I wouldn't quite write Firefox off yet. They're iterating faster and making some good improvements to the browser. Personally I use Chrome & Safari, but my mom uses Firefox, and I've certainly noticed the speed improvements going from version 4 to 8. They've reduced the bloat too, we're on 2gb RAM, and the number of tabs we have open sometimes is astonishing, and it's always responsive these days. What do you guys experience?
Their accelerated release schedule is precisely why I've stopped installing Firefox on relatives machines. I'm tired of having to answer why Firefox just started up asking them if they wanted to search for updates for their addons, why some of them got disabled, and why some extensions just stopped working. I've also had the unfortunate experience of an update just not working at all. Basically, they're delivering nothing my family is looking for at the cost of stability. It's just not worth it.
You can install add-on compatibility checker add-on. I think almost all of the add-ons which work for FF4, work for rest of the versions as well. And almost all of the add-ons have been ported to FF4. So basically, everything works.
Well, it's that compatibility checker screen that throws my relatives off. They don't even know that they have add-ons for the most part. And they don't know that Firefox just updated on them. All they know is the next time they start it up they're greeted with a foreign window spouting off something about add-ons.
Agreed. Compatibility check hack is not so obvious. They need to fix it.
I was just suggesting that you can install it once and set to disable checking compatibility for once and all. Your relatives can ignore any warnings after that.
I have been using Firefox as my primary browser and Chromium as my secondary browser. Yes, Firefox has improved with respect to memory consumption a lot. And if I have 5-10 tabs open in each FF and Chromium, FF takes lesser memory.
Firefox has also gotten considerably faster. The javascript performance has improved and it is as fast if not faster than Chrome. In fact when I last heard, IE had the fastest JS engine with Chakra.
Firefox opens equally faster (cold start) with 0 or 10 tabs. This is really not a factor for me though, as I don't cold start a browser for weeks.
I love Firefox Awesomebar. I don't remember selecting a bookmark or opening history menu on FF. Also, I still don't find some equally good addons/extensions for Chromium e.g. mouse gestures. Addons are better integrated with FF compared to Chromium.
I prefer Chrome and Safari because I'm a Webkit fan. But I got my dad on Firefox and he loves it. Inertia will keep him there just like inertia kept him on IE until I pushed FF on him. Firefox is decently speedy and I even prefer it to Safari in terms of speed (though I haven't used Safari5 much at all so I cant really compare that version).
Chrome does a better job with lots of tabs. Firefox definitely slows down with each tab. I absolutely love the way each tab in Chrome is its own separate process. Why doesn't Firefox follow their lead?
> Chrome does a better job with lots of tabs. Firefox definitely slows down with each tab. I absolutely love the way each tab in Chrome is its own separate process. Why doesn't Firefox follow their lead?
Many people report the opposite, that Chrome does poorly with hundreds of tabs. The reason is that there is a tradeoff: Running tabs in separate processes as Chrome does takes more memory, but it does help with responsiveness. So whether Firefox or Chrome ends up 'faster' really depends on the number of tabs (and which web pages they are on), and how much memory you have. There is no perfect approach that is fast on everything.
You're very right. I suppose Chrome feels faster and that often counts more than facts. I still love the separate processes. Really cool idea, I think. Everyone's mileage will vary when it comes to this I suppose.
Why did Chrome supplant Firefox? It was/is faster. Most people (certainly people like "my mom" or "my grandfather" who are so often presented as examples in these discussions) don't need/won't ever use things such as: plugins, tabs, javascript consoles, CSS debuggers, etc. Strip ALL that out and make a solid, simple, FAST browser that is monetized by search/ad deals.
Make a "pro" or "developer" edition with the extra tools and features to keep the likes of us happy.
Is it truly faster? I don't know. I do know it feels faster and in this context feelings trump facts when it comes to most users.
I'd also add that a developer edition sounds good but I'm not sure if actually is a good idea. While its true the addons are what bogs down speed, having separate editions makes Mozilla's job harder and it will make the temptation to continually add new developer pet features greater which can only hurt in the long run. A better option might be to simply have one, stripped down edition with optional extensions just like how things pretty much are.
