Firefox vs Chrome

[Adamse]

I use firefox because I am use to it and have used it for so many years now. All the other web browsers just tend to annoy me now, I used chrome for a bit and I had a similar experience as Marsh had..

[Myron]

I've been switching browsers for years. After Internet Explorer, I used Google Chrome for a while until it accidentally my whole session and bookmarks so I started using Mozilla Firefox, a browser I quite hated at that time, from that point on and was only disappointed a few times.

Point is: Every update the two browsers get, seems to ruin it for at least one person.

[Chief]

I usually have at least 10+ tabs open while using chrome, and it never freezes up or slows my computer down. But, when I open firefox to test my websites, it takes a while to start up, and then likes to freeze with only one tab open.

[Drummerpete]

I use Chrome simply because it loads faster.
I used to use Firefox before that and I really think they are both brilliant.
I also used Opera for a bit. There was nothing wrong with that either.

[Jumbofile]

I use Opera but between the two Chrome wins.

[saadhamza]

Oh, another problem for me with firefox was the fact that it made me freeze so often. I don't know why it did, but it did.

[Harris6310]

Chrome has a feature where if you click the address bar, it selects all of the text. This is the only thing I chose Chrome over Firefox for. Other than that, they're both equal for me.

[Anna Comnena]

@Harris:

> Chrome has a feature where if you click the address bar, it selects all of the text. This is the only thing I chose Chrome over Firefox for. Other than that, they're both equal for me.

Um… like every browser does that?

[ToshiroHayate]

>! 

Who will win?

[abhi2011]

Awesome pic Man!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jeff]

@Harris:

> Chrome has a feature where if you click the address bar, it selects all of the text. This is the only thing I chose Chrome over Firefox for. Other than that, they're both equal for me.

I'm pretty sure that that has nothing to do with Chrome or Firefox. Isn't it controlled by your OS?

[crzyone9584]

I think its chrome. It happens on my family computer, school and my own computer. Yet IE and Firefox doesn't do it.

[Jeff]

@i:

> I think its chrome. It happens on my family computer, school and my own computer. Yet IE and Firefox doesn't do it.

I just tested it. While clicking the Address bar has slightly different effects on the two browsers, both of them select all on the first click.

[Robin]

@i:

> I think its chrome. It happens on my family computer, school and my own computer. Yet IE and Firefox doesn't do it.

Does it just fine on Firefox both at home and at work. What the hell are you doing?

[Harris6310]

It was a while ago when I tried them both.

[deathtaker26]

umm, yeah@Anna:

> Remember what board this is (for whomever is missing a post they made).

Yeah, why was this moved exactly. Isn't this considered a debate xD

[Drummerpete]

@Crest:

> Yeah, why was this moved exactly. Isn't this considered a debate xD

Read the god damn sticky posts.
http://www.touchofdeathforums.com/smf/index.php/topic,43075.0.html

[Lenton]

@Crest:

> Isn't this considered a debate xD

It's debatable.

[Godlord]

@Crest:

> umm, yeah
> Yeah, why was this moved exactly. Isn't this considered a debate xD

Thus far I've refused to post in this thread because I haven't seen any proper arguments yet. There really is a difference between a thread that merely includes fanaticism, and a thread that actually holds a properly structured debate.

Yours faithfully
  S.J.R. van Schaik.

[Anna Comnena]

Yeah I didn't move it, I just removed a spam post, which ironically now would be acceptible in the thread since it has been moved to Chit-Chat. But this thread did kind of feel like a Coke v. Pepsi type of thread anyway.

Edit: anyway for this topic in itself, I prefer Firefox because I'm comfortable with it. Also early on there was that drama about Chrome spying on you and whatnot (and now with the recent Google privacy changes) I'm trying to ween myself off the Google juggernaught somewhat; call me a hipster contrarian if ya want, that's more than fair.

[Drummerpete]

@Anna:

> Also early on there was that drama about Chrome spying on you and whatnot (and now with the recent Google privacy changes)

You live in America - you're not allowed privacy.

[Anna Comnena]

Wait… someone from the UK is talking about not having privacy? xD

[Drummerpete]

@Anna:

> Wait… someone from the UK is talking about not having privacy? xD

Hey, I never said it was any better here. xD

[Godlord]

The majority of issues that have been pointed out with Mozilla Firefox can be neglected for two reasons. The majority of those issues exist with almost all browsers, and the world-wide web is simply poorly designed.

The world-wide web is simply put a set of mark-up languages, styling languages and scripting languages on top of a text protocol. These mark-up languages (e.g. HTML, XHTML, XML, SVG, etc.) have to parsed and translated to DOM-trees, additionally styling languages like CSS tell specific attributes of nodes in these DOM-trees, and finally scripting languages like Javascript can be used to interact with this DOM-tree. This all enforces browsers to deal with a rather complicated design that generally ends up consuming a lot of resources, since not only this DOM-tree has to be built from all the scripts that the client downloads, but it also has to be rendered (which also consumes a lot of resources).

To make matters worse: most browsers tend to use GDI on Microsoft Windows, which can be extremely buggy from time to time. This is why Mozilla Firefox has a major advantage on Linux: GDI doesn't exist, and instead X11, and more directly Pango and Cairo are being used, which do support better rendering. In fact, from my experiences I've seen that Google Chrome performs worse than Mozilla Firefox on Linux systems, albeit Google Chrome using multi-processing for the multitude of web pages.

Not only are lots of resources being used, and do some implementations have the potential of showing odd behaviour, the world-wide web as it is today is overcomplicated. You have to realise that implementing a web browser involves more than writing a simple XML to a DOM-tree parser, a Javascript parsing engine and a CSS-parser. A wide set of standards do exist: HTML, XHTML, XML, SVG, CSS, Javascript, etc. and not only do browsers have to support every single standard out there, they also have to support about every version that is still in use today.

On top of all these standards, security enhancements have to be provided as well, and the majority of browsers in use today fail to actually achieve this. I've exploited SVG, HTML, Javascript and Ajax to actually allow me to acquire administrator powers (Blackboard, which is widely deployed across many universities), which has been fixed after it had been reported to the actual company developing Blackboard. The fact that cookies can be stolen in Javascript, enforced the introduction of HTTP-only cookies (which are only supported by a few browsers).

The exploit, which is quite frankly a chain of exploits, will not be discussed in detail by me, since the majority of browsers still have none of these exploits fixed (except for Microsoft Internet Explorer, which has some older versions not supporting SVG), and as they might form a vulnerability for the majority of websites.

Finally, developing a browser is quite the tedious task. Not only does it involve supporting a wide set of standards, but it also involves making sure that it is secure and that it works properly. Compiling Mozilla Firefox, for instance, is one of the very few compilations that actually takes a long time on my Linux system, and that's with a reason, more so, the reasons I've pointed out here. Therefore I wouldn't bother comparing browsers, but rather the world-wide web with alternatives that yet have to be developed.

Yours faithfully
  S.J.R. van Schaik.

[evilbunnie]

Stephan posted.

Next time, make a topic with an **actual** debate.
/thread