A nerdish dilemma
I’ve mentioned it on some previous posts already, I’m a long-time Firefox addict. Everywhere I go, and on all computers I work, I’ve installed a version of Fx3, and on most including my favourite plugins.
Maybe I’m a tad late with this, but since the release of the thing, I’ve been using Google Chrome on my work-laptop.
What can I say about it?
It works differently, it looks differently and it lacks some of the functionality Firefox has or gained which I find necessities for a browser.
To start off with Chrome: the interface is, well, let’s put it this way, radically different. I’m not exactly chuffed with the tabs being on top, although it has an interesting side-effect: I’m constantly clicking on my top-hidden RocketDock. 😉 (Google it!)
The browser itself feels really smooth and, as promised, the Javascript-engine and renderer work really fast. Even though comparisons have been made and show it’s not true, it feels that way. Concerning the memory-consumation of both browsers (Fx3 and Chrome) I can be quite short: when browsing with several tabs open, it does not differ much.
My Fx peaks at about 200 megs, while Chrome does about the same. In fact, it’s a 10% difference, but those 20 megs are only a small part of the 1GB I’m currently working with. An unnoticeable difference. (Well, for me that is.)
As Chrome is open source, the project shares (unstable) builds of the browser under a different name. You know there’s Google Chrome, but the OS-version is Chromium. The dev-builds of Chromium can be found here, and the changelog is here. The difference between Chromium and Chrome is the fact it’s unbranded, and there’s a whole lot of bugs solved in the unstable builds. Furthermore, there’s no need to use the installer, so you can just download the zip-file and unpack&run. Yay for ease of use on that point!
I’m not churning out advice here, but would like to say every internet enthusiast should try Chrome (or Chromium) for a testdrive once. It’s no complete browser (yet), but it’s a nice experience. i’m hoping for some lendig and loaning amongst the Chromium and Mozilla communities which hopefully lead to a merger of the best of both browsers…
Feeling mostly the same way, although one big plus for Chrome for me is the more efficient use of screen real estate. Firefox just hogs more of it.
The stability is nice but I have little doubt that that’ll be something Firefox improves pretty soon now.
All in all, the extra competition (because let’s face it, IE6 and IE7 were only competitors numbers-wise, not functionality wise) will improve browsers in general, I hope.
I’ve succeeded in crashing Chrome several times now, all during regular surfing. I’m not ready to call it a stable product yet, but it’s kind of the nature of the thing: it’s a beta. 😉
I agree on the screen-hogging though, the interface is much slicker and slimmer. I like!