So I've been a huge Firefox fan since it came out because of its availability across any platform I wish to use. Windows, Solaris, Linux, it worked great on all of them. The only web browser that even came close was Opera.

Last night I was watching Startgate SG-1 on HULU using Firefox and I was getting serious lag spikes. IE7 and IE8 were much worse. Now I love my Stargate, dang it, I don't appreciate being interrupted by buffering. I've also been getting a lot more random crashes since the release of Firefox 3.5.x. I checked my router RRD graphs and was not seeing any coinciding packet loss  so I decided to give Google Chrome a try.

I gotta tell you. I'm impressed. Usually when my virus scanner starts it's daily scan at 4:00 AM and if I happen to still be up watching a video I will start getting major lag spikes. I've also noticed that if I have my email client running (Thunderbird) I also get random lag. But while I was watching a video on HULU, running and virus scan, and had Thunderbird running video playback was flawless.

Other web pages are also loading extremely fast. For instance I checked load times for Susans.org in both browsers. In Firefox it took 0.348 seconds with 22 queries. In Chrome it took 0.179 seconds with 22 queries. So page load time was literally reduced by half. Another big plus for me was how much more page space you have with Chrome. I also really like the detachable tabs even though firefox can do that too. Chrome actually does it a little better. Now I'm not completely ready to switch yet. I like my firefox addons and I get a little nervous when a company tries to get a hand into too many different markets. Especially one whos primary objective is to collect information and sell advertising but honestly, If they get UNIX/Linux support soon I may be tempted even more to switch.     

anything renders pages better than firefox. gawd i hate that PoS browser. I dn't under stand it's hype AT ALL.

I'll go ahead and say it, i like IE better than firefox. there. i said it.

but yea, opera is my favorite!! all the others only immitate!!

Google Chrome is by far my favorite browser now.

Ah the Google-ish front end on Safari. Did not care for it much, still use FF even on Hulu.

Sorry Sis,

But I went back to Firefox, because Chrome takes up way too much memory.  And it tracks where you go.  And I did not get any better performance.


Janet

As for tracking, I've not seen solid evidence of it, though I won't say it's not possible. It does take up more hard drive space then Firefox but as far as memory usage:

Firefox: ~50,620k
Chrome ~22,184k

Quote from: Cami on September 18, 2009, 07:14:34 PM
As for tracking, I've not seen solid evidence of it, though I won't say it's not possible. It does take up more hard drive space then Firefox but as far as memory usage:

Firefox: ~50,620k
Chrome ~22,184k

Actually, Sis.  It is the CPU that it overloads.  With Chrome the CPU is at 100%.  With Firefox around 30%.


Janet

Hmm, thats odd. For me CPU usage runs at one to two percent while using chrome But between three and eight percent using Firefox. I'd be interested to hear what others are getting. I'd like to be well informed on how it performs on different hardware before I go recommending it to clients.

Most of the time if I'm using Windows my system specs are:

AMD Athlon 64bit Dual core 2.20 Ghz.
2.5 GB DDR2 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS
Segate 80 GB IDE ATA w/8 Meg buffer 

I've used Firefox for years and have no complaints. For streaming things like Netflix though, they require IE so I just use IE for things like that.

lately I've been using safari though for general use, firefox as a backup

I'd love to switch to Chrome completely, but Firefox has such a nifty add-on architecture, as well as a level of maturity and support that Chrome can't yet match.

Needs her plugins and add-ons...

I gave up on Firefox about six months ago after using it for a long time. I usually run Linux, and in Linux it was messing with my keyboard, to the point of being unusable. So in Linux I switched to Epiphany and it's solid. Firefox in Windows was still OK until a few weeks ago, when it started freezing randomly and taking up a huge amount of resources. I won't use IE at all, so I tried Chrome and it works quite well, for the very little amount of time I spend booted into Windows.

Quote from: Kait on September 19, 2009, 10:38:20 AM
I'd love to switch to Chrome completely, but Firefox has such a nifty add-on architecture, as well as a level of maturity and support that Chrome can't yet match.

Needs her plugins and add-ons...

Yep. Thats the one major thing that keeps me from switching to chrome completely. I love the add ons.

The add-ons and the level of customization in Firefox is such that I see no reason to switch, though I hear raves about Chrome all the time. 

The flexibility and compatibility of firefox makes it really hard to switch completely. It's like breaking up with your boyfriend. 

boy/girl friends are much easier to break up with then a good program.  I still pine for the good old days of AmiPro, an old WP program.

I was a FireFox fan for quite awhile. Love some of the add ons. But it kept messing up on me.

Some of the other browsers may not have allot of frills, But at least they work

As an iMac girl I use Safari exclusively.  I've tried various flavours of Opera and Firefox, but always return to Safari.

-={LR}=-

Quote from: Cami on September 19, 2009, 10:54:41 AM
Yep. Thats the one major thing that keeps me from switching to chrome completely. I love the add ons.

But the latest versions of Firefox have been way below expectations.  Less compatibility and more crashes.  Port some of these add-ons over to Chrome and I may be there. 

Kristi

I love Firefox, but it's starting to turn into the Mozilla Monster.  The feature that checks to see if the websites you are visiting are 'attack sites' was constantly accessing my hard drive and making my system freeze so I had to turn it off.  Not a big deal since I'm smart enough to never go to 'attack sites', but it's not a good sign.  Still, I can't give up my addons so I'm sticking with it for now .

Also, for those websites that 'require' you to use IE, there's an addon called IE Tab that allows you to render web pages using IE, within firefox, you can switch back and forth with a little button and the bottom right corner.  So you never have to open the awful IE program ever.

I just switched from IE 7 to Firefox 3.5. Works good so far. Only been a day or so though. Already enjoying the 'read later list' add on immensely.