# Google Chrome V.S. Mozilla Firefox 3



## sportsdude81 (Sep 15, 2008)

Which browser will become the most prominent? Does chrome have what it takes? Does chrome have enough of the addons to compete with Firefox? Should we all say screw it and go back to Opera?


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## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Firefox has the CustomizeGoogle add-on which allows you to remain more anonymous in terms of what is reported back to Google on your surfing habits (check both boxes in the Privacy section).

Google wants to own the data that describes everyone's on-line behavior and sell it to advertizers - they have to make their profit somehow. So, they collect and mine data on users habits - they say they anonymize the data, but keep it for 9 months now (used to be 18 months) before they do so - the European meisters of the Internet would like it to be 6 months.

-- Tom


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Google Chrome is too new to make a decision over, imo.......and Firefox3 has scrolling issues with some hardware configurations ( mine especially).
Until FF3 is fixed, I'll probably stay with FF2 for the moment.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Stoner said:


> Google Chrome is too new to make a decision over, imo.......


I agree. We should have this discussion once Chrome matures some.

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

sportsdude81 said:


> Which browser will become the most prominent? Does chrome have what it takes? Does chrome have enough of the addons to compete with Firefox? Should we all say screw it and go back to Opera?


Chrome has virtually no add-ons, and is not nearly as mature as either FF or IE. I needs to stay in the oven for a bit yet.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I've also moved this to reviews, which is a more appropriate place for it. I doubt CD is the right fit.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

JohnWill said:


> I've also moved this to reviews, which is a more appropriate place for it. I doubt CD is the right fit.


Wow, ok... I thought I was seeing double for a second. 

Peace...


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

JohnWill said:


> I've also moved this to reviews, which is a more appropriate place for it. I doubt CD is the right fit.


Oh, sure, you just wait and see  Those folks will fight about the color of the sky


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Probably, but I know where the *close *button is.


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## thewonder (Oct 23, 2007)

Everywhere I go I see other browsers compared to FF. I don't see how in all fairness this can be done, unless you are comparing browsers unaltered, un-configured and straight out of install. Under those circumstances you could probably make a comparison but what sets FF aside from, and in my opinion above, the others are the add-ons. There is nothing new about the "old add-on" argument but people seldom expand the thought.

With other browsers you have new features installed in updates and at the best of moments you can choose if you wish to use them or not. At the worst, you are forced to use them. With FF everyone who has installed add-ons, extensions or plugins is now using a *unique browser*. My themed browser with Adblock, Cooliris, Fast Dial, Google black, image zoom and Stylish Add-ons blows chrome out of the water for what I use it for.

The thing that I was most excited about when I first downloaded Google Chrome was the new Bookmarking features.I should explain I was using IGoogle which had promise but was buggy, slow and in general a pain in the arse. Google Chrome seemed to answer all my dreams, until I used it for a week and kept coming up against the same short comings.

As always' I came back to FF and after a brief struggle with the SpeedDial add-on I was able to find FastDial. ( THAT SOUND YOU JUST HEARD WAS HORNS, HERALDING THE GREATNESS, THAT IS FASTDIAL...) Ok, Ok. With FD I click my FF icon, the browser opens to a FD page of icons for my bookmarked sites, instead of my
"most visited" sites which seems to miss the mark. The way I think about it, my most visited sites are my bookmarked sites, but Google Chrome wouldn't let me use them as such. With FD I have a link on my opening FD page to my second FD page and another on that page to my third as well as links back so that I can stay in the browser window to move around in my bookmarks. If I was to then to hit the home button I am directed to Google, so in effect I have two homepages, the first is several pages of my bookmarks which is really no different than a page of featured items you would find on an MSN or YAHOO homepage, but my links are my own and each is full of far more featured stories, reviews, news, information etc...etc...and the second is my main search Engine.

Someone else may find features of another browser more useful but they would be hard pressed to not find an add-on that would allow them the same abilities in FF and I think most people would prefer FF if they gave it a chance, at least that has been my experience with ham handed speed button pushers, who refuse to read a message when it's put in front of them, because they know better.


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## Danielvt (Jul 17, 2008)

First time i tryed out Google Chrome i was very disapointet and i thought that this was the worse thing Google could ever have done. so i Continued with Mozilla Firefox for some time. After some month i was sitting, nerding some Com stuff with my teacher at scholl and he was very facinatet about Chrome..so i went back to give it another chance back home. so i installed it again and i was very positively surprised about it when i gave it a chance. Before i always thought that there where only one thing working...FF because it was the fastest at that time and it could open a whole lot more sites that IE but now..omg Chrome that **** works freaking fast. and it can open things that IE can't!

My recommendation goes to Chrome... 

- Daniel


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## sup2a (Oct 9, 2007)

I use both and i can certainly say both of them are good, Chrome seems quite simple and its very quick to start up, much better change to the hours it takes for FF to open with all the addons. the acid 3 test shows chrome slightly ahead 79 as opposed to FF 71, however fails the "linktest" but its ultra fast to load, really great to get online really quick just to check something. loads in seconds. Thats one thing that's annoyed me about FF for a while, loading times are terrible, i can open MSN log in and start a conversation before the browser even loads the home page


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I have about a dozen add-on's in FF, and I just tested it from a fresh boot to opening it, it took less than three seconds to display the home page. I have no idea why FF would open so slowly on your system, but maybe you need to be blaming something besides FF.


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## sup2a (Oct 9, 2007)

There are quite a few people complaining about FF taking a long time to load. My computer certainly isn't the fastest but chrome is super quick to load, very basic. Even though its slower i still use firefox.


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## thewonder (Oct 23, 2007)

I agree with JohnWill. I would never say FireFox is faster than Chrome, it's not, but what does speed matter if it only brings you to a road block faster, if it only frustrates you sooner ... Admittedly I have used a list of tweaks found here at TSG that improved FireFox's speed by quite a bit and I try to keep all my programs as updated as possible.There are also a few AddOn's who's sole purpose is to speed up FireFox IE FasterFox, I don't use any of them but...I would have to say if you are having the problem you described, there is something else going on. Is your security suite updating? do you have several thousand registry errors? when was the last time you defrag'ed your hard drive? Are you rocking a Flash Screen AddOn at FireFox's start up? I am not trying to say anything about you or system, you probably know more about computers than I do but I am using a Dell Dimensions XPS T600R with a Pentium III processor and 640 MB of RAM / a 20 GB Hard Drive and only 6.27 GB of free space and Windows XP Pro.I cant receive updates from Windows any longer as my computer was a hand me down and the Windows certificate has expired etc ... etc ... and the difference in start up between FireFox and Chrome is maybe one second max, for a total of 3 to 3.5 seconds total as opposed to Chrome's 2.5 start up.
Once I am on I really don't notice any difference in speed. I would check around under the hood if I were you because the problem you have described is not FireFox, just a friendly suggestion. Now if Google had made Chrome able to work with it's competitors AddOns and not decided they were done with their Bookmarking Feature after pulling an all night'er and drinking heavily while eating pizza the situation might have been different.


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## brandmantra (Dec 1, 2008)

I am quite familiar with firefox as it serves us since a long time. i have also used google chromes but felt that nothing special it it. the most important thing is that it can't provides add-ons facility.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

The lack of add-in capability is one major reason that I won't be switching to Chrome, even if it is "faster, better, etc.".


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## sup2a (Oct 9, 2007)

thewonder said:


> I agree with JohnWill. I would never say FireFox is faster than Chrome, it's not, but what does speed matter if it only brings you to a road block faster, if it only frustrates you sooner ... Admittedly I have used a list of tweaks found here at TSG that improved FireFox's speed by quite a bit and I try to keep all my programs as updated as possible.There are also a few AddOn's who's sole purpose is to speed up FireFox IE FasterFox, I don't use any of them but...I would have to say if you are having the problem you described, there is something else going on. Is your security suite updating? do you have several thousand registry errors? when was the last time you defrag'ed your hard drive? Are you rocking a Flash Screen AddOn at FireFox's start up? I am not trying to say anything about you or system, you probably know more about computers than I do but I am using a Dell Dimensions XPS T600R with a Pentium III processor and 640 MB of RAM / a 20 GB Hard Drive and only 6.27 GB of free space and Windows XP Pro.I cant receive updates from Windows any longer as my computer was a hand me down and the Windows certificate has expired etc ... etc ... and the difference in start up between FireFox and Chrome is maybe one second max, for a total of 3 to 3.5 seconds total as opposed to Chrome's 2.5 start up.
> Once I am on I really don't notice any difference in speed. I would check around under the hood if I were you because the problem you have described is not FireFox, just a friendly suggestion. Now if Google had made Chrome able to work with it's competitors AddOns and not decided they were done with their Bookmarking Feature after pulling an all night'er and drinking heavily while eating pizza the situation might have been different.


Don't mind my last post.. it was late and i was slightly out of it. my computer certainly isnt the best, it hasnt had a clean wipe in 2 years, i really cant be bothered maintaining THIS computer and itll be a whole day operation to back everything up then wipe it, or even clean it up. they are about the same at startup ive realized browsers tend to be slow to load in my case, there are certainly a few fingerprints in the registry and there are all sorts of faults with programs starting up on boot, so im not expecting anything to be fast there. Im certainly not saying Chrome is better than FF im just saying from what i have observed (once everything is loaded and running alright ) it will start up substantially faster than FF (by a few seconds but these seconds are valuable  ), it could be the amount of addons i have... cause i do have a few.. I don't particularly like Chrome, it seems a little too basic, however it is nice to use a simple browser every now and then. Certainly not saying its better then FF, FF has and probably will be for a long time my preferred browser, looks good, very fast to browse and the addons are great. Oh thats the other thing Faster fox is supposed to speed up FF loading times, however its just another thing to startup...on well... statup, a few other people that have used it said it doesnt do too much for it.


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## Davec (Jan 27, 2001)

If you want basic run FF in "Safe Mode". (The one in your start menu, not Windows Safe Mode.)


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## Beta19 (Sep 8, 2008)

We have a three - way tie. My dad uses Internet Explorer, my mom uses Firefox, and I use Chrome. I like it, IE is slow and a gateway to spyware, Firefox to me, seems to much of a resource hog, but I don't use a lot of add-ons. Really it should be what is more comfortable to you. Some like a variety of add-ons(FF), some like simplicity(Chrome), and some like a lot of spyware(IE). *; )*


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I don't get where you get the "resource hog" for FF. Can you explain exactly what resources you think it hogs?


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

I've experienced almost "extreme" RAM usage with Firefox on Linux (since I spend the most time using Firefox on Linux). I'm running Firefox 3.0.5 on Linux right now and it's taking 184m of RAM and 757m of total memory ("total" = swap space + real storage). I've got 6 tabs open, 18 extensions open, and the Adobe 64-bit Flash plugin installed. Firefox 2 would take would or could have used more than that with the same content loaded.

In fact, a number of the 18 extensions I have installed were carried over from Firefox 2 and are NOT compatible with Firefox 3, so they aren't even active. I have no idea how much resources dormant extensions take in Firefox 3.

Memory use HAS improved a lot with Firefox 3 but it still uses a bit more RAM than I, at least, would prefer.

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I have FF running with four tabs currently, I don't see the usage as that excessive, this is XP-Pro SP3.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

I'm attributing some of my memory use to the Adobe 64-bit plugin since it's still in beta or maybe even alpha (lots of debugging code still in it, I'm sure).

What sites do you have loaded in your 4 tabs?

In my 6, I've got:

SquirrelMail web-based IMAP mail client reading mail on a server I admin
Hotmail (which invokes the Adobe flash plugin for the Flash banner ads)
Gmail
Apache status page for the server I admin (pure text, no graphics)
phpBB message forum index page for a forum I admin
This very thread

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I have Amazon in one and two different forums (two for this one) in the other tabs.


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## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

Here's an experiment for people to try:

Start up Firefox on your system and have only ONE tab open. Load this site into the tab:

http://start.ubuntu.com/8.10/

Check Firefox's memory use. I created a "test" profile which has NO themes applied and NO extensions installed so I could have a "vanilla" profile to test with. The above URL is the home page for that profile, which is the default home page for Firefox on Ubuntu Linux.

With the above page loaded in my "vanilla" profile, Firefox memory usage was:

55m RAM
451m total (swap + RAM)

I loaded the same page into Opera 9.63 (64-bit) on Linux and got these numbers:

46m RAM
204m total (swap + RAM)

I guess we should also factor in I'm using 64-bit native apps which are known to use more memory but considering the page I'm loading above, these numbers still seem a bit high.

Peace...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

With 4gigs of memory, I really don't care if it takes a bit more memory.


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## wh01s (Dec 17, 2008)

what i love about Chrome - it's FAST! what i hate about Chrome - 1) i do not need this "beautiful" buttons on the right corner 2) Not compatible with UltraMon (for multi-screen setups) 3) No addons yet I stick to FireFox so far


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Boy, not working in multi-screen environments would be a deal breaker for me.


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## Beta19 (Sep 8, 2008)

JohnWill said:


> I don't get where you get the "resource hog" for FF. Can you explain exactly what resources you think it hogs?


I meant to say memory. It may just be the computer I am on, but It takes longer for FF to start and load pages than Chrome.


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## razzla (Jan 8, 2009)

I'm a big firefox fan but unfortunatly FF3 dosen't have my favourite skin any more, and to be honnest there are too many duplicate add-ons for FF so it makes browsing all the variable types difficult. Also I had a 3 trojan viruses on my machine effecting FF and IExplorer, but google chrome was running pop up free. I think Google has enough data and brains to make a realy secure browser, as much as I hate all the horror stories about Google, It would be nice to have a smart browser that fought against viruses in a more stratigical manner, such as trying to stop the spread of it.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

razzla said:


> as much as I hate all the horror stories about Google, It would be nice to have a smart browser that fought against viruses in a more stratigical manner, such as trying to stop the spread of it.


You assume facts not in evidence here.  I'd wait for a least a few months before pronouncing that Chrome is more virus resistant than the other browsers. They have really have no track record yet.


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## razzla (Jan 8, 2009)

Yeah I know I'm just stating my experiance but google do have alot of data compared to other(s) And I belive the reasson that it was pop up free from the virus was due to the fact it is so new. Any how I've found a few bugs with chrome, in hotmail it has limmited links i cant read male only view the links at the top for msn junk, inbox, manage folders and deleted. Also when using youtube search box and others the delete key delets but only flickes on screen. Really quite iritating, But i find browsing and streming a bit faster in chrome and FF3 java client crashes frequently on me for some reasson. So at the moment im quite happy using both. I hate how you need Iexplorer to download certain files especialy with microsft and symantec i know it's better than it used to be but i wish it would just die


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## razzla (Jan 8, 2009)

I think it would be cool if you could make tab's transparent then layer them. If you wanted to browse while watching something this would be handy.


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## thewonder (Oct 23, 2007)

Hey razzla,

I could have sworn I saw this as an add-on in FireFox in the last week or so. It may have been an experimental add-on or, come to think of it I may have read about this add-on while on lifehacker.com, don't worry about the title , Ive never had any problems and the site rocks.


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