5 ms·

Chrome also had the advantage of being advertised on Google.com.

tdkl 11y ago
It also had an advantage of being a friggin' fast browser. I switched in 2009 and never looked back beside occasionally trying out FF and nope'ing back to Chrome.
- shmerl 11y ago
  Firefox became faster than Chrome quite a while ago already. Not sure what you were measuring.
  - Aldo_MX 11y ago
    UI Responsiveness probably, any perception of speed is lost if loading a website freezes the entire browser for several msecs.
    - Drdrdrq 11y ago
      This. I love FF and use it wherever I can, but there are small tricks in Chrome that make it seem much faster in normal use. No matter what you do, action feedback is instant. Firefox should really imitate this.
    - delecti 11y ago
      Yep. A bit part of the perception of speed isn't "always be fast", it's "never be slow".
  - acdha 11y ago
    When talking about a piece of software as complicated as a modern browser, “became faster” is too broad to have any meaning at all — you can find specific features where almost any browser is faster. In the case of Chrome and Firefox, they're competitive enough that you really need to say both what you're measuring and how you measured it. People tend to say one is faster than the other when they most commonly mean “the set of extensions I installed in A slowed it down more than B”.
    - Aldo_MX 10y ago
      No, we are talking about the architecture of the browsers in areas where there is significant impact (ie. UI Responsiveness), this has nothing to do with extensions. In Chrome when you load a JS-intensive website (ex. Facebook) you can switch to a different tab while the website finishes doing that JS-intensive task (ex. loading), but in Firefox the opposite happens, the entire browser freezes so you are forced to wait until the browser becomes responsive again. We are talking in the order of magnitude of milliseconds, but unfortunately it is enough to be perceptible (and annoying). Fortunately for FF, e10s[1] is almost baked, it still doesn't feel as responsive as Chrome BUT it feels significantly better so you can easily neglect the difference until it matures or something better (Servo[2]) gets baked. [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis [2] https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/
      - acdha 10y ago
        That may be what you thought we're talking about but the comment I replied to was simply “Firefox became faster than Chrome quite a while ago already”. My point was simply that without providing more detail, those comments are so vague to be useless.
  - yomly 11y ago
    I have a policy of keeping personal browsing on chrome and work based browsing on FF. Every now and then FF will inexplicably hang for over 5 seconds on a page that is probably already cached. I never notice this on chrome, and my connection speed is over 100MBps.. Other times, FF is lightning quick - near instantaneous loads - only other thing I can think of is that I'm running FF on Fedora?
    - shmerl 11y ago
      On Linux until full Wayland switch will happen, performance won't be optimal. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1038800 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1038800
    - shmerl 11y ago
      See also https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=740200 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=740200
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Honestly I just like Chrome's UI better... I have to use IE/Edge, Chrome, Safari and Firefox regularly to test things... I keep coming back. I had higher hopes for FF android, as it allows plugins (adblock), but the browser is so horrible on the platform, I wound up switching back... I also tried dolphin for a while. Neither was satisfactory. I just like chrome better...
    - Aldo_MX 10y ago
      My experience in Android is a different one, I'm using a FF fork (Adblock Browser) and my mobile life has never been better. Unfortunately outside America the mobile web is a malvertising minefield, and the malvertisers target the carriers directly, so there is no way to expect ad networks (ex. AdSense) to proactively hunt for them. A browser with integrated AdBlock is the most sensible option you can have in a non-rooted device, and the easiest one you can recommend to friends and colleagues.
      - tracker1 10y ago
        Do you happen to use lastpass? Is there an integration there either with the android app, or with the browser itself that works? I'm just curious as the chrome app can tell what url is in the browser, and peak into the page... This detail doesn't work in ff, dolphin and others I've tried so far. I know that is a separate issue... would really like my password manager & adblock & the app window/tabs where each "tab" is a separate window instead of integrated tab-bar, which isn't very nice at all on a phone.
zobzu 11y ago
anywhere i go without an adblocker begs me to install chrome and stop using whatever horrible outdated browser im using (according to the google ad), and how youtube, etc work best with chrome anyway thats quite a lot of powerful advertisement, on the sites people browse every day. its not too different than being part of the default install IMO ;-) and of course - chrome is a pretty good browser (though edge is actually quite good and firefox is pretty much ok as well despite not yet doing sandboxing)
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  And the thing is it's sadly not a lie. YouTube and such do work best with Chrome. Google's effective web vertical integration means they control every stage of the pipeline. They control the sites and the browser. They can deploy experimental tech in Chrome which nobody knows about and which only Google sites use. It's terrifying.
  - ahochhaus 11y ago
    One example of "google only APIs" that I ran into recently is the chrome extension browserAction.openPopup API. This API is whitelisted (in stable) for use by the Google Cast extension. Extensions authored outside of Google cannot use it. This is creates an uneven playing field. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=436489 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=436489
    - Razengan 11y ago
      So when are they going to get hit by lawsuits like the ones Microsoft got in the '90s?
      - kenshaw 11y ago
        They've already been hit with that in the EU. And, I imagine the first thing after this current election cycle in the US ends will be newly minted (or newly defrocked, as the case may be) politicians attempting to take a cheap shot at Google -- especially since Popular Luddism is circling the political backwaters these days.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
Reminds me of the Microsoft OEM deals and IE. Shows just how much like their opponent Google really is. :)
- euyyn 11y ago
  Microsoft's only interest in IE was to protect the Windows monopoly by suffocating Netscape and its Java Applets. And they told OEMs they wouldn't sell them Windows at all if they preinstalled Netscape or uninstalled IE. Which is why they got sued by the government and lost the trial. Kind of different if you ask me.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Much worse version of monopolistic tactics I agree.
  - scholia 11y ago
    As a matter of fact, Microsoft won the browser case 2-1 on appeal. It was found guilty in the larger anti-trust case, but not in the browser case. See Microsoft Wins In Appeals Court -- It Gets OK To Require Use Of Its Internet Browser; Special Master Booted http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980623&slug=2757664 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199... Microsoft Wins Key Ruling An Appeals Court Said The Company's Browser Can Be Integrated Into Windows 95. The U.s. Had Sued To Stop It. http://articles.philly.com/1998-06-24/news/25728049_1_windows-software-appeals-court-internet-explorer http://articles.philly.com/1998-06-24/news/25728049_1_window... etc
neves 11y ago
It was the only browser that I ever saw an ad in TV prime time.
- toomanythings2 11y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFE4rkSaKOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFE4rkSaKOY
millstone 11y ago
And still does! It's obnoxious that Google shows more ads to non-Chrome browsers.
hackuser 11y ago
> Chrome also had the advantage of being advertised on Google.com. The most valuable advertising space in the world?
toomanythings2 11y ago
IE and Edge have the advantage of being advertised on nearly every PC in the universe.

tdkl 11y ago

It also had an advantage of being a friggin' fast browser. I switched in 2009 and never looked back beside occasionally trying out FF and nope'ing back to Chrome.

shmerl 11y ago
Firefox became faster than Chrome quite a while ago already. Not sure what you were measuring.
- Aldo_MX 11y ago
  UI Responsiveness probably, any perception of speed is lost if loading a website freezes the entire browser for several msecs.
  - Drdrdrq 11y ago
    This. I love FF and use it wherever I can, but there are small tricks in Chrome that make it seem much faster in normal use. No matter what you do, action feedback is instant. Firefox should really imitate this.
  - delecti 11y ago
    Yep. A bit part of the perception of speed isn't "always be fast", it's "never be slow".
- acdha 11y ago
  When talking about a piece of software as complicated as a modern browser, “became faster” is too broad to have any meaning at all — you can find specific features where almost any browser is faster. In the case of Chrome and Firefox, they're competitive enough that you really need to say both what you're measuring and how you measured it. People tend to say one is faster than the other when they most commonly mean “the set of extensions I installed in A slowed it down more than B”.
  - Aldo_MX 10y ago
    No, we are talking about the architecture of the browsers in areas where there is significant impact (ie. UI Responsiveness), this has nothing to do with extensions. In Chrome when you load a JS-intensive website (ex. Facebook) you can switch to a different tab while the website finishes doing that JS-intensive task (ex. loading), but in Firefox the opposite happens, the entire browser freezes so you are forced to wait until the browser becomes responsive again. We are talking in the order of magnitude of milliseconds, but unfortunately it is enough to be perceptible (and annoying). Fortunately for FF, e10s[1] is almost baked, it still doesn't feel as responsive as Chrome BUT it feels significantly better so you can easily neglect the difference until it matures or something better (Servo[2]) gets baked. [1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis [2] https://servo.org/ https://servo.org/
    - acdha 10y ago
      That may be what you thought we're talking about but the comment I replied to was simply “Firefox became faster than Chrome quite a while ago already”. My point was simply that without providing more detail, those comments are so vague to be useless.
- yomly 11y ago
  I have a policy of keeping personal browsing on chrome and work based browsing on FF. Every now and then FF will inexplicably hang for over 5 seconds on a page that is probably already cached. I never notice this on chrome, and my connection speed is over 100MBps.. Other times, FF is lightning quick - near instantaneous loads - only other thing I can think of is that I'm running FF on Fedora?
  - shmerl 11y ago
    On Linux until full Wayland switch will happen, performance won't be optimal. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1038800 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1038800
  - shmerl 11y ago
    See also https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=740200 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=740200
- tracker1 11y ago
  Honestly I just like Chrome's UI better... I have to use IE/Edge, Chrome, Safari and Firefox regularly to test things... I keep coming back. I had higher hopes for FF android, as it allows plugins (adblock), but the browser is so horrible on the platform, I wound up switching back... I also tried dolphin for a while. Neither was satisfactory. I just like chrome better...
  - Aldo_MX 10y ago
    My experience in Android is a different one, I'm using a FF fork (Adblock Browser) and my mobile life has never been better. Unfortunately outside America the mobile web is a malvertising minefield, and the malvertisers target the carriers directly, so there is no way to expect ad networks (ex. AdSense) to proactively hunt for them. A browser with integrated AdBlock is the most sensible option you can have in a non-rooted device, and the easiest one you can recommend to friends and colleagues.
    - tracker1 10y ago
      Do you happen to use lastpass? Is there an integration there either with the android app, or with the browser itself that works? I'm just curious as the chrome app can tell what url is in the browser, and peak into the page... This detail doesn't work in ff, dolphin and others I've tried so far. I know that is a separate issue... would really like my password manager & adblock & the app window/tabs where each "tab" is a separate window instead of integrated tab-bar, which isn't very nice at all on a phone.

zobzu 11y ago

anywhere i go without an adblocker begs me to install chrome and stop using whatever horrible outdated browser im using (according to the google ad), and how youtube, etc work best with chrome anyway thats quite a lot of powerful advertisement, on the sites people browse every day. its not too different than being part of the default install IMO ;-) and of course - chrome is a pretty good browser (though edge is actually quite good and firefox is pretty much ok as well despite not yet doing sandboxing)

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
And the thing is it's sadly not a lie. YouTube and such do work best with Chrome. Google's effective web vertical integration means they control every stage of the pipeline. They control the sites and the browser. They can deploy experimental tech in Chrome which nobody knows about and which only Google sites use. It's terrifying.
- ahochhaus 11y ago
  One example of "google only APIs" that I ran into recently is the chrome extension browserAction.openPopup API. This API is whitelisted (in stable) for use by the Google Cast extension. Extensions authored outside of Google cannot use it. This is creates an uneven playing field. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=436489 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=436489
  - Razengan 11y ago
    So when are they going to get hit by lawsuits like the ones Microsoft got in the '90s?
    - kenshaw 11y ago
      They've already been hit with that in the EU. And, I imagine the first thing after this current election cycle in the US ends will be newly minted (or newly defrocked, as the case may be) politicians attempting to take a cheap shot at Google -- especially since Popular Luddism is circling the political backwaters these days.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

Reminds me of the Microsoft OEM deals and IE. Shows just how much like their opponent Google really is. :)

euyyn 11y ago
Microsoft's only interest in IE was to protect the Windows monopoly by suffocating Netscape and its Java Applets. And they told OEMs they wouldn't sell them Windows at all if they preinstalled Netscape or uninstalled IE. Which is why they got sued by the government and lost the trial. Kind of different if you ask me.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Much worse version of monopolistic tactics I agree.
- scholia 11y ago
  As a matter of fact, Microsoft won the browser case 2-1 on appeal. It was found guilty in the larger anti-trust case, but not in the browser case. See Microsoft Wins In Appeals Court -- It Gets OK To Require Use Of Its Internet Browser; Special Master Booted http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980623&slug=2757664 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199... Microsoft Wins Key Ruling An Appeals Court Said The Company's Browser Can Be Integrated Into Windows 95. The U.s. Had Sued To Stop It. http://articles.philly.com/1998-06-24/news/25728049_1_windows-software-appeals-court-internet-explorer http://articles.philly.com/1998-06-24/news/25728049_1_window... etc

neves 11y ago

It was the only browser that I ever saw an ad in TV prime time.

toomanythings2 11y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFE4rkSaKOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFE4rkSaKOY

millstone 11y ago

And still does! It's obnoxious that Google shows more ads to non-Chrome browsers.

hackuser 11y ago

> Chrome also had the advantage of being advertised on Google.com. The most valuable advertising space in the world?

toomanythings2 11y ago

IE and Edge have the advantage of being advertised on nearly every PC in the universe.