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Browser wars again
Back in 2002 (I think), I stopped using the heap that was (and still is) Internet Explorer in favor of the Mozilla Suite, after discovering the joy of tabbed browsing. Then in 2003, I moved over to a little browser called Firebird, which was simply everything I wanted: lightweight, fast, uncomplicated and good at browsing web pages. Later it got renamed (for the third time) to Firefox.
Now I’ve started using Google Chrome for basically the same reasons and have deja vu. Firefox isn’t a bad browser, but Chrome is faster, and is full of little smooth animated touches which make the browsing experience FEEL faster even at times when it, in reality, is the same. By contrast, Firefox feels slower, and appears to be filling up with features which I frankly don’t want (poorly designed “Personas”? Who cares?)
Still, I’d be fairly happy to use either browser, which is more than I could say for Microsoft’s offering back in the day. (Incidentally, does anyone know if that can display HTML pages correctly yet?)
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I have to agree about Chrome, its a great lightweight browser. I started regularly using it when I got a netbook as its performance was the best. That then translated to using it on the main laptop.
Apparently Safari is a bit faster, but personally I think it looks really bland.
It’s true, Firefox is getting bloated. However, until Chrome (which I do use on occasion to look up things in a hurry) gets the same advanced plug-ins that Firefox has (Adblock Plus, Greasemonkey, etc.), I’ll stick with the bloat.
Reasonable discussion on browsers that hasn’t devolved into a shitfest after three posts? Gentlemen, this is an internet first.
I’d echo the sentiments above – on slower, less capable machines Chrome is fantastic, but on my desktop I trade off a little latency for Firefox’s functionality. Specifically, adblock and noscript.
I’ll admit, I’ve had to return to Firefox once or twice to use Firebug’s “Remove this” tool (I was designing a Myspace profile for a band and, well, you know the rest, Myspace is a joke).
The only other thing I wish Chrome did was have a better way of browsing through bookmarks. I think they have a search option, but it’s buried somewhere.
Oh, and I’ll say it again: these Personas on FF look really awful.
” I think they have a search option, but it’s buried somewhere.”
Ctrl+Shift+B takes you to the Bookmarks manager, which has a search box at the top right.