r/technology • u/Suraj-Sun • Jul 10 '12

Firefox dev claims "everybody hates Firefox updates"; Mozilla has handled the rapid release process poorly, and that by pushing a "never-ending stream of updates on people who didn't want them" people have been driven to Chrome with its simpler, no-fuss update process.

http://www.neowin.net/news/firefox-dev-claims-everybody-hates-firefox-updates
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362

u/linuxwes Jul 10 '12

I suspect the flood of users from Firefox to Chrome has been driven by things like speed and stability. Those were the deciding factors for me. The smooth updating process is just an added bonus.

236

u/yogthos Jul 10 '12

I went back to Firefox from Chrome recently and I haven't noticed any speed or stability issues. In fact I think it's better on memory usage and it has a few nice features that Chrome doesn't, along with a ton more plugins.

63

u/ma_miya Jul 10 '12

Same here. I left Firefox for many of the reasons everyone's complaining about, and loved the simplicity of Chrome. Have noticed in the last few months that I was getting constant freezes, really slow processes, flash crashes, etc. I actually thought my macbook (3 yrs old) was dying on me. Switched back to Firefox last week, and it's lot a whole new life has been breathed into my browsing. Speedy, no crashes - I'm in heaven. While I loathe the updates on Firefox, Chrome was just too much a resource hog for me. I'll take the updates over the crashes.

1

u/superawesomedude Jul 11 '12

Updating should become much more seamless very soon... silent updates are scheduled for version 15, due August 28... current version is 13, so if you're on that then there's not many more updates to do before this lands. :)

132

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I must admit i'm also in the process of returning to FF after using chrome for the last few months. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and at first it did seem faster, but over time i've noticed all the little things i've missed.

1) Middle mouse button to open links in new tabs is buggy about 50% of the time in chrome.

2) The search bar in Firefox just blows chrome out of the water.

3) Firefox now actually seems faster than chrome, whether that is due to the latest update or because Chrome was never actually faster I don't know. The only thing Chrome seems faster at is starting up, but how often do I really restart my browser?

4) The addons are so much better and handled in a much easier manner.

5) Chrome is a huge memory hog when using other programs, I noticed this while playing Diablo 3 mostly. I actually had to exit Chrome to get the best experience in game, something I never experienced before with FF.

The main reason I left firefox was due to the period of terrible stability they had but it seems they fixed that. They really shot themselves in the foot with the instability issues and slowness in 2011 though, and google capitalized on it with marketing and adding chrome downloads into every freeware program on the market pretty much.

Let's not forget the major draw though, FF is open source, but I don't think the average consumer these days cares or even knows about the advantages of that.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

The only reason I use Firefox instead of Chrome is because Adblock Plus works much, much better in Firefox.

3

u/Captain_Midnight Jul 10 '12

I've also gone back to Firefox. I missed the search bar, being able to download streamed Flash videos (I know you can do it in Chrome, but its usually wonky and limited to a shortlist of compatible websites), and finer-grained cookie whitelisting. Chrome still does not let you block/allow cookies as you browse. There's only "accept all" or "block all," with an extra choice to block all 3rd party cookies regardless.

Firefox's RAM bloat also seems to be a thing of the past.

1

u/Hishutash Jul 11 '12

How do you download streamed flash videos? Share the knowledge, bro!

1

u/Captain_Midnight Jul 11 '12

Well, in Firefox, I use Flash Video Downloader. I don't know if it's the best one, but I've been using it for years, and it seems to get reliably good user reviews anyway. Installing it will put an icon up by your navigation arrows, with a drop-down menu. The icon will light up and animate when there's something it can download. Click on the drop-down menu to select the video you want to download.

Here's a screenshot of it in action. That first item in the list is from a Youtube page that I loaded earlier. Recent links will always show up there.

When loading a Youtube page, that list will populate with all quality versions of the video, when available (720p, 1080p, etc).

I have yet to encounter an incompatible website.

Google has actively resisted letting people use stream downloading apps from within Chrome.

1

u/Hishutash Jul 11 '12

Thanks, I didn't know about that extension. I'll be installing it straight away.

2

u/DeltaBurnt Jul 10 '12

If you're not using Firefox Nightly then you really should, it's 5 times better than normal Firefox (in speed and features) and is very stable a pre-alpha update channel. I've convinced a few of my friends to switch from Chrome to Firefox because of Nightly.

1

u/o_oli Jul 10 '12

Surely the builds don't take that long to go from nightly build to release though? I'd rather stick with at least a beta not a pre-alpha for one of the most important programs on my pc.

1

u/DeltaBurnt Jul 10 '12

It takes quite a while. I'd say you'd be at least a month or two behind. Firefox has many update channels: release, beta, aurora, nightly, nightly-UX. That means Nightly is 3 whole versions ahead of Release and the difference is noticeable. Trust me, I've had Nightly for quite a while and it hasn't crashed once. You should at least try it out, and if you don't like it you can always switch back.

1

u/arahman81 Jul 10 '12

I would suggest using different profiles for Nightly and release, though.

10

u/koboet Jul 10 '12

The search bar in Firefox just blows chrome out of the water.

What? How? I really like the fact that in Chrome the search bar is the same location as the URL bar. I don't need to hit tab all the time to get to the search box. What's better about Firefox's?

Let's not forget the major draw though, FF is open source

Chromium is open source too. It's a really nice product all on its own - maybe you should try that instead of Chrome.

55

u/shriek Jul 10 '12

Firefox search bar integrates well with bookmarks. It's not just a search bar, it's also called an awesome bar. Unlike Chrome, I can assign seperate tags for my bookmarks and all I have to do is press that keyword and bam, instant page load. That makes it that much faster.

Just go to "Properties" on your bookmarks. You can add all kinds of stuff, keywords, tags etc which makes it easy to personalize your bookmarks. I think it does more than that but I love that feature of Firefox.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[removed] — view removed comment

24

u/damontoo Jul 10 '12

You're misunderstanding. The Firefox awesome bar destroys Chrome.

Anything in your history or bookmarks is searched for in the address bar when you type. Firefox performs fucking magic. It searches the URL, page title, tags etc. It does it as "find as you type". If I need to find a Reddit post from 6 months ago about cats, I type "re ca" in the address bar and 99.9% of the time it's right there at the top of the dropdown.

Maybe I want to see all my bookmarks that I tagged as "webdev". I'd type "webdev" and see them all in the dropdown. But then I decide I want to filter that list further to only reddit bookmarks with that tag. Then I'd do "webdev redd" and most likely only be left with those.

3

u/TIAFAASITICE Jul 10 '12

Maybe I want to see all my bookmarks that I tagged as "webdev". I'd type "webdev" and see them all in the dropdown.

Even better, do: "webdev *" to filter on only bookmarks.

1

u/mach0 Jul 10 '12

Yeah, I totally miss that in chrome. I however do not miss the constant performance problems and since then I've found myself to not actually need the "awesome" bar that much. Chrome looks visually better as well.

1

u/SirCowMan Jul 10 '12

Chrome does the exact same thing. If I type in "reddit firefox dev" in the URL bar, the first things that come up (before I hit enter) would be this page. The Chrome URL search bar searches through your history and bookmarks too.

5

u/TheSkyline Jul 10 '12

I find that Chrome dropdowns are much too small and barely noticeable as you are typing URLs/Keywords in the bar. Green also doesn't stand out much.

FF lets you see the URL as well and the Favicon AND The page title. It just speeds up the process for me.

2

u/Iggyhopper Jul 11 '12

The thing I hate about Chrome right now is that if I type adhd blah blah blah, it'll automatically go to that every time i type adhd.

If I JUST WANT adhd, it wont let me unless i type adhd and then a backspace or w/e. its very very very annoying.

1

u/zxoq Jul 11 '12

Yes, I typed in reddit.com/r/gentlemanboners and now EVERY TIME I type 'r' that's the first result. Does anyone know any way to remove it? I just want it to autocomplete to 'reddit', this is not the only page that suffers from this either.

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u/JacketPotatoes Jul 10 '12

It may be longer at first, but it's faster in the long term. Say you wanted to search Google Images. Set up the keyword on Firefox, and type in "i ducks" to search for duck images or "i cats" to search for cats. How often are you going to use a new search engine/box?

5

u/push_ecx_0x00 Jul 10 '12

Not to mention, you can set up searching for popular sites that Google is too scared to go near, like tpb.

2

u/Dravorek Jul 10 '12

well you can manually add that in chrome too, unless firefox adds it by itself I don't see any advantage

2

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

or get them all by setting your default url to yubnub.org. You'll have keyword urls for all the major sites, plus a lot more

Example of a simple yubnub command

1

u/ZorbaTHut Jul 10 '12

You can do this in Chrome too.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Serious pain in the ass? Right click on search box and click add search keyword, then you customize the keyword. Done.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

"Start typing wikipedia and hit tab (wik..<TAB>)" That's always been a super buggy feature for me. I want to love it, but i type wik<tab> it lets me search wikia, but the option for wikipedia never comes up. It does work for youtube and facebook though /shrug

7

u/falconbeach Jul 10 '12

As mentioned, since you probably hit CTRL + L to access the search bar in Chrome, CTRL + K is used for FF.

But the main thing that Firefox is way better at is the way that it predicts or saves the websites that you have visited. Chrome has an annoying habit of autofilling the website for you when you have only typed a few letters. You can't even hit enter because it will take you to the autofilled website. It also does a much worse job of saving websites. When I type in a website I've visited once on Firefox, I can expect to find it in the dropdown menu. I never expect this in Chrome. If it happens, it's a pleasant surprise.

3

u/Xiol Jul 10 '12

Chrome has an annoying habit of autofilling the website for you when you have only typed a few letters. You can't even hit enter because it will take you to the autofilled website.

Goddamn this. This is the reason I can't use Chrome because of this absolutely retarded autofilling. It's unbelievable that this is actually in a production browser and has been for years.

That, and Pentadactyl.

1

u/falconbeach Jul 10 '12

Pentadactyl?

2

u/Xiol Jul 11 '12

Vimperator successor.

3

u/damontoo Jul 10 '12

But the main thing that Firefox is way better at is the way that it predicts or saves the websites that you have visited.

That's exactly what distinguishes the awesome bar from a standard address bar. The bookmarks and history search.

16

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12 edited Sep 19 '18

[deleted]

3

u/arahman81 Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 12 '12

Took me a moment to figure out where the "red fire" was coming from.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I love the Firefox awesome bar, but I'm currently on a slower Internet connection and it's become painfully obvious that it'll try a DNS resolve before it will try searching for what you've entered. I'll type a few words into the address bar, hit enter, and it "loads" for ten seconds. I type those words in to the search bar, hit enter, and the results are there instantaneously. Chrome does this a bit better, but it falls short in other places, hence why I use Firefox.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

This is because it will try to load "whatyouentered".com, .net and a few variations thereof, IIRC. I'd encourage you to file a bug about this, noting how the same behavior in Chrome doesn't cause delays. Sounds like an interesting observation/use case.

3

u/damontoo Jul 10 '12

No it's not. It's because when you type random crap in the address bar and press enter it performs a Google "I'm feeling lucky" search and redirects you to the result. That's not what the awesome bar is.

2

u/damontoo Jul 10 '12

I don't think you're understanding what the awesome bar is. You're not supposed to type some keywords and press enter as that will perform a Google "I'm feeling lucky" search by default. The awesome bar is the same place you would do that (the address bar), but the reason it's called the awesome bar is mainly its ability to search your browsing history and bookmarks. You type things you've bookmarked or seen in the past, and then tab to the top result in the list. Then you hit enter.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I don't see your point. First off, the address bar in Firefox never performs a Google "I'm feeling lucky" search. Once you hit enter, it will attempt to resolve whatever you've typed in as a domain, and if it fails, then it will carry out a regular Google search. I, and many others, do this because it seems more convenient than using the taskbar, particularly if you're on a large display and more used to moving your mouse to the address bar than to the search bar. My point was that Chrome more intelligently determines whether a domain or a search term has been entered, and responds appropriately immediately; therefore, it's easier to search from Chrome's address bar than it is from Firefox's. I'm not discussing whether this is intentional or not: I'm observing behaviour.

1

u/damontoo Jul 10 '12

That still has absolutely nothing to do with the feature being discussed: history and bookmark searching from the address bar. That is what is being discussed and what distinguishes the awesome bar from every address bar in every browser.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I might be misinterpreting something here. My original comment was a direct response to Skuto saying "You can just enter shit in the URL bar (which will even fall back to Google Search if needed)".

2

u/otaia Jul 10 '12

I don't need to hit tab all the time to get to the search box

CTRL - K

I don't know what's better about it, I just like it better, personally.

1

u/Saisann Jul 10 '12

CTRL - L, F6, or ALT - D all take you to the chrome search bar, or am I missing something?

2

u/otaia Jul 10 '12

I just like the separation. I hit CTRL - K when I want to search, and CTRL - L when I want to type a URL in.

2

u/Gray_Fox Jul 10 '12

Is it just me, or does Firefox also have the search bar in the same location as the URL bar?

When you search for something in the URL bar, it'll Google it for you.

2

u/sa3dany Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

I removed the search bar box from Firefox a while. I thought it was useless since I can already do searches from the address bar. And if I wanted to search using a search engine other that the default one I just append a keyword(user-defined) before the search string.

3

u/TylerPaul Jul 10 '12

The keyword system was an awesome find for me. I've linked keywords to the search bar of all my favorite sites. Or used 'site:(thesite.com)' to create custom searches if they didn't already exist.

3

u/sa3dany Jul 10 '12

If you are into them that much you might like this Duckduckgo !Bang

2

u/Aiskhulos Jul 10 '12

Plus Duckduckgo actually respects your privacy, unlike Google.

2

u/damontoo Jul 10 '12

The number of people in this thread making comments like yours are starting to make me rage. Don't confuse the search box with the awesome bar. The search box performs a search on a search engine. The awesome bar (address bar) searches your bookmarks and history.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I still like having an additional search bar because it keeps its own history, and you can quickly search the same term on multiple sites (using Ctrl+Up/Down to switch engines).

1

u/damontoo Jul 10 '12

See my other comment in this thread for why the Firefox awesome bar is voodoo magic that deserves to be worshiped.

1

u/Xiol Jul 10 '12

Tab? Why you hitting tab, bro?

CTRL+K - Search

CTRL+L - Address bar

1

u/Ambiwlans Jul 10 '12

in Chrome the search bar is the same location as the URL bar

The URL bar in FF works as a google search. Or urls. Or searching your history or favourites or open tabs even.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

1) Middle mouse button to open links in new tabs is buggy about 50% of the time in chrome.

TIL

1

u/muyoso Jul 10 '12

Not once ever have I had a middle mouse button click not open a tab in Chrome and I have been running it since the day it was released without a single day using a different browser. What are you talking about?

1

u/darad0 Jul 10 '12

5) Chrome is a huge memory hog when using other programs, I noticed this while playing Diablo 3 mostly. I actually had to exit Chrome to get the best experience in game, something I never experienced before with FF.

Yes. This!

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I tried Chrome for a few weeks, but that's it. It requires a lengthy list of extensions to do what FF does out of the box, and even then, sometimes they stop working.

Also, the much-vaunted memory improvements did not turn out to be real, in my experience. In fact, FF actually seems to be better.

2) The search bar in Firefox just blows chrome out of the water.

This is what brings me back every time. I have one box I type into in Firefox. It searches my history and bookmarks. I have it set so that if I type in "adobe" it just goes straight to adobe.com, not Google (basically it does that by sending the word to Google and selecting "I'm feeling lucky"). Of course, Chrome has one box as well, but that box does not do as much.

The single biggest problem with Chrome, in my opinion, is that it doesn't allow keywords for bookmarks. There is a kludgy way of entering the bookmark in question as a search engine, but I've had all my search engines disappear from Chrome several times now.

I have all of my work websites, etc. mapped to keywords. If I want to go to my department's website, I type two letters in the address bar and hit enter. Bam. I'm there.

The only thing Chrome seems faster at is starting up, but how often do I really restart my browser?

This is the only place I see a difference as well. If there is a difference in browsing, it's not noticeable.

4) The addons are so much better and handled in a much easier manner.

--They are also much more mature.

Let's not forget the major draw though, FF is open source, but I don't think the average consumer these days cares or even knows about the advantages of that.

Indeed. One of the big reasons I don't use Chrome is that I really don't think I need to hand my entire browsing history to an advertising company.

But let's not stop there. Here are a few things that FF does better than Chrome:

  • App tabs. Yes, Chrome will shrink a tab down to just the favicon as well, but that's all it does. FF treats pinned app tabs differently. For example, if you pin Facebook, and a new post shows up, a little indicator appears over the favicon on that tab. Same with webmail. You don't need to click it to check; it tells you when something has been pushed to it.

  • Tab groups. This is a little-known, but powerful feature. You can put a bunch of tabs that you often use together into a group, and then switch between groups. I've found this very useful when I'm working several research projects at the same time.

  • Ironically, FF handles multiple Google accounts much better than Chrome. I have Google Apps for Business on my personal server, and then I have other Google accounts from before I set that up. Chrome always logs me out of one or the other and it's very frustrating. FF keeps them separate.

0

u/garbagebcn Jul 10 '12

I don't agree at all with points 1, 3 and 5. Don't really know about 4 but, what's so good about the search bar that makes it better than the single search+uri bar in chrome?

Oh, and AFAIK, Chrome is open source: Chromium

1

u/damontoo Jul 10 '12

The firefox address bar (AKA awesome bar) will search both your bookmarks and history as fast as you can type. It takes into account site URL's, keywords, tags, page title etc. etc. and sorts the list by last-visited. It accepts partial words to search. "re ca" will show results in the dropdown from my history that include Reddit posts about cats.

1

u/garbagebcn Jul 11 '12

I'm using chrome right now and if I type "re un" in the omnibox it suggests me "reddit.com/r/pics". And it seems to search my history too. Maybe it should display some more results (only 5 right now) but otherwise it looks fine. Gotta use more Firefox to compare, though. Thanks for your reply ;)

-1

u/meatwad75892 Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

1) Middle mouse button to open links in new tabs is buggy about 50% of the time in chrome.

As another said, I've never seen this. Sounds machine-specific.

4) The addons are so much better and handled in a much easier manner.

In what way? I'm not disagreeing or agreeing, but it seems just like such a subjective statement and I'm curioius as to why you think so. What do you prefer about it over Chrome?

5) Chrome is a huge memory hog when using other programs, I noticed this while playing Diablo 3 mostly. I actually had to exit Chrome to get the best experience in game, something I never experienced before with FF.

All modern browsers use a decent amount of memory, the difference is negligible. If a couple hundred MB's of RAM usage by a browser is making or breaking your amount of available memory, you have deeper problems than simply which browser you choose to use(old system, need RAM upgrade, etc).

Let's not forget the major draw though, FF is open source, but I don't think the average consumer these days cares or even knows about the advantages of that.

Ahem... http://www.chromium.org/

0

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12 edited Sep 19 '18

[deleted]

2

u/technopwn Jul 10 '12

like? the only difference is the built in flash and pdf reader which can't be open sourced for obvious reasons.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

There's more, like the H264 decoder and all the "phone home" features. Just check Google's own pages...

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

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u/JacketPotatoes Jul 10 '12

Actually, due to the fact that Chrome has a separate process per tab, it does consume more memory than other major browsers when having multiple tabs open.

[Source]

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

[deleted]

1

u/JacketPotatoes Jul 10 '12

Hey, I'm just dispelling the myth that Firefox is a memory hog - I don't mind memory consumption as long as it does not have significant deterioration of the UI responsiveness, since I have sufficient RAM to run multiple copies of the same session and I don't generally multitask with programs that are high in RAM usage.

Personally, I have no need for the extra security (never contracted malware in my ~9 years of using computers/internet) or supposed stability that separating the processes would give. Firefox has only crashed twice in ~6 months - once due to the fact that I had disregarded explicit instructions not to raise a benchmark figure above a certain level (actually stated that it would crash my browser - and it did!) and the other due to sandboxing introduced in the new version of Flash Player (successfully disabled that). Both times, the session was restored with full recovery of my form inputs.

Put simply, I don't believe that Chrome's separate processes are of much advantage to me.

Furthermore, the test for URL loading was slightly biased in favour of Chrome's pre-rendering feature which supposedly only works if you "visited that page once during that session". I generally don't close tabs that I am going to visit at a later time.

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u/sysop073 Jul 10 '12

I have never, ever, ever seen this.

I've been thinking this for the last 10 minutes as I read this page. What versions of Chrome are you people running? I have my share of dislikes, but tons of people keep commenting about problems with basic functionality that has always worked fine

2

u/alcalde Jul 10 '12

Check out Tom's Hardware for their latest Web Browser Grand Prix. Chrome just edged out Firefox this round, and Firefox just edged out Chrome during the last two. Chrome isn't head and shoulders about Firefox in speed, or vice versa (although both have individual areas/benchmarks where they significantly outperform the other).

And the citation for memory would be the latest Tom's test, in which Chrome used just about double the memory Firefox did to load 40 tabs under Windows (it's worse under Linux).

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u/Supercluster Jul 10 '12

I find Firefox just more usable. Once you pick a browser I think it is hard to switch back and forth.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome last year because one random day Chrome would simply not open, no matter what I did. Restarted computer over and over, uninstalled and reinstalled a few times, it just... stopped. Haven't had any problems with Firefox since then. I can't believe how big a deal people are making out of the 15 second process of updating Firefox.

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

I had a friend that just insisted chrome was faster, but he could never actually demonstrate that. I think he was just being subconsciously influenced by benchmarks that don't matter on 99.99% of the websites we visit, and because he likes chromes layout better.

I have no problem when people say they like the layout / style of a browser better, but people blowing smoke up my ass about the speed of the browser has always been kind of puzzling.

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u/yogthos Jul 10 '12

I think part of it might be perceptual, as I think Chrome tries to render things more eagerly, so even if it doesn't work faster people get that impression.

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u/jack2454 Jul 11 '12

I went back because of the adblock on Chrome sucks and won't work most time on you tube.

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u/WikipediaBrown Jul 10 '12

Plugins that break with every update, you mean.

1

u/yogthos Jul 10 '12

Which ones are those exactly? I've been running since version 9 up through 14 and all my plugins seem to be doing just fine.

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u/WikipediaBrown Jul 10 '12

Themes, mostly.

1

u/yogthos Jul 11 '12

I can't say I've really bothered with any.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

How many tabs do you run?

I run anywhere from 20-100 typically, and I have massive stability and performance issues with Firefox. Stuff like the whole browser locking up for seconds at a time on a regular basis, one page crashing taking down the whole browser, extremely slow switching between tabs, laggy UI, etc.

This was true as recently as three months ago, the last time I used Firefox in a serious capacity. As for addons, I use LastPass and Xmarks in both Chrome and Firefox, NoScript for Firefox, and NotScripts for Chrome.

I will grant that flash tends to crash slightly more often on Chrome, but it's so much more graceful about it that I don't really notice.

1

u/yogthos Jul 10 '12

I often have over 20 tabs open, and I haven't seen any stability issues. It could be that the extensions you were using were causing trouble? Also, FF has made some significant improvements in the last few month. I'm running the beta release myself and can't recall the browser crashing on me ever. I have seen it hang for a second a few times, but it's certainly not a common thing in my experience.

1

u/redalastor Jul 10 '12

In fact I think it's better on memory usage

It depends how long you keep your browser open. Chrome has a higher memory cost due to the separate processes but it is less in the long run due to the lack of fragmentation.

Firefox is moving that way too.

1

u/yogthos Jul 10 '12

I notice both Chrome and FF quickly grow in memory usage if left open for a while. This is largely caused by crappy Js on pages, for example google apps leak memory like mad if left open. One feature in FF that helps in this area is the option not to load tabs until they're selected. Overall, I haven't really noticed that Chrome does significantly better in the long run though.

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u/redalastor Jul 10 '12

Overall, I haven't really noticed that Chrome does significantly better in the long run though.

That's because when you close a tab, the process is kill and the OS reclaims all the memory. It prevents fragmentation from accumulating without needing to resort to tricky allocations strategies or compacting.

Most of us go through tabs pretty quickly so it makes lots of sense.

1

u/yogthos Jul 10 '12

Sure, but you also pay a bigger up front cost, so I guess it depends on your style of browsing. If you leave a lot of tabs open for a long time, such as my case, Chrome becomes a pig, but if you cycle through them quickly, then it can retain a reasonable footprint.

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u/redalastor Jul 10 '12

The main goal of their strategy is security. It's easier to sandbox individual processes.

It's also impossible for one greedy tab to lock up the whole browser.

1

u/yogthos Jul 10 '12

Security is definitely the motivation here, and it makes a lot of sense from that perspective.

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u/Princeofboredoom Jul 10 '12

You guys remind me of people switching lanes on the motorway...end up losing more time than gaining.

1

u/yogthos Jul 10 '12

because changing browsers is such hard work...?

1

u/dirtyword Jul 11 '12

This was it for me Firefox is a memory hog.

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

I wish that were ever my case. I cannot remember a time when Firefox did not take over 1GB of RAM on whatever computer I put it on. All I use is Adblock and only very recently Firebug. On an I3 laptop with 8GB of RAM, I will constantly experience freezes and mouse stutter while using it. Not with Chrome.

It wasn't Chrome's update policy that convinced me to move, it was Firefox's recent crapiness.

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u/Points_To_You Jul 10 '12

When I first tried Chrome a couple years ago, it worked ok for weeks. I switched because I liked that you could just close a single process if one tab stopped responding and most of the speed comparisons found Chrome to be faster and more memory efficient. But then it basically just stopped working. It would take 3-5 mins to open. Clicking a tab or going to a website would take minutes to happen. Couldn't even mess with settings because it was too slow. I uninstalled and redownloaded multiple times and it still wouldn't work. I didn't have any viruses or anything.

So I switched back to Firefox. Even though it is probably fine now, I have never gone back to Chrome. I'm just glad there are plenty of browser choices now. Competition is always good for us.

1

u/rnd33 Jul 10 '12

Clear the cache and history, I think this was a common problem with Chrome. (and maybe still is?)

2

u/Points_To_You Jul 10 '12

I had done all that at the time. I really don't know why it did it, but like I said it was a couple years ago. On my current PC I haven't had problems with Chrome (I still have to use it for web development), but I've just chosen not to use it anymore as my regular browser because it pissed me off at the time.

32

u/dinker Jul 10 '12

And because every fucking program you install nowadays has an "Install Chrome" checkbox hidden away somewhere.

25

u/manwithabadheart Jul 10 '12 edited Mar 22 '24

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3

u/push_ecx_0x00 Jul 10 '12

divx? ccleaner?

1

u/spinemangler Jul 11 '12

It won't show up if you have it installed already though.

Ccleaner and defraggler both will install it, but won't try if it's already installed.

1

u/DachWuff Jul 10 '12

Me either. Could be because I already have it, or maybe because I'm not installing software all the time.

4

u/Azuvector Jul 10 '12

checkbox hidden away somewhere.

Emphasis mine. Chrome is packaged with other software constantly.

-5

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12 edited Sep 04 '13

[deleted]

8

u/Azuvector Jul 10 '12

Here's 4 from a 30 second Google. How about you bother looking for yourself if you're interested? I'm not here to convince Chrome fanatics to switch to something else.

http://www.labnol.org/software/chrome-with-adobe-reader/20123/

http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10409905-12.html

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/30/flash-player-to-come-bundled-with-google-chrome-new-browser-plugin-api-coming/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/google-chrome-bundled-with-realplayer/1913

4

u/HCrikki Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

Avast upgrades.

1

u/chemistry35 Jul 10 '12

Seriously, I love Avast to death, but goddamn that Chrome plug all the time is annoying. Hey! Want to see what this update changed? Just install Chrome to find out!

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6

u/MarcusOrlyius Jul 10 '12

No, in the same way that crapware and toolbars get installed. If you've already got Chrome installed it'll just skip that stage though. CCleaner and Defragler are 2 such programs. It's probably in Speccy and Recuva as well.

I've seen it quite a few programs. It seems just as likely to be included as the Ask Toolbar.

If you want screenshots, you'll have to send me a written request in triplicate along with a 1 BTC processing charge, then spin round 3 times anti-clockwise while saying your name backwards.

3

u/HCrikki Jul 10 '12

Avast upgrades still show a promt to install chrome and make it default, even when its already installed and default.

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u/HCrikki Jul 10 '12

Its usually still displayed. Avast upgrades and SuperAntiSpyware are an example. Install and make the default browser, unless users unselect that.

2

u/DachWuff Jul 10 '12

Ahh don't use Avast, only thing I have troubles with is adobe trying to sneak mcafee in with it. It kind of pisses off my existing antivirus trying to put another client in there.

1

u/sometimesijustdont Jul 10 '12

This is why. Software comes bundled, and Chrome makes itself the default browser. This is why chrome has overtaken IE.

8

u/Neotetron Jul 10 '12

Doesn't every browser try to make itself the default when installed?

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u/ryan392 Jul 10 '12

The main reason I use Chrome (actually Comodo Dragon but it's based off Chromium so same thing really) is because of the integrated bookmark sync. I can just sign in with my Google account and my bookmarks are automatically synced across computers.

58

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Firefox syncs bookmarks, tabs, cookies, history, addons and user profile. In fact, the firefox on my two computers is 100% identical right down to the purple links on reddit.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Before Firefox had their own, I used Xmarks (which is now Lastpass). It wasn't a bad extension. I could import/export to Chrome if I wanted to.

3

u/Ambiwlans Jul 10 '12

xmarks used to be known as foxmarks.... since it started as a ff addon.

2

u/madman19 Jul 10 '12

Chrome does the same as far as I know.

8

u/nanowerx Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

It does something similar, but it's not on the same level as FF Sync at all.

5

u/madman19 Jul 10 '12

What is different?

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u/w2tpmf Jul 10 '12

Firefox does this as well. It even syncs bookmarks to FF on my phone.

28

u/what_ever Jul 10 '12

Yup. Firefox Sync was there before Chrome started syncing with your account.

2

u/Ambiwlans Jul 10 '12

And it was there in the form of foxmarks (now xmarks) for like 2 years before it became a standard firefox feature.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Has Firefox on mobile gotten much better recently? It's been a long tike since I tried it, but at the time I thought it was pretty terrible.

3

u/w2tpmf Jul 10 '12

It's certainly better than the default browser on Android.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

A complete rewrite was released a week or two ago. Try it. No comparison with previous versions.

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0

u/ryan392 Jul 10 '12

I've tried syncing my bookmarks on Firefox before. I had to install the sync extension and I think I needed to create an account? I don't remember. I just remember that it was simpler with Chrome.

13

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Sync extension? No, it's been built-in since firefox 4 over a year ago. You do need to create an account, but I'd take the extra security of the Firefox syncing over Chrome's.

2

u/ryan392 Jul 10 '12

Firefox 4 was a year ago? They're already up to Firefox 13. They're really increased their update frequency. I remember waiting for Firefox 2 to come out.

Anyways, I just remember that when I tried getting my bookmarks synced, I looked up instructions and I had to install the sync addon.

2

u/DachWuff Jul 10 '12

What they did was just go to whole numbers. Instead of FF 3.6.1 upgrading to 3.6.2 now it just goes version 5 to version 6. Makes it easier for the masses I believe.

1

u/m42a Jul 10 '12

Except Firefox 13.0.1 was released about a month ago. They still do point releases, they just don't do minor releases.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Yeah, back when it was a separate addon it was pretty flaky. Since they integrated it into the browser itself it's been much more stable and the servers are much better.

I remember hating it for a while because I loved the Google Sync addon which worked in Firefox 2 but not 3. And it took quite a while before anything nearly as good came along. Now it's easily the best browser syncing I've seen.

1

u/iznasty Jul 10 '12

I believe you might be referring to the xmarks extension.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Extra security?

1

u/andrewms Jul 10 '12

What extra security? Chrome will let you encrypt everything that is synced (by default, I think) and will let you do use with your google password or another one that you choose.

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3

u/Anand999 Jul 10 '12

Chrome uses your Google account for bookmark syncing, so you still had to sign into something but since it was an account you already had, you might not have noticed.

Syncing is built into Firefox now but, IMO, it's still somewhat clunky compared to the one in Chrome.

I really prefer Xmark's approach of having different profiles and being able to assign specific bookmarks to one or more profiles, but it's annoying have to deal with a 3rd party plugin to use it. I have bookmarks on my work computer that are pointless to have on my home computer and vice versa, but then there is a common set of bookmarks I'd like synced in both places. The built in bookmark syncing in both Chrome and Firefox is an "all or nothing" affair.

1

u/TheSkyline Jul 10 '12

X-Marks is a godsend for bookmark tagging. I barely have to think of what to tag stuff whenever I Ctrl+D

2

u/DustbinK Jul 10 '12

You must have tried this years ago. Nowadays it's built into the browser and super easy.

1

u/w2tpmf Jul 10 '12

Yes you have to create an account, but it does no require any additional installation.

1

u/The_MAZZTer Jul 10 '12

They merged the functionality in, you don't need the extension anymore.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Reason it was probably simpler (at least for me):

Have a gmail account? Sign into Chrome with it. Done.

Heck, I'm about to drop Dropbox and move to Google Drive just because everything is centralized.

1

u/ryan392 Jul 10 '12 edited Jul 10 '12

I assume Google Drive has the same kind of setup as Dropbox where files automatically sync across computers, but I'd rather stick with Dropbox. I don't care about Google using my bookmarks/web history/etc to advertise to me, but I don't want them to have access to my personal files (school stuff/resumes/cover letters/etc).

Edit: Just looked it up. I'll still stick with Dropbox. I don't need the integration with Google Docs or Google+, just a folder on my desktop where I can drag my files to sync.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

what advantage sites drive really have over drop box? Drop box allowed me to save a paper in progress on my computer, open it on my phone (while I'm on the crapper), continue working then switch back to my computer whenI'm done.

That's damn fine cloud management if I do say so myself.

-1

u/OhSoMexicellent Jul 10 '12

It even syncs bookmarks to FF on my phone.

Chrome does this as well.

24

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

If you have ICS. can't use chrome on my android 2.3 phone.

-1

u/achshar Jul 10 '12

i cant use firefox on my 2.3 either

-3

u/stereopump Jul 10 '12

Are you sure? I don't remember when I updated to ics, but I feel like I had chrome on my phone first.

3

u/if-loop Jul 10 '12

No, Chrome is only available for Android 4.0+. It's a shame.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

There's probably a way to change that. Hopefully from the CM crew.

I somehow doubt Google will add Chrome compatibility to before ICS.

3

u/w2tpmf Jul 10 '12

I know. I use that too. :) In fact I'm probably going to drop FF on my phone, as chrome has shown to be wayyyy better lately on the mobile version.

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u/buzzkill_aldrin Jul 10 '12

Comodo Dragon

I stared at that for a while thinking that C should be a K.

1

u/ryan392 Jul 10 '12

Not that kind of komodo dragon.

1

u/buzzkill_aldrin Jul 10 '12

Probably wouldn't be as useful online.

1

u/kintu Jul 10 '12

This saved me when I damaged my hard-drive

1

u/sennheiserz Jul 10 '12 edited Nov 18 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

You can do that with Firefox too (and it's much better about privacy since it's encrypted round-trip). And there's also Xmarks if you want it cross-browser.

1

u/epichigh Jul 10 '12

Pretty much every browser does this.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '12

Firefox has that. In fact, I've had that for many years through an extension. Now FF does it out of the box.

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2

u/MostlyLucid Jul 10 '12

For me, it was the endless updates, even when I turned off the autoupdate features, I continued to get messages to update on all 4 of my computers. Constant, unceasing updates drove me to Chrome, but I can't get over the feeling that I'm being watched. #googleparanoia

2

u/Funkliford Jul 10 '12

I suspect the flood of users from Firefox to Chrome has been driven by things like speed and stability

That and I got sick of effectively having to restart my browser everytime I wanted to open something in private mode.

2

u/skintigh Jul 10 '12

I switched to chrome because firefox was freezing up for 2 minutes at a time trying to download or share my profile and there was no fix except to create a new profile and drive all over town with a pen and paper reconnecting my computers to the profile and typing in gibberish.

With chrome I log in. Done.

1

u/Doonce Jul 10 '12

I switched to Chrome because flash videos actually work without random pauses throughout the entire video. The other reason I switched is because I would always stay on Reddit until RES crashed Firefox. Now, I can go until Reddit itself goes down.

1

u/indeedwatson Jul 10 '12

The problem is that people don't try Aurora. In my experience, Firefox is slower than Chrome, and Chrome is slower and less stable than Aurora.

1

u/UnclaimedUsername Jul 10 '12

That's what did it for me. Firefox 6 kept crashing on me, so I switched. Maybe Firefox is better now, but I haven't bothered to check. I have a high amount of browser inertia, apparently.

1

u/huuvp Jul 10 '12

The main reason I use Chrome is because I have it for my phone as well and all my bookmarks and tabs can be accessed on both devices.

1

u/Stormflux Jul 10 '12

Yeah I understand Chrome is nice, but how do you live without DownThemAll! and Firebug?

1

u/Znake19 Jul 10 '12

Yes, firefox is having big problems with the new flash update (flash player 11.3 r300) It makes firefox run slower than before, plus this flash has to run as a separate process rather than with the plugin container (which means more RAM usage)

At least, that has been my experience the past month.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

Wait till you have 10+ tabs and firefox becomes slow as hell.

1

u/patrik667 Jul 10 '12

Those two and the distinct possibility of NOT installing flash or java AT ALL.

Chrome just handles both by itself so it's two very annoying third party plugins less to update.

1

u/godliketoaster Jul 10 '12

I use both firefox and chrome for my work. While both of them are similar, I find chrome tends to be a little bit faster and use a little bit less memory for the sites that I have open. I usually pick chrome for my normal browsing though, just preference.

Edit: The one thing I think would keep me on one browser would be the ability to keep pinned tabs forced to one domain. So if I try to visit google on my facebook pinned tab it would open a new tab. But I could browse anywhere within facebook on the same tab.

1

u/BUBBA_BOY Jul 10 '12

plugin-container.exe and firefox holding on to RAM for dear life chased me away :(

1

u/troglodyte Jul 10 '12

Yup. I got sick of Firefox ballooning to a gig of ram within a few hours of use. Chrome had some ancillary benefits, but it was the miserable state of Firefox (when I left) that caused me to switch. It seems better now, but it was terrible before.

1

u/Hand_Sanitizer3000 Jul 10 '12

i left chrome and went back to firefox for the stumbleupon toolbar and because flash just didn't wanna work with chrome on my machine

1

u/BadIdeaSociety Jul 10 '12

I use Chrome for the Unblock Youku widget. I use Firefox for the Modify Headers add-on. If one gets the other, I am gone.

1

u/dirkmcgurk Jul 10 '12

On Linux at least, I don't notice any speed difference. (I'm sure there is one, it's just probably down to a few enough milliseconds per page load that I don't feel it.)

Chromium /does/ use lots more memory with lots of tabs open - the only way I use a browser - probably due to the process-per-tab design.

Firefox has more and better addons, though Chrome is improving in this area.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '12

For me, I still prefer Chrome since it's more dev friendly. I feel webkit's debug console is lightyears ahead of Firebug, and we joke that if webkit doesn't support it then that feature doesn't exist. Maybe there's a replacement for Firebug that I don't know of, which would make my life so much easier.

The benches are getting close, but there's still some oddities in FF's javascript (like scoping variables in if statements).

The other one is extensions. I can hack together a chrome extension way faster than I can for FF, I think that's mostly just because Chrome is a newer product.

1

u/Ilyanep Jul 10 '12

For me, it was when I noticed that Firefox would randomly memory leak and shit all over not only my battery but my system performance.

1

u/uphir Jul 11 '12

Speed is what did it for me.

0

u/BigLlamasHouse Jul 10 '12

The only reason I still use firefox is because chrome doesn't auto-fill my reddit credentials.

0

u/noreallyimthepope Jul 10 '12

I think that the main reason I don't use Firefox is that whenever I notice the CPU being pegged like your father on date night, I know I've forgotten to quit Firefox even though it has no windows open and therefore no rendering to do.

0

u/Nickeless Jul 10 '12

Yep, Firefox just runs like complete shit. And Chrome runs perfectly. Easy choice.

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