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Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

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Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#161

Post by subsection1h »

jervisfm wrote: post #99
nathanb wrote: post #67

This article is, in my opinion, not very good. It documents areas where Firefox differs from Chrome, yes, but it fails to make the case why I should care. * I don't want a multi-process architecture, I want it so one tab can't kill my entire browser. If Firefox can get there in a different way than Chrome, so much the better. * I don't care whether or not my browser utilizes certain Windows features, since I run Linu…

> There are extensions I like which have no equivalent (that I know of) in Chrome Can you give an some examples of useful extensions you use that are available in Firefox but not yet in Chrome ?

I addition to the other extensions that have been mentioned, such as the awesome Tree Style Tab, the Session Manager extension[1] for Firefox is far better than every session extension for Chrome that I evaluated last year. Nothing came close. For example, at this point, I couldn't live without session appending, which is a feature that wasn't included with any session extension for Chrome that I evaluated.

[1] http://sessionmanager.mozdev.org/documentation.html

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#162

Post by doktrin »

jcbrand wrote: post #122
q_revert wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vimperator is probably the most useful web extension i've ever used.. and it doesn't have a good chrome equivalent http://www.vimperator.org/vimperator

I've used Vimperator before but I now use Vimium on chromium and very much prefer it. When you navigate via keyboard (by pressing "f"), Vimperator marks links with numbers, Vimium marks them with letters, from ("a to "zz'). Letters are much nicer when you can touch type and your hands are already on the keys. Vimperator used to do silly things like hide the address bar and force you into doing everything in a kind of…

> I've used Vimperator before but I now use Vimium on chromium and very much prefer it.

> When you navigate via keyboard (by pressing "f"), Vimperator marks links with numbers, Vimium marks them with letters, from ("a to "zz'). Letters are much nicer when you can touch type and your hands are already on the keys.

I can't get myself to use Vimium. While I agree that it is in some ways a stronger navigation experience, the fact that it goes inert on un-loaded pages is a deal breaker. Not being able to cycle through my tabs all the way is not cool (i.e. as soon as it hits gmail it ceases to respond).

Also, while I do like the alphabetic link highlights, I dislike the size. Particularly here on HN, the links can overlap making it difficult to determine what the second letter in the sequence is.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#163

Post by doktrin »

q_revert wrote: post #102
jervisfm wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are extensions I like which have no equivalent (that I know of) in Chrome Can you give an some examples of useful extensions you use that are available in Firefox but not yet in Chrome ?

vimperator is probably the most useful web extension i've ever used.. and it doesn't have a good chrome equivalent http://www.vimperator.org/vimperator

Fully agreed. I've tried both Vimium and Vrome. Neither were adequate, IMHO. Had I never touched Vimperator, Vimium would have been perfectly fine - but my bar is now set much higher.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#164

Post by Ygg2 »

numbsafari wrote: post #160
pja wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mozilla Foundation gets $300 million annually from Google: They can certainly afford to pay some developers Google level salaries if they choose to.

Okay, so if it isn't about the money, then what is the reason for losing so many developers to Google? Or is the idea that Mozilla has been losing key people to Google (as mentioned in the OP) not legitimate?

If I am to hypothesize, I'd say they are tired of Mozilla's way of doing stuff. But I have to ask to put some hard data behind this, because I hear it a lot, and I don't see much evidence for it.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#165

Post by lucb1e »

lucb1e wrote: post #78

> many of its changes have simply been copying the way Google Chrome works Yeah all car manufacturers copy each other as well. They all got steering wheels and other things that we expect of modern cars. I don't think the fast release cycle nor the copied UI is an improvement, but they should take from Chrome whatever they think is an improvement. In fact, I believe Opera was the first to use this UI and you could ju…

Oh and nevermind that Chrome uses Firefox' NSS.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#166

Post by adrow »

jervisfm wrote: post #99
nathanb wrote: post #67

This article is, in my opinion, not very good. It documents areas where Firefox differs from Chrome, yes, but it fails to make the case why I should care. * I don't want a multi-process architecture, I want it so one tab can't kill my entire browser. If Firefox can get there in a different way than Chrome, so much the better. * I don't care whether or not my browser utilizes certain Windows features, since I run Linu…

> There are extensions I like which have no equivalent (that I know of) in Chrome Can you give an some examples of useful extensions you use that are available in Firefox but not yet in Chrome ?

Live HTTP Headers

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#167

Post by snogglethorpe »

mtgx wrote: post #82
nathanb wrote: post #67

This article is, in my opinion, not very good. It documents areas where Firefox differs from Chrome, yes, but it fails to make the case why I should care. * I don't want a multi-process architecture, I want it so one tab can't kill my entire browser. If Firefox can get there in a different way than Chrome, so much the better. * I don't care whether or not my browser utilizes certain Windows features, since I run Linu…

Why wouldn't you want a multi-process architecture? It's bad enough that so many apps can utilize the quad core CPU's we have in our PC's. At least the browser is one app that can fully take advantage of multiple cores, unlike most apps out there.

It's significantly more difficult to share resources between processes than it is between threads. There are certainly things you can do, but it requires much more effort (especially if you're trying to be portable), and the results typically aren't anywhere near as good.

The effect of this is pretty obvious with chrome vs. FF: chrome memory usage grows a lot faster with multiple tabs than FF's memory usage does. OTOH, it's easier to manually control usage in chrome by killing tabs. Which of these effects is more important depends on your needs (so I tend to switch between chrome and FF...).

Anyway, anybody claiming that chrome is "obviously" better than FF these days is on crack. They are both very good, and each has its strong points and weak points, but they're pretty much on par...

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#168

Post by rogerbinns »

TheEskimo wrote: post #119
rogerbinns wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too recently tried to switch back from Chrome to Firefox, but gave up. Lots of tabs highlighted the single process model. I love Certificate Patrol. Ctrl-W closes tabs with Flash just fine in Chrome, but required a click outside of Flash first in Firefox. And while Chrome went it alone with Pepper, at least they did something to really isolate and contain Flash. The final straw though was wanting my vertical space…

Vertical space on linux? That's simply not true. Exhibit 1: The default firefox and chromium running on my linux (ubuntu, i3wm). http://i.imgur.com/paE173H.png . 6 pixels by default in favour of firefox . The real problem though is chrome's interface really is completely inflexible. I like a thinner browser than either of those. Hence, my firefox setup: http://i.imgur.com/XAyc8Tu.png .. 17 pixels more space than chro…

When I start up Firefox on Ubuntu running Gnome 3.6 classic or whatever they call it, I got the traditional firefox and definitely no tabs in the title bar, a bunch of vertical space used for the menus, address field and search field and the list goes on. I was able to customize the bars in order to move everything onto one line but couldn't make it the same line as the menu, and could only find bugzilla entries about not being able to move tabs to the title bar on Linux.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#169

Post by nijk »

mistercow wrote: post #120
mtgx wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you want a multi-process architecture? It's bad enough that so many apps can utilize the quad core CPU's we have in our PC's. At least the browser is one app that can fully take advantage of multiple cores, unlike most apps out there.

>At least the browser is one app that can fully take advantage of multiple cores, unlike most apps out there. Nope. The vast majority of web pages and web apps do work either on page load, or in direct response to user input. While in the background, they almost universally sit idle. Multicore has no benefit in this scenario. The exceptions are games and media, but music is the only case there where you are likely to…

Let me introduce you to my friends Gmail and Facebook.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#170

Post by ksec »

paulrouget wrote: post #115

We are working on multiprocess tabs (again). We paused our effort a couple of years ago for Firefox Desktop . Some other things were more important (we fixed most of our memory issues and improved the global responsiveness of Firefox). And some work was needed before getting multiprocess tabs ready in Firefox Desktop: - we managed to get multiprocess tabs working for Firefox on Android and for Firefox OS. The inner a…

It is just Mozilla has far to few resources and doing far too many things at the same time.

I wish Rust and Servo would come faster.

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