Chromium Likely to Replace Firefox

[VinDSL]

I use chromium for about 98% of my browsing, and everything works as it should for me. [...]

I really don't care if it's added as the default browser [...]

Dittos...

I like to "test" things, so I use Chromium Canary 98% of the time. It has pages n' pages of experimental features (chrome://flags) to play around with.

The only extensions I *need* (must-haves) are:

• Ghostery
• PDF Viewer
• TinEye Reverse Image Search

1% of the time, I use Opera-Next. Unlike all other browsers, you can make Opera look any_way_you_want. Customization goes way beyond simply skinning it with canned themes. In particular, I like to run my browser tabs on the bottom. All browsers should have this option, IMO!

Have you tried the Opera-Next App (aka Mini Next) on Android, cariboo?!?!?

The only time I use Fx is for critical downloads, e.g. via the DownThemAll! extension.

[EgoGratis]

Exactly.

Usually i would agree BUT this is FF we are talking about. This decision will have greater effect "in community" compared to default music or video player for example. Anyway i expressed my concerns and views as i see it and beyond that it's not my call to make...

[Ravi5kumar]

firefox is better than chrome/ium. It has huge addons/themes and I can customize how it looks. There are lots of options. It also integrate better in ubuntu than chrome/ium. Chrome/ium just feels alien. And I am also annoyed when the gnome keyring ask your password everytime you open chrome. Also I dont know, but chorme/ium uses a lot of RAM as compared to firefox. So they should keep firefox IMO.

[Warpnow]

Never once seen an objective measure-- benchmark, resource utilization, feature comparison, where firefox beats chrome. Chrome is better technology. If not now then inevitably in the future. Its just newer, faster, better.

[fantab]

I don't care what Ubuntu uses as default... At every install I remove tons of 'defaults' Ubuntu ships. I am seriously considering 'Ubuntu-Mini', Arch spoilt I guess.

Back to Browsers: I have both, Firefox and Chromium. Chromium is just my Backup Browser. Firefox has a tremendous configurablity and great addons. This is where, IMO, Chromium lags. Also with HTML5 round the corner, pepper-flash doesn't matter much to me. I like Firefox more. I am wary of Google in general.

my two cents...

[dejavue]

I come from Firefox (on Windows) originally, have been using it since it was v0.8 (I think it was still 'Firebird' at that time).

Was happy with it for a long time, until Mozilla changed something with the font rendering and it lost the anti-aliasing (which used to be handled by Windows before). I don't know what happened, but suddenly every web page had horribly jagged edges on all text (maybe because I use non-standard fonts for Windows? - namely Ubuntu font and Helvetica).
Chrome has a much nicer font rendering engine, so I switched.
When I started using Ubuntu I also went right ahead with Chromium, mostly because my bookmarks would all be synced...

In hindsight, I have actually found that Firefox seems sluggish to me and the UI is not very intuitive. Also, Chome/ium seems to render much faster - although this may just be a subjective thing...

I would like for Ubuntu to offer Chromium as standard browser (although I don't find it a hassle to install - very much unlike on Windows) - the only thing I am missing is the ability to about:config that thing (and no, chrome:flags is not the same as I cannot set connection numbers etc.)

[serdotlinecho]

I'm using the current version libpepflashplayer.so and libpdf.so from google chrome on chromium-browser and both working fine.

[grahammechanical]

For the sake of openness, I must declare an interest - I am not interested in the slightest!

It seems to me that anyone can put in a session at UDS to discuss anything that they want. That does not make it Canonical policy. People in the past have been caught out by someone's wish list at UDS being seen as Ubuntu direction. This time, at least, these people did not get a paid for trip to the other side of the world.

As far as I am concerned, it makes sense to have a default web browser installed. New users would be expecting that. We should not get into a situation where users are offered a choice of browsers at installation time. Getting rid of that kind of complication has been Ubuntu practice for years. Yet, that is the compromise that these kind of discussions produce.

Nor should personal preferences influence practical decisions. I am more familiar with Chromium but I see no point of changing the set up. How often has someone said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There is enough disruptiveness about Ubuntu as it is, without adding to it.

Regards.

[craig10x]

I guess i wouldn't mind using Chromium instead of chrome IF ubuntu would add 2 easy to install packages in the software center to add in the Chrome pepperflash and pdf reader....if they can offer microsoft fonts when you add restricted extras (by saying yes to the agreement) i don't see why they couldn't do the same for those add on features..

Also, if we would get more updated versions of chromium that match with chrome....

Someone had mentioned that Chrome had better font rendering...yep it does seem to, from my observation...which is why i switched to it from firefox...Chrome with the microsoft fonts (which i always get with restricted extras) is sweet looking and the web pages themselves seem to have the best rendering too...Chromium has this also, just is missing those 2 extra features...

[ronacc]

while the choice of default apps does not affect me as long as alternatives are available , I think that there should be consistency between releases unless a change is absolutely required . Too much difference from one release to the next will create confusion among the ordinary users .