Since the inception of Firefox, it has been (more or less) the defacto standard browser for a wide array of corporations, groups and people. It quickly rose to be the dominant browser due to it’s open source nature, it’s speed and it’s ability to properly display a web page. There are plenty of other reasons (like it is/was much more secure than IE6 … no clue how it stacks up to IE8 though), but one of the most important reasons was it’s add-ons/extensions.
With extensions anyone could go in and create an extension for Firefox which augmented some functionality, added something new, removed something they didn’t like and completely redesigned the interface. Heck, now-a-days Firefox is still THE browser to use when creating webpages simply because of it’s power extensions such as: SEO-Firefox, FireBug and YSlow just to name a few.
Users finally had a (really) great free alternative to all other browsers. Opera and Netscape really didn’t compare back then, though I here the latest Opera is rather nice. But the battle raged on mostly between Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. It is a real David vs Goliath battle here folks. Though there was a new comer to this ancient struggle.
The ever benevolent (as benevolent as any rich and powerful US corporation could be … which isn’t much) Google announced, a while back, it’s plans to create a browser. Rumor upon rumor spread and eventually it was actually released. And it did surprisingly well.
As of this writing Google Chrome is up to version 5.0.375.99 in the Beta (or so). It’s based off of the Chromium project which is open source, while Google Chrome isn’t technically 100% open source. Either way, it’s a extremely fast and powerful browser which makes headway each and every month.
Why the switch:
I love Firefox and have been using it for a long long time. If anyone asks which browser I recommend they use I say Firefox. BUT, I myself have switched over to Google Chrome (in Linux) for several reasons (in no particular order)
1) 
Google chrome is simply much prettier. They eliminated the usual window borders from the Xorg display, which is nice. Of course, if you prefer your Metacity or KDE borders, you can enable all that jazz too. But I really prefer it without. It gives my browser more space to actually display a site!
My website is blue, and Chrome is by default blue. Works for me. Plus, it was the first browser (which was popular) to include styles/themes/whatever you wanna call it that can change the look of the browser by default. Which is cool. I don’t use it (yet), but it’s nice to have albiet useless except for putting my companies own logo in it.
2) Google Chrome starts up significantly faster. I have found that on a cold startup (meaning after a reboot or a normal boot up in the morning) Chrome will open almost instantly, but firefox will take up to 10 seconds to load! Yikes! That ‘could’ be because of all the extensions I installed, but either way it’s slow (to start).
3) Easier bookmark manager. Before I comment on this, I gotta say this: I really dislike both bookmark managers because they all suck and are boring. Firefox has it right, I think, with the tags and all but it was kinda cumbersome. They all need some automated way for this. Anyway … Chrome bookmark manager is easier to deal with and less bitchy than Firefox’s, except that if you close it and open it again all the bookmark folders are open. Which is annoying. Overall, still much easier to organize bookmarks in Chrome IMO.
4) MUCH better and faster extension/plugin handling/managing than Firefox. In Chrome, if I install an extension I do not have to restart the whole bloody browser each time. In firefox, you do … it’s annoying as hell especially since on average I have at least 20 tabs open.
4.1) Chrome installs extensions/plugins lighting fast. Firefox installs extensions rather slow.
5) Chrome actually displays websites correctly on a widescreen display in Linux unlike Firefox. This has been a real troublesome thing for me in Firefox. On my widescreen laptop, no matter what distribution of Linux I used Firefox would always display the wrong font sizes. Usually too large. And using the browser ability to shrink fonts didn’t fix any styling or display issues. It really sucked.
6) It ‘seems’ to navigate websites a bit faster. This one is completely unscientific, but it just seems like a faster browser overall. Just my 2 cents.
7) Takes up less screen space. Related to #1.
Chrome opens new tabs/pages from within other programs MUCH faster. If I click a link in my e-mail, it opens up within a second or so in Chrome, there is a small delay before Chrome catches the link and then starts opening it. Browsers have that. But with Firefox this delay was just so unbelievably slow. this is also the main reason I tried switching in the first place.
But it’s not all peaches and creame!
I use Chrome more or less exclusively now, but I wish it have some things that Firefox had. For one:
- Bookmark tags.
- More marketing/programming extensions (like FireBug … even though I think there is a FireBug like extensions for Chrome now).
- More stability, it seems to also be a bit more unstable than Firefox. Kinda odd, can’t describe it really. Though it crashes for some reasons, but very rarely. Firefox practically never crashed though. Then again … I am using Chrome Beta on Linux.
- The bookmark bar was somehow changed. It sucks, this option really blows in Chrome. I use my main bookmark bar a lot, in Firefox is was actually decently pretty and what-not. But in Chrome it sticks out like a sore thumb. Bleh … Maybe I need a new chrome style?
Have you had any browser changing experiences? How about your thoughts on Chrome? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to know what browsers ya’ll are using these days!
Comment below and get a free cookie!
Incoming search terms:
- google chrome vs firefox
- why firefox fonts bigger than chrome
- firefox vs google chrome
- google chrome review vs firefox
- google chrome versus firefox
- why would a page render incorrectly in firefox but correctly in google chrome
- google chrome vs
- google chrome pk firefox
- google chrome on kubutu
- google chrome linux bookmarks bar too big
Related posts:
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for writing this , I have been thinking of switching and am thinking of getting the new Samsung Galaxy phone that use Chrome. Will now go and check it out. I now know why my firefox is so slow
Suzie Cheel made an awesome post: Are You in The Flow The Love Of Allowing
Hi Piotr,
I use Chrome most of the time. It’s fast and easy to bookmark pages, as you say. The downside of Chrome, for me, is that some applications aren’t optimised for Chrome – the mailing list software that I use is one, my bank is another… So I have to use another browser in these cases.
A Chrome plugin extension worth mentioning is Autopen – enables you to have a number of rich text signatures – choose which one you want to use with each email, if you don’t want to use your default.
best wishes
Rob
Sweet input Rob!
“Autopen” you say aye? I’m sooo gonna check that out!
–PK
Isn’t Chrome great? I’ve been using it since I got my first netbook back in Oct 2009. I wasn’t going to chance installing FireFox on that thing because I know it would have been too slow! Chrome was much faster and I’ve grown to love it. I’ve even installed it on my “regular” Windoze laptop and use it exclusively on there now. I cringe when I have to open FireFox on there because it takes too long. So far on the Mac I am using the latest version of Safari which is doing good so far.
My biggest issue with Chrome is/was the lack of support for subscribing to RSS feeds. I’m not sure if its fixed or not, it seems to be wishy-washy – sometimes RSS shows up properly, sometimes it doesnt. I have some kind of script bookmark that I use to view RSS feeds in Chrome. It would make SENSE if Chrome would have a one click subscription to Google Reader – as far as I know, it doesn’t fully support RSS just yet (there’s an extension to do this though).
As for crashing, what I found is that Chrome crashes EVERY time I’m on an InstantTeleseminar. But the cool thing is I dont have to restart it, I just close the window/tab and go back to the URL and it works (this keeps all my other Chrome windows open).
Gwen
Gwen Tanner made an awesome post: Product Inspiration- Create a Blueprint for Your Niche
Thanks for the input Gwen!
I completely forgot about that awesome feature of Chrome! Thanks so much for noting it!
I also REALLY really love that chrome in and of itself rarely crashes. But if something goes wrong with a tab, just close it. All other’s are A-OK!
like you i like the speed, for most things i prefer using chrome; however i have one bone to pick with chrome – download managers; with the lousy internet speed in my area, downloading a file larger than 10mb is not a very viable option with chrome, besides i don’t remember ever successfully resuming a download with chrome
You have such a good point there Bones!
Yeah, Chrome is not a browser for mass downloading. That’s why I’ve kinda stopped using it for that. I use Jdownloader or FlashGet/FlashGot (or whatever it’s called) with it!
Thanks so much for bringing up that point!
–PK
For cross-browser and cross-platform bookmarking I just use Del.icio.us to save my bookmarks. This way I can have tags and access to my synchronized bookmarks from anywhere (including internet cafes!). With the “Bookmark on Delicious” bookmarklet sitting in my Bookmarks Toolbar, I can bookmark sites with a single click, auto-tag it, and file it away. This is the only viable solution for me; the normal Chrome/Firefox bookmarks UI simply does not scale to the number of pages I save.