4 ms·

I'm a firefox user. What am I missing by not using Chrome?

roenxi 5y ago
I'll tell you what you're missing. Chatzilla. I'm still sour even years later. :'[ The serious answer is hopefully nothing.
ikurei 5y ago
Today? Nothing. I used to hop between browsers often, and for a few years Firefox felt significantly slower. Does that really matter that much? I don't think so. I often think that Firefox never really got bad, the difference between FF and Chrome was never massive. It's a bit unfair that FF lost so much market share for that small difference.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Because, at the end of the day, the internet is one big social network, there are huge positive feedback loops that will drive minor differences into massive market share differences. If one browser is 2% faster than the other, and the cost to choose one or the other is near zero, then expect huge switching. ... And that's before we factor in the far more dominant network effects, like "What comes pre-installed" and "which integrates with my accounts and syncs my aggregated data and preferences history onto a new machine transparently."
philliphaydon 5y ago
The crazy memory usage! I switched from Firefox to chrome due to FF taking so much memory. Then I switched back to FF due to chrome chewing so much memory. It’s still true today. I installed a chrome on my laptop in December. Opened it and left it on the landing page. After a Day it was chewing 3gb of memory…
- chmod775 5y ago
  Why does that matter? Both browsers will reduce their memory usage if there's actual pressure to do so. If nobody else is using that memory, they might as well.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    Anecdotally they will not.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Chrome is more of an operating system in a virtual machine in which a web browser is running.
rasz 5y ago
webSQL /1/ for one thing, killed off in the cradle because of 'developer aesthetics' https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/beyond-html5-database-apis-and-the-road-to-indexeddb/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/beyond-html5-database-apis... Ask anyone working with databases today about aesthetics of using indexeddb without wrappers hiding the shittines of mozilla brain child. 1/ yes its depreciated on paper, but it still works

I'll tell you what you're missing. Chatzilla. I'm still sour even years later. :'[ The serious answer is hopefully nothing.

ikurei 5y ago

Today? Nothing. I used to hop between browsers often, and for a few years Firefox felt significantly slower. Does that really matter that much? I don't think so. I often think that Firefox never really got bad, the difference between FF and Chrome was never massive. It's a bit unfair that FF lost so much market share for that small difference.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Because, at the end of the day, the internet is one big social network, there are huge positive feedback loops that will drive minor differences into massive market share differences. If one browser is 2% faster than the other, and the cost to choose one or the other is near zero, then expect huge switching. ... And that's before we factor in the far more dominant network effects, like "What comes pre-installed" and "which integrates with my accounts and syncs my aggregated data and preferences history onto a new machine transparently."

philliphaydon 5y ago

The crazy memory usage! I switched from Firefox to chrome due to FF taking so much memory. Then I switched back to FF due to chrome chewing so much memory. It’s still true today. I installed a chrome on my laptop in December. Opened it and left it on the landing page. After a Day it was chewing 3gb of memory…

chmod775 5y ago
Why does that matter? Both browsers will reduce their memory usage if there's actual pressure to do so. If nobody else is using that memory, they might as well.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Anecdotally they will not.
shadowgovt 5y ago
Chrome is more of an operating system in a virtual machine in which a web browser is running.

rasz 5y ago

webSQL /1/ for one thing, killed off in the cradle because of 'developer aesthetics' https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/beyond-html5-database-apis-and-the-road-to-indexeddb/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/beyond-html5-database-apis... Ask anyone working with databases today about aesthetics of using indexeddb without wrappers hiding the shittines of mozilla brain child. 1/ yes its depreciated on paper, but it still works