The sole reason I stick to Firefox as my primary browser (despite Chrome appearing to hog less memory) is because of the TabMixPlus extension (which allows multiple layers of tabs). I frequently have >10 tabs - and at times, 25+ tabs - open, and Chrome is terrible when it comes to tab management.
Are you kidding? Chrome is awesome when it comes to tab management. I love that they allow little slivers of tabs, rather than degrading to a clunky arrow button setup when you have too many open.
Plus after closing a tab, the "tabs don't resize until you move the mouse away" thing. And tabs living in the titlebar, so they get Fitts' Law infinite width targets in full screen. So good.
Not to pick on this item in particular, but this seems to be another instance of difference between "functionality" versus "aesthetic".
One set of users finds that Chrome "looks better". (Although, personally, I not infrequently differ from these opinions.)
Another set of users find that Firefox "behaves better" and/or is "more customizable".
I find myself more in the latter camp. While I greatly appreciate some of Chrome/Chromium's technical points, I find that both with its UI and with Google web properties, the designers are running amok. Unituitive and minimally discoverable widgets and behaviors. Common "power user" functionality disabled (anyone juggling several items/contexts should, in my opinion, rather value most recently used (MRU) ordering in tab cycling).
(As a comparative example, the "breaking" of Alt-Tab in Ubuntu Unity is somewhat analogous; I want a one keystroke (or key-pair-stroke) step to get back to my last context, whatever fricking program was running it.)
To the specific point in the parent, minimal tab size can be adjusted in Firefox (Google up the relevant setting accessible via about:config .)
More generally, Firefox lets me control how I used web resources. Chrome, less so, and Google seems to be moving in the direction of further and further slotting the user into their desired experience. (Sound familiar?)
As for extensions, the Firefox extension ecosphere I still find navigable (although it does appear to be suffering; making and maintaining an extension does not appear to be a particularly rewarding experience). The Google ecosphere I've mostly given up on, but when I take the occasional glimpse it still appears to be, viewed in the large, opaque and poorly organized and/or presented.
So... I keep my Chrome installation clean and use it for "secure browsing" to a limited set of properties.
I use an extended Firefox for tackling the larger, hairy web.
(And Opera to further segregate a few other items.)
I'm with bvi -- I can't live without tabmixplus and multirow tabs. I'm not sure what's awesome about Chrome tab management over what you've said. Firefox has tabs in the titlebar and they do that "tabs don't resize until you move the mouse away" thing -- so what's left?
Side tabs have been abandoned by chrome at the moment with no sign of coming back. The lack of vertical sidebars is enough reason to use Firefox over Chrome. Even when side tabs were working you couldn't modify its behaviour.
