5 ms·

I tried using Chrome (from a decade+ of using Firefox) and while it is definitely faster in some instances, it is also laggier in others. Tab switching is noti

I tried using Chrome (from a decade+ of using Firefox) and while it is definitely faster in some instances, it is also laggier in others. Tab switching is noticably slower for me, for instance. I also found it frustrating that it would draw an unusable interface before it was done loading, which 'felt' faster, right up until I wanted to actually use it. Chrome has some good points though - its scrolling feels much better, one tab (flash) crashing doesn't take out the entire browser and I can just switch to another tab until it recovers and (obviously) Google products have much better performance. Ultimately though, its slowness in other areas, plus its inherrently broken mouse gestures, meant that I switched back to Firefox. I do wish Firefox was a bit faster moving. I know there are difficulties in dealing with a huge, old codebase, but I just wish features that Chrome has had for years, like chromeless app windows and multiprocess would just hurry up. Features like window-based private browsing took years to migrate from Chrome, and it's frustrating as you said to be perpetually caught in a game of catch up.

epsylon 13y ago
> one tab (flash) crashing doesn't take out the entire browser It hasn't been the case for years. Plugins are sandboxed. (plugin-container.exe) The broken mouse gestures on Chrome are the single most important dealbreaker for me. I will never go back to a browser without good mouse support (which Chrome isn't).
- batiudrami 13y ago
  Eh, I still get lockups for whatever reason, and I have to wait 30 seconds for the browser to recover, I can't just switch tab and do other things while I'm waiting like with Chrome.
id 13y ago
You can disable smooth scrolling in Firefox. tools > options > advanced > general
blueskin_ 13y ago
Wait, you think Chrome's scrolling is better? It's not as horrible as it was at launch; I'll give it that, but it still just feels wrong compared to Firefox's.
- batiudrami 13y ago
  This actually might be a fairly uncommon use case - I tend to scroll by clicking the middle mouse wheel and dragging down. On big, multimedia-heavy pages like The Verge (which can clock in at multiple megabytes in size), scrolling on Firefox is laggy, and on Chrome it is smooth.
  - Eupolemos 13y ago
    I personally hate how Chrome scrolls in "chunks" rather than smoothly. My FF scrolls just fine on The Verge.
    - blueskin_ 13y ago
      Mine does too. Probably performance-related; Chrome does have a tendency to waste huge amounts of memory. Smooth scrolling is nicer than jumping in my opinion, but firefox gives an option for the latter if people want it.
- nnq 13y ago
  Designers tend to be extremely annoyed by Chrome's scrolling. I should count the time I've heard this or something similar from a designer: "but let's use css-transitions instead of free-form scrolling, it's so-much-smoother on Chrome than that ugly chunky scroll, and most of our users are on Chrome so let's just move over that ugly free-scrolling, it's so 90's anyway" (if he/she actually got the argument this far, I'm already imagining having a foot on his/her neck and driving a chair foot through his/her skull repeatedly while splashing his/her brains on the walls...) That's the most detrimental effect of Chrome's scroll I think: it makes designers want to look for alternatives to scrolling websites, and unfortunately for all of us, these "gorgeous" but completely user-hostile alternatives exist. And good luck if you get on such a website with js disabled if it wasn't coded in a gracefully degradable way...

epsylon 13y ago

> one tab (flash) crashing doesn't take out the entire browser It hasn't been the case for years. Plugins are sandboxed. (plugin-container.exe) The broken mouse gestures on Chrome are the single most important dealbreaker for me. I will never go back to a browser without good mouse support (which Chrome isn't).

batiudrami 13y ago
Eh, I still get lockups for whatever reason, and I have to wait 30 seconds for the browser to recover, I can't just switch tab and do other things while I'm waiting like with Chrome.

id 13y ago

You can disable smooth scrolling in Firefox. tools > options > advanced > general

blueskin_ 13y ago

Wait, you think Chrome's scrolling is better? It's not as horrible as it was at launch; I'll give it that, but it still just feels wrong compared to Firefox's.

batiudrami 13y ago
This actually might be a fairly uncommon use case - I tend to scroll by clicking the middle mouse wheel and dragging down. On big, multimedia-heavy pages like The Verge (which can clock in at multiple megabytes in size), scrolling on Firefox is laggy, and on Chrome it is smooth.
- Eupolemos 13y ago
  I personally hate how Chrome scrolls in "chunks" rather than smoothly. My FF scrolls just fine on The Verge.
  - blueskin_ 13y ago
    Mine does too. Probably performance-related; Chrome does have a tendency to waste huge amounts of memory. Smooth scrolling is nicer than jumping in my opinion, but firefox gives an option for the latter if people want it.
nnq 13y ago
Designers tend to be extremely annoyed by Chrome's scrolling. I should count the time I've heard this or something similar from a designer: "but let's use css-transitions instead of free-form scrolling, it's so-much-smoother on Chrome than that ugly chunky scroll, and most of our users are on Chrome so let's just move over that ugly free-scrolling, it's so 90's anyway" (if he/she actually got the argument this far, I'm already imagining having a foot on his/her neck and driving a chair foot through his/her skull repeatedly while splashing his/her brains on the walls...) That's the most detrimental effect of Chrome's scroll I think: it makes designers want to look for alternatives to scrolling websites, and unfortunately for all of us, these "gorgeous" but completely user-hostile alternatives exist. And good luck if you get on such a website with js disabled if it wasn't coded in a gracefully degradable way...