Firefox 7 versus Chrome

[THE SCUD]

I thought I would ask this of my fellow tech-lovers:

I switched to firefox years ago and loved all the extensions/apps you could add, as well as the performance of firefox vis-a-vis IE.

However, about a year-or-two ago, I switched to Chrome, as it was much faster. I didn't like the lack of apps/extensions, but they have slowly been improving, however I still feel like there were more/better ones for firefox.

So my questions are:

• Are the extensions still much more plentiful/better for fire fox?
• Is firefox as fast as chrome yet, with the new version 7?

[Icon]

Firefox has been pissing me off more and more lately due to suddenly using up half my memory while I watch one youtube video, or have more than two tabs open, etc... been meaning to try Chrome.

As for your question, beats me on the diff as I haven't tried Chrome. Just using the opportunity to vent :P

[FlameOn]

I can't tell you about # of firefox extensions vs chrome ones, but there's been a noticeable improvement in speed and most important of all memory usage and stability. It renders pages substantially faster and memory footprint has kept itself under 300MB at max.

Since firefox upgraded from version 5 on, a lot of times extensions cause the bloody thing to crash. This was happening on a hourly basis and firefox would also bog down with memory leaks until I was approaching 2GB of memory usage. These are known bugs that have been in firefox for several versions now and have not been addressed due to their aggressive release cycles. I got fed up with firefox always crashing so I switched a month ago. Chrome on the other hand has not had these issues in my last month

[MickMcGeough]

IMO Firefox still wins as far as extensions go. Apparently the biggest change with FF7 is drastically reduced memory usage (though I can't confirm this).

But lifehacker can! http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browse...rer-9-and-more

I use Chrome as my primary browser right now but I'm going to give FF7 a whirl.

[Icon]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

IMO Firefox still wins as far as extensions go. Apparently the biggest change with FF7 is drastically reduced memory usage (though I can't confirm this).

But lifehacker can! http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browse...rer-9-and-more

I use Chrome as my primary browser right now but I'm going to give FF7 a whirl.

If it's drastically reduced, whatever its using now is still way too much imo.

Didn't they just split the memory usage between the firefox.exe process and the plugin-container process? It's a good thing when the plugins crash that it doesn't crash firefox as well (you just reload the plugin), but it's still hogging alot of memory.

[TurnedTheCorner]

Shockwave or Flash seems to crash a lot for in Chrome, more than it should I think.

[Icon]

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

Shockwave or Flash seems to crash a lot for in Chrome, more than it should I think.

Suppose it could be more of a problem with flash then... since that's what seems to crash alot in firefox too.

[photon]

I've been wanting to switch back to FireFox because Chrome is taking up way too much memory for me now.

Chrome's taking up like 3GB on my system right now.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Icon

If it's drastically reduced, whatever its using now is still way too much imo.

Didn't they just split the memory usage between the firefox.exe process and the plugin-container process? It's a good thing when the plugins crash that it doesn't crash firefox as well (you just reload the plugin), but it's still hogging alot of memory.

In a quick test on Mac OSX Lion, Chrome 14 definitely uses more memory / memory per tab than FF7, as well as more memory for it's plugin process.

Even so, the difference aren't enough that I think you'd ever notice on a 4GB machine.

[Hack&Lube]

I always toot Opera's horn but it usually falls on deaf ears for Firefox and Chrome users

[Icon]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

In a quick test on Mac OSX Lion, Chrome 14 definitely uses more memory / memory per tab than FF7, as well as more memory for it's plugin process.

Even so, the difference aren't enough that I think you'd ever notice on a 4GB machine.

It's mostly the 1gb machine at work that gives me issues... FF7's gone over 750mb a few times.

[Hack&Lube]

http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browse...rer-9-and-more

[Buff]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browse...rer-9-and-more

Based on those ratings one would surmise that Chrome stinks.

[Swayze11]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browse...rer-9-and-more

Awesome, that link crashed firefox for me.

[Canada 02]

what are some useful add-ons for firefox?

[jtfrogger]

I use FF at home and Chrome at work. One of the reasons that I like FF, is that I can use a Canadian spelling dictionary for text boxes. In Chrome, the choice is US or UK English. That just irritates me.

[SebC]

Canadian English is pretty much UK English, no?

[jtfrogger]

Originally Posted by SebC

Canadian English is pretty much UK English, no?

No, there are a few differences. Here are some examples:

• artifact (UK = artefact)
• maximize (UK = maximise) - this is true of most words that end in -ize/-ise
• enthrall (UK = enthral)

Here is a decent website with a comparison of Can/US/UK + French & Spanish for comparison.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I always toot Opera's horn but it usually falls on deaf ears for Firefox and Chrome users

I like opera.

[TopChed]

I think I'd like Opera a lot more if it were easier to block ads. What do you Opera users do to take care of that? Do you block each ad individually?

I downloaded Opera just to try it out after reading this thread, but even after one night of using it, it became a hassle to manually click on and block every ad that would come up.