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Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

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Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#311
post #7

The biggest issue I have with Chrome is how aggressive it's been about linking Google IDs with the browser. I've lost data twice by bugs related to not having a linked ID. Please Google, understand this; I don't want my browser linked with my Google account.

I ditched Chrome for FF a couple of months ago for EXACTLY this reason. The omnipresent account name in the title bar was the clincher.

Then just change the name on the user. It's not required that you have the same name in the browser as on your Google account. I renamed mine "Work" and "Personal". It's helpful to isolate things so my side projects don't get sucked up into my work stuff.

Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of having separate processes for each tab is that it isolates them. If one crashes, the others remain up. It supports multiple processors, too.

I would ask you to open up your task manager and try picking the largest-in-memory Chrome task and kill it, then see if you still think they are completely isolated. I agree with your point, but give it a shot.

I don't think that's really fair, the largest Chrome task in memory isn't a tab or extension. Yes I suppose it isn't perfectly isolated and if something happens to the main program task it will obviously cause problems but if a single page or extension crashes everything else lives on.

Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#313
post #15

I read the article hoping for something insightful, but when I read the paragraph ...a half-dozen tabs that auto-open on launch thanks to the dozens of extensions I've accumulated over the years[...] I had to stop and say "wait, what?" To leverage his analogy that it is like coming home to a new house to find that most of your stuff is already there, it is like not cleaning your house and not taking out the trash for…

The problem is using many open tabs with Chrome. If you use no more than 3 or 4 tabs, Chrome is generally fine. If you use more than that, Firefox has some built-in features to help with tabs such as delayed tab loading and tab grouping. It also has more and better extensions for helping with multiple tabs. Furthermore, it doesn't launch a new process for each tab. In a browser comparison I wrote last month, I includ…

I use Chrome as my only browser. On my desktop, I run an average of 20 tabs open at any given time, across two windows. I also run Chrome on my Android phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 3) and keep 4--8 tabs open at any given time. I reboot my desktop once every 1--2 weeks, and my phone maybe once per month.

Other than the rare tab freezing up and needing to be restarted, I've had absolutely no issues. Chrome just works.

Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of having separate processes for each tab is that it isolates them. If one crashes, the others remain up. It supports multiple processors, too.

I would ask you to open up your task manager and try picking the largest-in-memory Chrome task and kill it, then see if you still think they are completely isolated. I agree with your point, but give it a shot.

That is chrome itself...of course closing the parent process of a bunch of processes that are tied to it and that it monitors is going to close them all.

Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably b/c most people at Google use computers with 32GB of ram.

This might sound silly to some, but I wouldn't be surprised if Google limited its usability tests to high-end machines with RAM in the double-digits. I reckon most programming teams have this issue, since even if they're dogfooding, they're doing so on high-end hardware, meaning that low-end hardware is untested and often unusable. Google isn't the only culprit; many websites nowadays will start to lean heavier towar…

Google also happens to be behind the Chromebook effort, so I would be surprised if they don't do any testing on Chromebooks.

Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is using many open tabs with Chrome. If you use no more than 3 or 4 tabs, Chrome is generally fine. If you use more than that, Firefox has some built-in features to help with tabs such as delayed tab loading and tab grouping. It also has more and better extensions for helping with multiple tabs. Furthermore, it doesn't launch a new process for each tab. In a browser comparison I wrote last month, I includ…

I use Chrome as my only browser. On my desktop, I run an average of 20 tabs open at any given time, across two windows. I also run Chrome on my Android phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 3) and keep 4--8 tabs open at any given time. I reboot my desktop once every 1--2 weeks, and my phone maybe once per month. Other than the rare tab freezing up and needing to be restarted, I've had absolutely no issues. Chrome just works.

Our workflow sounds similar, except that when my system reboots, Chrome is frozen for a minute as every tab tries to reload simultaneously, following by confusion as any youtube tabs all start playing.

On Firefox I had no such issue as each tab would only reload on focus.

Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Sandboxing makes sense when you think of browser as operating system. Isolate each process to increase security and crash-resistance. Makes sense, but it takes more memory.

Frankly I have more memory than I need for most tasks so I don't mind this trade-off.

On the other hand memory memory takes more time to read, potentially leading to latency.

Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly have several hundred tabs open in Firefox with no problems. Some people may think this is crazy or messy but I find it very useful for organizing the various projects I'm working on for different clients and my own personal projects. Tab groups and delayed loading make it all very smooth. Such usage is just not possible with Chrome. I tried to switch to Chrome but couldn't find the features I needed and d…

I do the same thing; it's incredibly easy to do with the Tree View Tabs extension. For example, while browsing HN, I'll frequently just middle-click a bunch of article links and (occasionally) their comments, then read them once I have a sizable queue. Same goes for trying to look up documentation to fix some bug in my code; I'll start with a DuckDuckGo search and, suddenly, I have at least a dozen (sometimes multipl…

What is the name of that extension? I searched and get over a thousand results. Thanks!

Re: Fuck It, I'm Going Back to Firefox

#320
post #15

I read the article hoping for something insightful, but when I read the paragraph ...a half-dozen tabs that auto-open on launch thanks to the dozens of extensions I've accumulated over the years[...] I had to stop and say "wait, what?" To leverage his analogy that it is like coming home to a new house to find that most of your stuff is already there, it is like not cleaning your house and not taking out the trash for…

Despite that fact I've run both without add-ons and I'm very happy to be back using Firefox. Like the author there was a point when I switched to Chrome, but even without add-ons it has become bloated and slow. My breaking point was when it decided to auto-install a Google Now notification center that started up with my computer.
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