“Google updated its Chrome browser’s developer’s builds to version 5 for Windows and Mac today, the first time any version of Chrome has reached that milestone. Google was expected to push version 5 out to the public before the end of the month. Unlike the more recent versions of developer’s build 4.x, the developer’s builds of Chrome 5.x seems to be starting off to a rough start.”
I yet have to find a good reason to leave Opera or Firefox for Chrome… Speed and extensions are certainly not compelling reasons anymore.
It depends on what OS you’re on. On Windows and Linux, Chrome is noticeably faster and has a more responsive UI than Firefox/Opera. (Also I just dislike the Opera UI in general, but that’s just me.) On the Mac performance isn’t really good enough to justify switching, IMO.
Edited 2010-02-01 16:31 UTC
For me, Chrome on OS X is a lot more snappier than Firefox, especially on Javascript-heavy sites. And since recent development builds support extensions (and thus adblocking), I have switched to Chrome as my primary browser.
True, javascript is definitely faster. My main problem is Flash; it seems to require about twice as much CPU power on Chrome than on any other browser, which doesn’t seem to make sense. Also, I’m still waiting for PDF viewing support with the Preview plugin.
On my older Mac Mini, Chrome is actually noticeably faster than Safari.
On the Mac, it’s an OK browser. It’s just not enough [yet] to pry me away from OmniWeb. Yes, you will have to pry me away from that browser.
The omnibox address bar and better handling of screen real estates are two major reasons to switch.
I personally find it handles large volume of tabs betters (read: doesn’t slow my computer as much). This comparison is based on linux, I switched over from firefox (iceweasel).
Speed and simplicity “are” compelling reasons to switch.
Well, I still use Firefox but Chromes scalability (no change in performance when opening a lot of tabs) is a very compelling reason for me. Firefox gets VERY slow when I open a lot of tabs. Oh and still no JavaScript JIT for x86_64 in Firefox! WTF?
Speed and extensions were great reasons for me. I can think of no reasons more compelling. Speed almost did it on it’s own, but it took the extensions.
I’ve been using Firefox since the beginning, but about two weeks ago Firefox lost it’s place on my taskbar, and was replaced by Chrome. I haven’t looked back since.
It makes a good second browser, and the light resource usage makes it nice for laptops (and netbooks, I would presume). In a pinch, it’s very handy to have a browser that is usable almost immediately after clicking the icon.
“Light” as long as you don’t include the abyssal memory usage: http://lifehacker.com/5457242/browser-speed-tests-firefox-36-chrome…
by default, chrome isolates each tab and extension in its own process, which has a lot of overhead when it comes to memory (in windows anyways) it is a tradeoff in ram vs security. Security wise, chrome blows the competition out of the water. Since they aren’t testing that feature, they should have turned it off for the tests, by launching chrome with –single-process
I disagree as this would create a false impression of Chrome’s memory requirements. The trade-off memory for stability and security may be well worth it, but it doesn’t change the fact that with a lot of tabs open Chrome is very heavy RAM-wise.
Edited 2010-02-02 22:21 UTC
Well, its a requirement of those features (which themselves were untested). If you turn it off, you will level the playing field. I don’t doubt firefox would still win that benchmark, but the way it was done is comparing apples to oranges.
“Abyssal” or “abysmal”? Based on the link, I guess either would apply.
But yeah, “light” in terms of resource usage that effects battery life (with Firefox, I frequently see CPU usage jumping for no apparent reason, random churning of the hard drive, etc).
Abysmal, of course. Us non-native speakers tend to mix up similar sounding words like this. 😉
That’s probably Firefox crash/session recovery which saves all session related content every 10 seconds to disk (including everything you’ve written into forms which is quite useful if the browser crashes or you accidentally close the browser).
Edited 2010-02-02 22:22 UTC
4.0.x brought extensions, dont see anything in 5 yet that is a compelling reason to switch channels
Yes, it’s speedy, good-looking (opinions, not necessarily facts) and has a good extensions framework, but Google choosing the non-open and non-free side of the html 5 video-tag discussion is reason enough for me to stick with Firefox instead. While not perfect, at least they don’t push for a non-free and non-open web.
Edited 2010-02-01 19:45 UTC
Chrome has OGG built in.
The HTML5 video thing is a publisher issue. Google have not transcoded YouTube content into OGG. They are sitting on On2 at the moment as well. Don’t think that Google have chosen their side yet, I believe they still have a trick up their sleeve yet.
and next week, chrome 6.0 !
Meanwhile Linux is still on version 1 BETA.
Edited 2010-02-01 20:44 UTC
http://gimme.badsectoracula.com/htray.html
Firefox 3.6 2min 35sec
Opera 10.5 1min 4sec
Chrome 5 8sec
Now that is impressive!
NetApplications have released their browser usage numbers for January 2010. Chrome now has achieved its goal of 5 percent market share until before its second “birthday” prematurely. What should be disconcerting to Mozilla is that it is no longer solely at the expense of Internet Explorer but of Firefox as well which indicates a migration of users.