Firefox or Chrome (Criteria: Speed, Privacy, functionality)

[a completely inoffensive name]

About two years ago I switched from Firefox which seemed really bloated and slow to Google Chrome, but now with Google becoming more and more "big corporation" every day, especially with Google+ integration on Youtube, I really don't want to support them as much any more by using their browser. The problem is that I do not know if this in itself is a rational decision because I do not know if Firefox is still too bloated and slow vs Chrome or whether I would even have more privacy through firefox than through Chrome.

If you guys could give me some rough comparisons on the three criteria (speed, privacy, functionality) between Chrome and Firefox as of right now that would be great, thanks.

[Beskar]

I switched for the same reason as you. Firefox really did become superbloated and constantly prompting you to download and install updates.

I haven't found a motive to switch back to Firefox yet, admittedly.

[Lemur]

Here's a not-too-old roundup of current browsers, if that's of interest.

But for me, I have signed my soul over to the Google Overlords.

If I make propitious sacrifices, and please them, they may bring me Google Fiber someday.

[Xiahou]

I've never left Firefox. NoScript + AdBlockPlus = no malware. ever.

That's too much win to give up for shiny chrome.

Nothing else matters.

[caravel]

About two years ago I switched from Firefox which seemed really bloated and slow to Google Chrome, but now with Google becoming more and more "big corporation" every day, especially with Google+ integration on Youtube, I really don't want to support them as much any more by using their browser. The problem is that I do not know if this in itself is a rational decision because I do not know if Firefox is still too bloated and slow vs Chrome or whether I would even have more privacy through firefox than through Chrome.

All browsers are crap... it's just a case of rooting through the crap to find the best of a bad lot - which isn't easy.

Firefox is a google sponsored project - so if privacy worries you (and it should) then you should still be concerned. Firefox does have built in google spyware and it is up to you to find out about it and turn it off. Chrome/Chromium however is a google product and is of course infested with google's spyware by design. With google it's best to assume that if data can be harvested and stored, it will be. That's their line of business.

Not wanting to support google is a "rational decision". If you can do without their products/services and want to avoid them for ethical reasons - then you're free to do so.

As for the "bloated" argument - I hardly run state of the art hardware and Firefox runs fine - is it bloated? The answer is a big yes (it's a massive C++ monstrosity in fact that can take about 2 hours to build from source), but so is windows and that doesn't seem to worry you? Is it slow? Not for me it isn't - that's all I can say. Most of that was quite simply propaganda and FUD spread by the tech press and various Chrome fanbois around the time that Firefox decided it would be a good idea to ape Chrome and switch to the "rapid release" (version 4). All software is affected by bloat, this is why many developers just get rid of their old codebase and start from scratch (or almost) every few years - Firefox is probably long overdue for this - but if Mozilla were to start from scratch, it could mean following Opera's example and switching to a chromium or webkit base. This means less diversity and less choice and possibly the establishment of another browser monoculture like we had in the late 90's and early 00's...

[Tellos Athenaios]

Opera.

[TinCow]

About two years ago I switched from Firefox which seemed really bloated and slow to Google Chrome, but now with Google becoming more and more "big corporation" every day, especially with Google+ integration on Youtube, I really don't want to support them as much any more by using their browser. The problem is that I do not know if this in itself is a rational decision because I do not know if Firefox is still too bloated and slow vs Chrome or whether I would even have more privacy through firefox than through Chrome.

If you guys could give me some rough comparisons on the three criteria (speed, privacy, functionality) between Chrome and Firefox as of right now that would be great, thanks.

I use both. Chrome is my preference, but I cannot install it at work and so have to make due with Firefox instead. I originally switched away from Firefox due to the bloat, but the version I am using at work now (Firefox 25... LOL at that version number) actually isn't that bad. I don't really notice any speed differences between it and whatever the current version of Chrome is. My current preference for Chrome is only due to UI differences.

[Beskar]

Most of that was quite simply propaganda and FUD spread by the tech press and various Chrome fanbois around the time that Firefox decided it would be a good idea to ape Chrome and switch to the "rapid release" (version 4)

Unfortunately was not propaganda at all. I know a lot of people, including myself who switched and I know I never read any reviews. I simply noticed it took 10 seconds to load the .Org for example and every few days it kept freezing up going "BRAND NEW UPDATE MUST DOWNLOAD AND RESTART NOW" constantly with all my addons just getting invalidated and stopped working after each one.

[Husar]

The new Opera uses the same engine as Chrome if I'm not mistaken.

[Montmorency]

Looks like IE is the way of the future. It's only a matter of time.

[caravel]

Unfortunately was not propaganda at all. I know a lot of people, including myself who switched and I know I never read any reviews. I simply noticed it took 10 seconds to load the .Org for example and every few days it kept freezing up going "BRAND NEW UPDATE MUST DOWNLOAD AND RESTART NOW" constantly with all my addons just getting invalidated and stopped working after each one.

I know a lot of people, including myself, who did not switch... I and those other people did not have the same problem as you - nor have I ever seen this message about updates and restarts.

Can't remember the last time I had any problems with add ons either...

The new Opera uses the same engine as Chrome if I'm not mistaken.

Opera 15 is based on the chromium project, which is in itself a webkit based browser - though google have now forked webkit. So it's not just a case of being based on a different layout engine, more so it's based on another browser.

[Beskar]

I know a lot of people, including myself, who did not switch... I and those other people did not have the same problem as you - nor have I ever seen this message about updates and restarts.

Only people I know who use Firefox now are Linux users. Everyone who had a Windows OS swapped to Chrome pretty much all at the same time. From the comments in this topic, it seemed ACIN, Lemur and TinCow all swapped at the similar time for the same reasons.

Just saying there is more to it then it simply hand-washing it aside saying it is merely propaganda.

[drone]

Only people I know who use Firefox now are Linux users. Everyone who had a Windows OS swapped to Chrome pretty much all at the same time. From the comments in this topic, it seemed ACIN, Lemur and TinCow all swapped at the similar time for the same reasons.

I'm half-and-half (Windows and Linux), but I stuck with Firefox. Mainly because I don't trust Google and Ad-Block/NoScript is the best. There were memory issues a couple of years ago, but they have fixed most of the big problems and I've never had enough grief with Firefox to force me to change.

[caravel]

Only people I know who use Firefox now are Linux users. Everyone who had a Windows OS swapped to Chrome pretty much all at the same time. From the comments in this topic, it seemed ACIN, Lemur and TinCow all swapped at the similar time for the same reasons.

I am a GNU/Linux and FreeBSD user, but I use windows at work and still use Firefox. I can't at all relate to the problems you're referring to...

Just saying there is more to it then it simply hand-washing it aside saying it is merely propaganda.

I refer to it as propaganda because none of the ranting and raving which was posted on forums and blogs about "Firefox vs Chrome" at the time was based on fact - it was mostly pure fanboyism. Much of it was born out of some particularly vocal users' frustrations with the new rapid release cycle combined with lots of bluster and hot air. The response of some of these users was to switch to another browser which has a rapid release cycle... work that one out...

My Firefox ESR at work just updated to 17.0.10 today. The update was downloaded in the background as ever and it was installed when I restarted the browser (I didn't know there was an update - I closed the browser about 2 hours ago and opened it again just now to see "installing update", then Firefox just started up as ever).

By the way, I'm not saying that I like the rapid release model, just that the negative press about Firefox has been hugely exaggerated.

[TinCow]

Only people I know who use Firefox now are Linux users. Everyone who had a Windows OS swapped to Chrome pretty much all at the same time. From the comments in this topic, it seemed ACIN, Lemur and TinCow all swapped at the similar time for the same reasons.

Yup. I switched due to bloat on my own without reading any reviews of any kind. At some point, I cannot remember when, Firefox seemed to be taking ages to start up, ages to load webpages, updatedconstantly (and intrusively), and was utilizing a massive amount of resources. It was actively aggravating me, in the same way that Netscape and IE used to back when I switched away from both of those (in that order). At that time, I knew almost nothing about Chrome, but I knew that I wasn't happy with Firefox and I hated IE so much I wasn't even willing to give it another try. So, I installed Chrome and enjoyed the result. I've been there ever since.

As I said though, I was forced to go back to Firefox at work due to IT restrictions on my computer and have found the current version to be much improved over what it was back when I switched away. It's possible that some of my objections to the old Firefox were personal things that have changed about me, rather than about Firefox. For example, basically every piece of software out there switched over to regular updates on a weekly/monthly basis rather than the old-school major release schedule with only minor bug fixes in between. So, the constant software updates are still occurring, but I don't really care as much anymore, and I can often make them automatic so I don't have to see them or deal with them anymore. The computers I'm running have also continued to increase in power over the years, so it's entirely possible that Firefox and Chrome are just as resource hungry now as before, if not more so, but it's less noticeable because multicore computers can handle it better. Regardless, at some point I grew frustrated with Firefox on my own without outside input, and gave Chrome a try just because it was an alternative I had heard about but hadn't experienced yet.

Honestly, the new IE (actively required for some of my work systems) isn't really that bad either. However my hatred of IE still burns bright enough to keep me away from it for several more years, even if it performs better than anything else out there.

[drone]

Somewhere in the 3.X.X - 5 range, there was a significant amount of memory leakage in Firefox, and it did cause problems if you didn't restart the browser periodically. But once they got that sorted out it's been pretty solid.

[TinCow]

Somewhere in the 3.X.X - 5 range, there was a significant amount of memory leakage in Firefox, and it did cause problems if you didn't restart the browser periodically. But once they got that sorted out it's been pretty solid.

That seems about right, I think I switched around version 4.

[Xiahou]

Honestly, the new IE (actively required for some of my work systems) isn't really that bad either. However my hatred of IE still burns bright enough to keep me away from it for several more years, even if it performs better than anything else out there.

Ditto that. Also, I'll have a hard time ever trusting IE from a security standpoint.

[Beskar]

Much of it was born out of some particularly vocal users' frustrations with the new rapid release cycle combined with lots of bluster and hot air. The response of some of these users was to switch to another browser which has a rapid release cycle... work that one out...

Chrome downloads and updates in the background with no prompting, you only notice when there is a slight change and a pop-up explaining a new feature, other than that, it was very hands free and manages by itself.

With Firefox was the severe bloat, then constantly getting demanded to be updated with in your face notifications, then you had to wait for 5-10 minutes for it to download, go through the entire install menu, ad-block and no-script being disabled and having to wait for them to update too, it was too tedious and aggressive.

This was around Firefox 4-6 like being mentioned, it might have been sorted now, but the switch already occurred and Chrome is still marginally better.

[drone]

Chrome downloads and updates in the background with no prompting, you only notice when there is a slight change and a pop-up explaining a new feature, other than that, it was very hands free and manages by itself.

For most users, this is fine. I actually prefer to control the update myself, and IT departments like to control updates to verify compatibility. So there is a reason for the Firefox method. There might be an automatic update feature now, but it will be opt-in.

With Firefox was the severe bloat, then constantly getting demanded to be updated with in your face notifications, then you had to wait for 5-10 minutes for it to download, go through the entire install menu, ad-block and no-script being disabled and having to wait for them to update too, it was too tedious and aggressive.

This was around Firefox 4-6 like being mentioned, it might have been sorted now, but the switch already occurred and Chrome is still marginally better.

After updates, it asks if you want to restart, and that's it. The disabling of add-ons was caused by the switch to the stupid numbering scheme, the makers of the add-ons didn't expect the major number (the '3' in, say, v3.2.16) to change on basic updates like it does now. Major number changes usually imply large changes that would require an add-on to be updated to work. Once the add-on developers adapted to the new scheme, no problems.

[caravel]

Chrome downloads and updates in the background with no prompting, you only notice when there is a slight change and a pop-up explaining a new feature, other than that, it was very hands free and manages by itself.

Which is how Firefox works.

With Firefox was the severe bloat

Do you actually understand what bloat is? Are you talking about "feature creep" are you talking about poor memory utilisation, are you talking about the program having a large memory foot print? You do know that software which uses a lot of memory can still execute quickly? You do know that browsers keep a cache which grows as you browse to different sites?

then constantly getting demanded to be updated with in your face notifications

I don't really remember this, but as with drone I don't see a huge problem with being notified that there is an update. Obviously you prefer software that does it's own thing behind your back - horses for courses...

then you had to wait for 5-10 minutes for it to download, go through the entire install menu, ad-block and no-script being disabled and having to wait for them to update too, it was too tedious and aggressive.

Can't relate to that either. I've used noscript from the start and cannot ever remember having it disabled after an update.

This was around Firefox 4-6 like being mentioned, it might have been sorted now, but the switch already occurred and Chrome is still marginally better.

"Chrome is still marginally better" is subjective. Typical tech press benchmarking proves nothing either - browsers have pros and cons and depending on what you do, a particular browser will be better for you, other browsers not so much.

[Furunculus]

many friends did go to chrome, but i stuck with firefox and it's been perfectly satisfactory.

Ad-Block/NoScript (+https everywhere) = awesome, and i don't like giving google that kind of power.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hmm, if it's the Googles of this world that give you the creeps you might want to try something like privoxy.

[Husar]

Or buy a mug.

Or a shirt or a cap.

[edyzmedieval]

Chrome. Fast and clean design.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well whatever your choice it can hardly be worse than Chrome via VMWare View in VirtualBox (don't ask), or ehrm, anything over RDP, really (please don't ask).

[Crazed Rabbit]

Since Firefox seems to be about as fast as any of the major browsers, I'm transferring back to Firefox (from SRWare Iron, a modified version of Chrome that supposedly had Google's tracking removed) with adblock/noscript/https everywhere, and as much of this security as is practical; https://www.schneier.com/blog/archiv..._remain_s.html

Oh, and Youtube Center with DASH disabled. Or maybe enabled. Whichever setting lets youtube videos load the whole video so there's no buffering issues.

CR

[Makrell]

I like the iternet explorer experience, the speed of IE, MF and GC are not very different for me, the only downside of IE is not pinning websites, like i can on MF and GC. GC lacks a lot of site compability though, and cant load many of my most used pages correctly, like outlook



http://www.browseryoulovedtohate.com/

[Beskar]

IE has no real ad-blocking Software either, so every website you go to, you are bombarded with CrazyFrog.

[Makrell]

IE has no real ad-blocking Software either, so every website you go to, you are bombarded with CrazyFrog.

Ads are what keeps the net alive. Adblckers are vicious things, if not for ads no totalwar.org :D
Pop ups are different of course, but IE blocks them. i dont know about sounded ads, but ive never had a problem with IE and those, unless ive experienced the same with firefox or Chrome.