Posted by aeronutt

I have problems with both. I'm flopping between the two right now. here are my problems in a nut shell:

...

- Firefox, can't remove that title bar, taking up valuable vertical space.

I use F11 when I am doing nothing but browsing as it shows the web-page in full screen unless the mouse is moved to the top, in which case is shows the tabs and address bars.

Chromium, I never considered using that. From what little research I have done it is the Open Source version of Chrome minus the branding and usage tracking. There are no proprietary features unique to Chrome?

**qamelian** · June 8th, 2011

Originally Posted by fontis

As much as it pains me to admit, Chrome is faster, lighter, much more stable than FireFox is, and has ever been.

Not on any of the computers I've tried it on. After using it for a while Chrome always seems to bog down my system to the point of being unusable. I never have this problem with Firefox.

**oldsoundguy** · June 8th, 2011

I have found FireFox 4 to be much faster than 3.X. It has taken a bit of re-learning to utilize the task bar that now combines the features of the old BOTTOM bar into the top bar .. and the re-load is a habit that will have to be re-set in my mind.

One thing .. there seems to be a memory leak .. not major, but if you are on 24/7, it will bog down after a long on line session. Re-booting at present seems to clear things up for a while. Not sure if the leak is in the browser or in some other open tab. Will have to investigate further on that one.

I still do not like the feel of Chromium .. but that is just me. (and Chrome/Chromium are still giant memory hogs .. that is how they get their speed!)

**LowSky** · June 8th, 2011

I' jst made a switch to using Chrome as my default browser. FF4 for me was locking upo and having odd issues., and I dont use extensions so I have no idea why. Chrome is smooth as butter.

**Dragonbite** · June 8th, 2011

Firefox

I like the philosophy behind it. It is very similar to open source in general and Linux specifically and I like to support that.
Firefox 4 is much faster than 3.x
I like the smaller amount of screen space the menu takes up.

Chrome/Chromium

When I am able to, I prefer to use the Chromium version over Chrome
I like the easy synchronization feature so apps, bookmarks, themes and passwords are synchronized between all my systems.
Relatively fast and moving things around is smooth and fluid
The extensions available.
The ability to set up Apps to open in a pinned window, new window or just a new tab.

I have a Chrome OS Cr-48 and it is handy that what I do on my other Chrome/Chromium browsers will be reflected on this book, and vice-verse. I am sure this effects my view on the two of them.