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Chrome 15 Overtakes IE 8 For Top Browser Spot
An anonymous reader writes "If you're reading this on Chrome, you're part of a wave that has ditched Internet Explorer or Firefox and helped vault Google's browser to the top Web browser spot worldwide." Are you reading this on Chrome? (I'm using Chromium right now, but that's pretty close.)
IE lagging behind again.
Google's decision to drop native h264 support in Chrome means I deleted it and won't be installing it again. Likewise, I steer all clients away from it and do not even bother to test our websites in it. I thought it was finally time for the browser wars to be over and for everything to really work in whichever browser was chosen easily. Then Google pulled that one. Idiots.
This is complete nonsense, if you take into account all versions of said browsers, IE still comes out on top. Who cares that a particular version (numbering incompatibility?!) is more used than another?
Also are they lumping all versions of Chrome together? All versions of Firefox together?
Seems misleading...
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
I am using Chrome 18 right now
Probably, but the Googlelluminati have now put it in second.
rewriting history since 2109
15? They are behind a bit, I am running 18
I simply can't understand how a browser with such a godawful interface could get so popular.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Well I never. Next you'll be saying they do a mobile OS, or even more far-fetched: a search engine.
What if you use both Chrome and Firefox or Chrome and Internet Explorer (not that I can see much incentive for Chrome and IE)? Wouldn't the results be inaccurate?
Used to at least like to think of myself as a free thinking, rebellious edgy kind of guy.
Now just part of the herd, I guess.
*sigh*
Check your premises.
Posting this from Iceweasel 8.0/Debian Wheezy.
Once you've got used to some of the better add-ons (adblock, noscript, peraperakun, tabmixplus, treeestyletabs) it's hard to make a change.
I don't care enough about slightly lower memory usage or slightly shorter start-up times (4GB of RAM, browser running for a week on average).
I don't get the advantages of chrome.
I've used chrome, and I experience more of a vendor-lock-down feeling with it. Of course there are a lot of extensions, but they seem more of an afterthought as compared with Firefox.
The biggest problem of Firefox ATM is that they are copying chrome too much instead of choosing their own direction.
That's all.
The one thing that keeps me off Chrome for serious web browsing is the lack of a **full** equivalent to Tree Style Tab. I've found various attempts, but until something with all the critical features is available, I can't leave Firefox.
And yes, it's that important. I find serious web browsing without tree tabs is basically unusable.
Some analysis of Chrome extensions I've tried follows below, along with a longer explaination of why tree tabs matter.
-----
Why tree tabs are important
Critical features:
* Arrange tabs in a hierarchy (subordinate/superior relationships)
* Links middle-clicked to open in a new tab, open under the current tab
* You can collapse branches of the tabs tree, like a folder tree in Explorer/Outlook
* You can drag tabs around to restructure the tree
For example, my current top-level hierarchies at work are "PVI clusterfsck", "vern buerg list", "to read", "vmware ctrl alt del", "new server", and "training". "training" has four immediate subtabs, each for various training providers we use at $WORK. Each of those is an exploration of their course hierarchy. I can expand or collapse any section or subsection as my focus changes. I can also bookmark branches for later.
For me, at least, knowledge isn't linear, it's tree structured. The Back/Forward paradigm is totally inadequate for the task.
-----
Tree Style Tabs (Beta)
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ffididlaalcoegfcalmeldjfnihmoech
Unfortunately, it's lacking some features. The biggest is that it
doesn't actually replace the tab bar across the top of the screen.
Rather, it gives you a new toolbar button, which, when clicked, drops
down a tree structure. No way to make that appear permanently, that I
can see. (TreeStyleTab appears much like a "side bar" in Firefox.)
The tree structure does reflect which tab opened from which. But I
can't drag tabs or branches to organize them, nor can I
collapse/expand branches.
-----
Tab Sense
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oiabeebnmckkdjloeofbfladabfhedlg
Similar to the "Tree Style Tabs (Beta)" above. Same
button-not-a-sidebar issue. Does allow collapse/expand, which is
good. It opens up a new Google Chrome window to hold collapsed tabs
(with the message to minimize it and forget about it), which is rather
kludgey. Still can't drag tabs.
-----
Tabs Manager
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ioigddmjfpphkbamgbaolfkpifddnaje
Same button-not-a-sidebar issue. Tab structure doesn't appear to
reflect browsing history. Seems to have only two levels, a "folder"
it creates, and all your tabs. Does allow dragging of those tabs, but
I'm not sure what the point is. Can't find a way to create a folder.
I'm not quite sure what the point is.
-----
Some of these limitations might be due to Chrome's architecture,
rather than the extension programmers. In particular, I suspect
Chrome just doesn't let extensions have enough access to the UI to do
anything really useful. Which is a shame, because Chrome feels so
much faster than Firefox.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Didn't Microsoft the other day that they are going to silently upgrade IE6 to IE8? I would think that number could push IE8 back on top of Chrome.
There is an AdBlock addon 4 Opera too -> http://www.bing.com/search?q=AdBlock+for+Opera&go=&qs=bs&form=QBLH )
Plus? Well:
You can even Right-Click on pages & select "Block Content" & that can "do the job" easily enough on adbanners & more on ANY page...
However, Opera has PLENTY of BUILT-IN NATIVE OPTIONS for control of things in its GLOBAL & OVERRIDE/BY SITE menu options for what you mention:
1.) Tools Menu
2.) Preferences
3.) General tab has "popup control" (a source of malware sometimes)
4.) Advanced tab has
a.) Cookies
b.) Plugins
c.) Security (security protocols like BETTER THAN TLS 1.x)
d.) Certificates control
e.) Trusted Website mgt.
f.) Master Password controls
( & more)
5.) Network section has
a.) Proxy control
b.) Network referrer control
c.) Geolocation control
( & more)
6.) MOST IMPORTANTLY vs. Javascript &/or Plugins?
Opera's CONTENT TAB controls java, javascript, plugins (only on demand setting too optional), style options (where you can use your own PROTECTIVE css filters even, which I do, alongside HOSTS &/or PAC files).
Pretty much ALL YOU NEED to stop yourself from being bombarded by ads, OR WORSE, being infested/infected by malware thru them!
* OPERA ROCKS - & only just got better in 64-bit, & right in time for Christmas too...
APK
P.S.=> Nicest part is, it has an overrides section where you can MAKE EXCEPTIONS, by site (in bysite preferences of the same area above)...
... apk
While my personal preference is for Safari, as a designer, this is good news, on two fronts. First, anything that knocks IE market share down is a great thing because I, like every web designer out there, am sick and tired of uttering the phrase "it works perfectly in every browser _except_ IE..." Second, I think it's good because, pure and simple, I think the Webkit engine is phenomenal. Both Safari and Chrome have deep HTML5/CSS3 compatibility and, more importantly, they are capable of things that allow web designers to do some really spectacular things. While I would love to see Safari market share increase, I'll be very happy to see webkit market share increase any way it can.
Not entirely stupid. In terms of interface there's a world of a difference between IE version 6 and IE versions 8 and up. So there's still probably a need to separate between IE version 6 and below, IE version 7, and IE version 8 and above (which are relatively close in terms of interface and standards compliance).
That desktop browser stats I would therefore like to see:
Chrome
Chromium (mainly for the GNU/Linux guys)
Firefox 3.x
Firefox 4.x+ (or should I say 4-ever)
IE 6
IE 7
IE 8+
Safari
Opera
Everybody Else (including users of IE 5.5)
Maybe, I personally haven't looked into it too much. The usability of Opera wins me over. I just visit known sites, and close any obnoxious sites. They don't deserve any traffic. For anything questionable, I suffer with Firefox.
Does Chrome have the ability yet to make text a readable size without widening the page so I have to scroll sideways?
Does it have the ability to selectively stop/play animations?
No? Then I'll be sticking with Firefox a while longer, I guess. Come back when your browser's accessible and then we'll talk.
Though a few people have pointed out that it's version specific, if you look at the actual numbers Chrome is still pretty close to IE, which is very cool. Of course, it's based on pageviews and not the number of users, and I bet most people who bother using Chrome probably use the web more than your average IE user. Is Firefox going to go bye-bye? I expect that there will always be an open source browser that has a reasonable market share. Will Firefox continue to be on top, or will we be seeing a different dominant open source browser in a couple of years?
I've used Chrome a lot and like it even more. Unfortunately, a mere day's browsing generates 700,000 writes according to windows (almost an order of magnitude over any other browser). As an SSD user, this just isn't acceptable and all the fixes are a complicated way of 'shoving the cache onto a spinning disc drive'.
I'm using Chrome 16, does that mean the most used single version browser is old or that 'NEWS' story is outdated already?
Google developers, you can relax now and start adding massive amounts of bloat that drove me from Firefox to Chrome!
People keep claiming that Chrome uses less memory than Firefox so I decided to take a look.
Memory used:
Initial start up, no pages open:
Firefox 39 MB
Chrome 56 MB
5 tabs open:
Firefox 135 MB
Chrome 152 MB
Size on disk (Windows version)
Firefox 44 MB
Chrome 75 MB
There are things that I like about Chrome and over the past couple of years Firefox has really pissed me off with their never ending bonehead design decisions. But the "Firefox is bloated" claims just don't make sense.
Things Chrome does wrong or poorly:
- video codecs, sorely lacking, needs flash
- doesn't use threads appropriately, insteads opens every page in a separate "fork" of the browser. Chrome basically wastes. Open more than one Chrome tab that has flash being used (eg gmail, any site with ads, etc) and watch as the performance suffers greatly.
- Not 64bit
This doesn't happen in firefox. However Firefox used to crash before out-of-process plugins.
This is the current status quo, the way everyone wants things to work. The program should be multithreaded correctly, and sandbox plugins as a separate process. This is also what we do on the server end. worker Apache22+mod_fastcgi +php5.3+php-fpm+xcache. Most efficient use of memory, only pages with php on it call the php parser, apache has a fixed memory usage.
Chrome's model looks like the old Apache1.3prefork+mod_php+apc, where every connection process eats up memory. The end result is that Prefork only lets you have like 100 connections where threaded 2.2 lets you have 4000 with the same CPU and RAM. When people rave about nginx or lighttpd they're still using varients on forking at the expense of memory use. All these web servers started out when the CPU performance per core was increasing. It's now decreasing or stagnant (2.2Ghz for the Intel E3) while cores increase.
In a web browser, flash is one of the problems. If you take flash out (flash operates so poorly with threads, that you get nothing but screen tearing if it can't monopolize all cpu's.) you still can only open about 6 tabs before a machine with 4GB of ram starts having to page swap. Try and leave twitter open for 24 hours, or gmail. Eventually they'll make the system so sluggish you'll restart the browser. This doesn't happen on firefox, I can easily open 30 tabs and not slow down unless flash drags it down. This is actually what I had been doing. Using Chrome with flash and using firefox for everything that doesn't require flash. I also use Opera with script turned off when I need to visit a site that I consider hazardous to browse (eg 4chan, hacker sites, torrent sites, download sites, basically anything that spawns nusiance popups or jacks the visible tab) even if I'm just looking at what people are yabbing on about.
Flash is on the way out. in 3 years flash, silverlight and Java won't be used on the desktop anymore. It will be HTML5 or Native binary (steam/appstore). No more security riddled extensions, plugins or other crap (toolbars) that users don't understand how to use and don't understand the privacy implications of.
Java's death-knell was Oracle. Nobody likes Oracle. Oracle only buys what they plan on squeezing money out of before they throw it away.
Yes you can.. it's in the freaking options by default you don't even need to download some shitty add-on.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Some people do.
Nothing else to say.
To take just one example, the way you can drag the tabs.
You can do all the same stuff in firefox, and have been able to since before Chrome existed.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I use what works, Firefox, Lynx, Links, Chrome. I use what will work when I need it.
On a pure 64-bit system, the memory you'll save by not having 32-bit libs loaded will eclipse any extra memory used because of longer pointers in 64-bit mode. As well, there's something annoying about having an *almost* fully 64-bit system with one or two apps holding it back. Perhaps it's an OCD thing or something :)
And now for more misleading statistics:
Windows 7 usage has surpassed all Linux and Macintosh usage*. Windows XP retains 15% share.
*statistics based on my household machine usage.
Ironically, I just switched back again. I mainly use Chromium for light-weight browsing, because it starts faster, and Firefox (or rather Nightly) when I need extensions or non-broken plugins. Apparently they still haven't managed to integrate a proper PDF viewer in Chromium, even years after one was included in the Windows version of Google Chrome.
The ones who should be worried about this are not Microsoft. Rather, they are Mozilla. This news just goes to show how irrelevant Firefox is quickly becoming. Luckily for them, they still have time. All they need to do is stop doing the stupid shit that they've been doing the past couple of years.
First, bring back the fucking menu bar and the status bar by default! The space gained by not showing them is much less valuable than the time saved by having the browser's functionality easily accessible (using the menus) and by having informational messages shown much more obviously (using the status bar). It was a really fucking stupid decision to hide these by default, and it has crippled Firefox's UI. No, I don't want to dig through about:config trying to find the right options to re-enable this functionality that shouldn't be disabled by default.
Second, go back to a sensible release schedule! Put out solid, well-tested major releases once a year. Use version numbers that are actually meaningful. Don't succumb to stupid release policies or version number shenanigans just because Chrome does. Using a sensible release schedule will also help prevent the UI from changing drastically on a monthly basis, which only serves to drive users away.
Third, fix the really fucking horrible memory and CPU consumption that Firefox has exhibited for years now. This alone is one of the major reasons why people use Chrome. It's not that they like Chrome, but rather they just don't like how Firefox consumes so much fucking memory even after short browsing sessions, and even when using a fresh installation with no extensions or add-ons installed yet. It's even less pleasant when Firefox feels so much slower than Chrome, Opera, and even IE these days.
Fourth, show the damn protocol in the URL bar by default! Yes, it's important, and no, it doesn't waste space. It was a pathetic decision to remove it, and it really made Firefox much less usable. No, I don't want to dig through about:config trying to find the right option to re-enable this functionality that shouldn't be disabled by default.
Mozilla had their most successful years before Firefox 4. It has been all downhill since then. It's also been long enough that it should be obvious that this new approach isn't working. It's driving away the core Firefox users who made Firefox what it once was. If Firefox is just going to be a poor imitation of Chrome, and inferior in many ways, then why the fuck don't people just use Chrome? Well, that's what's happening. Maybe Mozilla can get their shit together and fix this problem before Firefox is completely irrelevant.
With a stock firefox that's true.
But throw in a few popular third party extensions, and leave FireFox running for a day or two. It will start consuming all your available RAM and a good chunk of virtual memory too (growing more and more the longer you leave it open).
With other browsers, memory consumption is rarely even noticeable. I can leave safari running for *months* and it'll happily sit on around 200MB with my usual 15 or so tabs. And yes, I do have a bunch of third party extensions installed. Pretty much the same ones I had when I was using FireFox every day.
Please provide some examples. I my case, the problem is with Chrome: The inability to rearrange the tabs the way I see fit.
After letting Firefox run for about a week, it's taking up 720 MB with 10 open tabs.
At times I had over 30 open tabs, and it still took less than 1.5 GB.
That may sound like a lot, but why not make use of the 4 GB + of RAM most PCs have nowadays?
The only wishes I am making to the Firefox team are the following
- make the 64-bit Linux version perform competently
- slower release cycle, stability over features
They totally nailed it whit the extension mechanism, so all they have to do is to offer a rock-stable, fast base system and people can mix and choose extensions to get the features they want. That's perfect. Don't get lead away from the right path!!!
What has happened to Opera! Opera has always been in the lead
{argument Here} I'll download and use the 64bit version, thank you.
It's just so many sites don't work with Opera anymore
http://i39.tinypic.com/ke8ztj.jpg directv.com for one.
Opera is not only being overlooked but rejected by many. I notice you've
been mod'ed down, even here...
Battlefield 3 requires Firefox or Chrome, folks can't understand why
I don't care for those browsers, and I can't understand why I can't use Opera.
I've used Opera forever, since way back when. I've used Internet Explorer intentional one time.
I tried to download a game (Win95), the game installed itself instead. I had met ActiveX and
never trusted I.E. since, using Netscape prior to Opera. Firefox and Chrome are alright, Opera is just more...Mature.
I notice Firefox finally has a "paste and go" in address bar context menu, Opera has had
it for years, just little things like that.
Here is the real news - chrome (all versions) near tied Firefox (all versions ) in November and as of December has clearly overtaken it for the position of second most popular browser
install firebug at least. Chrome has those features built in.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Well, my primary measure has been if I leave it open on Friday, how will it react on Monday when I get back. And on that FF has failed like horribly, both Chrome and IE respond much faster. Using process explorer it seems Firefox is busy reloading a billion stack pages which a) it'd has no reason using anyway and b) even if it did, just load the few I need and display those. Maybe I'm hitting some kind of issue that leaks memory like shit, but at least that's what I find. I haven't filed a bug because honestly I don't know WTF to file the bug on, I just switched to Chrome. If I got too paranoid about what Google is doing, I'd get Chromium.. but FF is really fucked up and I don't know what'd bring it back, it'd certainly be no quick fix.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
on Opera Mobile on my Asus Transformer because the stock Honeycomb browser is way way too buggy and crashes frequently.
to write complete, coherent sentences that are understandable by other people.
about firefox. and about life in general.
stop visiting 'hacker sites', 'torrent sites', 'download sites', and 4chan.
Microsoft said only Windows Vista and Windows 7 would be auto-updated to IE 9. Windows XP, with over two years of extended support remaining, would get only IE 8. The latest versions of Chrome and Firefox run on Windows XP, unlike IE 9.
The underlying operating system can't necessarily play H.264. The vast majority of X11/Linux distributions can't. (It's an apt-get away on some distros, but only if the user clicks OK to a dialog box to the effect of This is illegal, you know.) Nor can Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Business, or Windows 7 Starter.
If MS pushed hard on IE 9
They are. It is in Windows Update
Not if you still use a PC that came with Windows XP. "Pushing hard on IE 9" can't happen until XP's end of life in 2014, so Microsoft is pushing hard on IE 8. Yes, I understand that by 2014, web developers will be clamoring for Microsoft to push hard on IE 10. But IE 10 will require Windows 7, so that can't happen until Windows Vista is EOL'd in 2017. (Source: Windows lifecycle fact sheet)
Does this mean that you have to install it multiple times on a family computer
Chrome doesn't even run on a family computer. I don't know of any web browser that runs on a family computer. And even if by "family computer" you mean a PC shared by all members of one household, there are vocal opponents to PC sharing on Slashdot who think it's normal for each member of a household to own a separate PC.
I wish there was a setting that would trigger a UAC prompt whenever you attempted to run an executable that was not owned by an administrator account.
Yeah, it's called "Software Restriction Policies" on Windows XP or "AppLocker" on Windows 7. But be prepared for it to interfere with your son's or daughter's computer science homework done in Visual Studio.
I once hit a case where I was glad my browser was a single 32-bit process, because that meant when it started leaking RAM like crazy, it only managed to use up 2GB before it couldn't allocate more working set, and therefore didn't burn up all my physical RAM. This is not a good thing to ever be happy about...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Except that there's no reason to have a pure 64bit system at this point. Loading everything as 64bit to avoid loading up 32bit libraries is just plain silly.
If you genuinely are only loading them for a few apps, there's absolutely no reason why they can't be unloaded when not in use. In practice though you end up using more memory with 64bit programs whether or not there's a perceptible difference in performance. And if you're loading more 32bit programs then you're probably going to be saving enough RAM to make it worthwhile.
I'm not really surprised that some idiot opted to mod me down, there's a lot of folks around here that know less about computing than they let on.
Yeah, the problem is when the browser actually needs more memory. I usually have between 100 and 200 tabs open in firefox, and the memory limit (and the memory leaks) are annoying. Firefox is a memory hog (and here usually dies of memory starvation sooner or later), but interestingly enough, there is no stable 64 bit release for windows. I hate Crome's interface, but it is now my main browser, because it behaves so much better than firefox.
SRWare Iron has become my browser of choice. Essentially, Chrome with all the tracking crap ripped out.
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
Firebug is the only major reason why I still use Firefox, and for years I've had a VM just for running firefox+firebug, because in my main machine, it was almost impossible to use if too much tabs are open. I find myself using more and more Chrome's tools for development, but it's not up to par with firebug yet, specially javascript debugging. But it is fun to reinstall firebug every damn time I restart firefox, because there's a new browser version and they changed plugin compatibility one more time.
I've done a lot of experiments with Firefox memory usage and extensions, and I've concluded that memory usage depends less on extensions and plugins, and a lot more on what sites you visit. I tend to surf image gallery sites, especially those that use a lot of JavaScript (such as Deviantart). After only 10 minutes of surfing, memory usage usually goes up to 500MB. After just an hour, not a week, I'm up to the 700MB mark. It might be the JavaScript, or it might be due to surfing through a hundred megs of images within an hour.
I just updated from 3.6 to 8.0.1, and I've seen memory usage go up quite a bit, even without extensions. Given all the hype about lower memory usage, and fixed memory leaks, I was surprised. Firefox is indeed faster, but memory usage is even worse than ever.
Why care about memory usage? The problem is that Firefox has always had issues with freezes every 10 seconds or so, and I presume it's due to garbage collection. The more memory Firefox uses, the longer the freezes are, resulting in interrupted browsing, typing, and lost mouse clicks. I ended up downgrading back to 3.6. The freezes actually lasted longer in 8.0.1 because the browser uses more memory. Until Mozilla adds some wait states into their memory manager, or otherwise fixes the regular freezes, I won't upgrade beyond 3.6.
survey NEVER took source machine into account! D'Oh!
Here here. I usually reboot my main machine once a month (and that's when Chrome is shutdown), but Firefox will happily crash/be unresponsive/whatever probably a dozen times during that period. If I see a video and it's choking, I already know - its time to kill firefox again. And the funny thing is, I hate Chrome's interface. That stupid menu, the lack of titlebar, the lack of statusbar, the annoying habit of shrinking the tabsize until you ca't actually read the tab's name, the bugs in the tab interface when you are out of screen (I actually use the keyboard to navigate trough tabs!), it makes me want to hit someone. But compared to firefox, it's awesome. It actually works. It doesn't suck up my memory like there's no tomorrow. I can close (or kill) misbehaved/buggy pages without bringing down the whole browser. If Chrome ever gets something like a full-featured firebug, I probably won't use firefox ever again.
The funny thing is, I use Firefox since it was called Phoenix, the unbloated stripped-down fork of Mozilla Navigator. How things have changed...
"But IE6, IE7 and IE8 could be three different browsers. They only have the name in common and the amount of work arounds needed." -- Not from a user's standpoint.
Microsoft is now planning to auto-update most IE users.
You're speaking of why a 64-bit system isn't needed at all, not why you wouldn't use a 64-bit browser. If someone is using a 64-bit system and has a valid need to do so, then one or two remaining 32-bit apps will indeed use more RAM for the 32-bit libs that are completely redundant save for the few apps that use them. Basically, if I have 1000 64-bit apps installed in a 64-bit system, it seems silly to keep 32-bit libraries around for one or two apps. Better to get rid of them as soon as a 64-bit version is available.
Now if you want to argue that (as you say) a 64-bit system isn't needed, that's really a separate discussion, and not one you can make without knowing the specific requirements of the user.
I'm using chrome. I find it to be a pretty nifty browser actually. As for internet explorer, (Sorry to all the Internet explorer users) IT SUCKS! The popups are annoying and still appear even though I have popup blocker turned on.
When life throws questions at you, Google has the answers.
Chrome includes flash and a pdf viewer and both are binary. Also a terminal client, native code implementation, yada yada. if anything chrome's "bloated"
But the asynchronous UI is good. Fennec (Firefox for mobile) adopted *FINALLY* a truely asynchronous UI and let me tell you: it rocks. pure and simple.
I just wish this will happen on Desktop too. That's the one thing to steal from Chrome (albeit it's a different technical implementation of it).
It basically means UI never blocks, nothing ever feels laggy.
We would all like to see the average internet user be weaned off of IE. But how viable are StatCounter statistics? They have 3 million sites in their network, sites that I have never read or visited. Their network seems to consist mainly of individually-run content providers, most of them stagnate.
I would say Wikimedia's stats are much more relevant and precise. It seems like these browser statistics articles just want to believe Chrome is *this* popular, when in actuality it may not be.
I support about 30+ clients (some Fortune 500s) and the demographic is primarily U.S. On some sites, I see Safari usage is more than Chrome and FF combined. By the most non-bias sites*, browser usage appears: IE (primarily IE8), Safari (including mobile), Chrome, FF. From my stats, I can only deduce that Safari is heavily used in the U.S., and Chrome and Firefox not as much.
If you care to and can share, what are your stats?
*The non-bias sites are primarily larger tourism resorts since I presume they are being visited by home/personal computers which represents their personal browser preference than company policy.
Here's how a typical conversation would go about a browser-specific issue. "Hey, does this new feature have any browser-related issues?" An IE response: "Only in IE 7. 8 fails gracefully and still works." A Firefox response: "Well, it doesn't work in Firefox 4, 6, or 7." A Chrome response: "Well there's an issue in Chrome." When Chrome updates, it does so eloquently. It does not cause random issues that occur in previous versions only, nor does it make us care about version numbers at all. It's no surprise it's helping to suck away at the other two markets (at least from a web developer's point of view). Firefox is causing the same headaches that having multiple versions of IE has caused.
I usually have between 100 and 200 tabs open in firefox, and the memory limit (and the memory leaks) are annoying. Firefox is a memory hog
Heh, I suspect that *you* are the memory hog here if you "usually" have 200 tabs open. =)
I believe you when you say Chrome works better for you. But performance with 200 tabs open has no (direct) connection to marketshare in any way.
Actually I'm not that interested in arguing, but rather want to ask how you manage to actually open/need/use that many tabs?
Tree view tabs, even opening a ton of sites only go down half way then it is empty space to the bottom...
Heh. I always need the tree collapse capability, or the tab list scrolls. I've currently got 150 tabs, according to Session Manager. Thanks to BarTab, most of them aren't loaded at any given time. I suppose you could say I'm using tabs like bookmarks, and in a way, you're right, except this alleviates the need to go to the separate thought-space of bookmarks.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I can't imagine you always browse in a fashion that is requiring that much tab organization.
Actually, yes, I pretty much do. The web is made of links, and tree tabs let me arrange tabs as I surf the web. Take Slashdot. I'll have a tab for the home page, a tab for each story discussion, a tab for each sub-thread that I want to show more comments for, and a tab for each comment I'm replying to. Elsewhere I've got Facebook and its subtabs for things happening there. If I'm watching a Youtube video, I'l often see "Related" videos I want to watch, and then *those* have related videos -- each gets a subtab. I routinely have well over 100 tabs open. I think I've got around 150 right now, at home.
I really do mean it when I say I find the web isn't usable without tree tabs. It'd be like using a browser without a "Back" button. Possible, but incredibly tedious.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Read my comments elsewhere in this subthread, and you'll see some of the other things I do with tree tabs. I really do find it incredibly useful and powerful, to the point where anything else is like a kid's-toy-version of the web. The only drawback is when I sit down at a computer that *doesn't* have these features, I'm hampered.
The other two extensions I live and die by are:
* BarTab - Unload tabs that you aren't using
* Session Manager - Save/restore tabs between browser sessions
I will warn you, that once you try out these things, you likely won't be able to surf the web happily without them.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Point, but I'll take what I can get. :-)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
But performance with 200 tabs open has no (direct) connection to marketshare in any way.
Yeah it doesn't. And I really hate Chrome's interface and their many many bugs and shortcomings with many tabs opened. But it still beats firefox in about every vector. I want a stable 64 bit firefox release for windows for years. I use IE (for online banking mostly), Firefox (now mainly because of Firebug since they started the rolling release nonsense), Chrome (as my main generic browser) and Opera (as an "alternate" generic browser). By my experience with chrome, I don't need a 64 bit browser, as long as I can use the keyboard to navigate trough tabs.
My work requires me to be fluent in different technogies and environments, so I always have a ton of tabs related to some specific product segment, some tabs related to whatever I'm working on at the moment, and some tabs related to whatever I was working yesterday. One day it maybe a samba issue, other day maybe it's a specific postgresql optimization. Right now I have postgresql's C# references, Magento API references, some programs to test/analyze/review, some Zend Framework 2.0 documentation, a OpenBSD PF examples and documentation, iSCSI FreeBSD documentation, some x86 assembly stuff, some 8052 microcontroller assembly, some pages with the CR2 format (Canon Raw Format), a font editing program, and some new/unknown DNS servers I picked up from a Slashdot story a while ago, This resumes the ~90 tabs I have _right now_ on chrome, at home. I have almost as much opened at work.
Truth be told, I read it on Firefox, though I also have Chrome running. In fact, I do my "throwaway" browsing on Chrome and "serious" browsing on Firefox. Chrome not being able to bookmark all tabs to a folder is a serious deficiency that prevents me from saving sets of links that are the result of possibly lengthy research. Another constant annoyance is Chrome saving all files to Downloads instead of giving me the option to open. This litters my Download directory with lots of junk, a problem I do not have with Firefox. And Chrome cannot be trusted to remember its open tabs after an unexpected shutdown (such as a reboot).
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
For some reason whenever I need to use firefox to test a site or something, whenever I close it, I find that about 3 hours afterwards, its taking up about 2gb of ram. I have to kill the process manually. This happens without fail. So yes, when it is freshly opened it may be better. But 3 hours after you close it, you shouldn't have to worry about it using up any ram, let alone 2gb.
Just tested on OSX with no other active applications
Chrome with CNN.com loaded into 150 tabs - CPU 80% idle (changing from 95 to 80% randomly)
Memory: 6.35GB used.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Why not have more RAM?
Assembling a desktop with 8 gigs RAM is trivial and affordable, ditto for slapping 8 gigs in a laptop. All my CPUs since '06 have been 64-bit, as have been all the operating systems (apart from some vm stuff.)
And yes, I'm glad Opera has come out with a 64-bit version. While FF is my system default, I've been using Opera for most browsing for since version 4-something. I've tried Chrome four times now, and so far each time I remove it after a week or two. I do like having some reasonable choices - I can find browsers I prefer to use, and other can do so as well.
I use pretty much all the browsers.
Firefox: Usual generic browser with NoScript on.
Chrome: My Google+ games account, YouTube and Topless Robot (since half the links on there are YouTube videos anyways.)
Internet Explorer: My "private" G+ account.
Opera: My Google Apps email account.
Along with making it easy to log into different Google related accounts without worrying about fiddling with settings, it makes it easy to switch tasks quickly based on the icons in the taskbar.
I probably ought to do some research and figure out something else to replace the IE slot with though. It feels kinda embarrassing to be using IE for anything at all on a regular basis =P
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I used to use Firefox all the time. But I like fast software (I'd be using Dillo if it could handle modern web needs) and FF just seemed to get bigger, slower and more bloated all the time and no-one at Mozilla cared. Then Chrome came out and wiped the floor with Firefox: it opened much faster (still does) and had the faster experience I was looking for. I immediately switched to Chrome/Chromium along with many other people. Firefox then improved the responsiveness of their browser considerably but they'd already lost some key market share.
A lot of desktop application coders, including some notables I used to work with, do not seem to care about the sluggish responsiveness of their frankenstein creations until someone jumps up and down and hits them with a big stick. Cases in point: Gnome, KDE and other monstrosities, massively endowed with alleged "features". On Linux I use fast light software where possible. I always enjoy watching applications and windows open instantly on five year old hardware. Posting from Chrome on Mac now.
Fuck off you predictable, useless waste of space.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
No - we laugh @ you! How can someone be so hopelessly deluded? Only apk knows for sure!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Why a separate VM? Wouldn't a separate Firefox profile suffice?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You are so far beyond pathetic I think we'll need a new branch of science to accurately define your lameness.
Or rather, we would, if anyone cared.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Oh fuck off, fuck off FUCK OFF ALREADY!!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
The SafeBrowsing stuff does keep SQLite files, but the one I see in my Chrome profile is only 5.1 MB. My Firefox urlclassifier3.sqlite file is 44 MB. My Chrome's "History" file is 151 MB. I'm on Linux.
I don't trust Google completely, but I'd be very surprised if Chrome were snooping on files all around the system. In fact, I just used strace to record every file accessed by Chrome during a quick session in which I launched it and shut it down, and the only files it accessed that weren't strictly related to the Chrome profile or the desktop environment were files that I downloaded with Chrome in the past--and those were only stat accesses, to see if the files still existed. The total size of all files accessed in my home directory was 378 MB, and the entire ~/.config/google-chrome directory is 522 MB. This is Chrome 16.0.912.63-r113337 on Kubuntu Natty.
In this case I think your paranoia is misplaced. Chrome is probably the safest contemporary web browser one can use.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
1.) A BETTER VERSION OF IT (faster) -> http://waterfoxproj.sourceforge.net/
From the FAQ page (BTW, this actually belongs on the home page):
Waterfox is basically a 64-Bit version of Firefox. The Firefox source code is taken and compiled to run specifically for 64-Bit Windows computers.
So it's Windows only. I don't need to read further.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You can do all the same stuff in firefox, and have been able to since before Chrome existed.
but only slowly and shittily.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
In terms of hours used, my Cr-48's been my primary computer since around the time I got it a year ago. I just can't beat its combination of "just works"[1] and coming back from sleep to live connection in about 5 seconds.
[1] Now that they've fixed the touchpad driver and some crash and rendering bugs.
that's odd. my windows and osx machines never had these "touchpad driver and some crash and rendering bugs" and they also return from sleep in chromeos fanboy! boy, that's new!
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Because you have more RAM to use and don't want your browser to suddenly die when it hits the 2/3/4 GB limit?
While the comparison might be somewhat apples-oranges, I do think Chrome deserves credit for upgrading the majority of its clients to the latest version, independent of OS version and without hassling its users about it. In contrast to this, Internet Explorer has artificial ceilings installed, older versions of Windows cannot upgrade past a certain version and I believe Apple has similar policies towards the use of Safari. Chrome imposes no such 'sanctions' on its users, which I think is a great way to adapt the way we use the Internet to its ever faster evolution.
Although I don't understand the resurfacing argument that IE6 is mainly kept alive by corporations. Would that not contradict some sort of evolutionary process? Those unwilling to change should be left behind, just because advances in web technology could provide advantages to internal applications of competitors, so if they decide not to upgrade, the competition should decide it for them. But this seems not to be the case. So my bet is that the majority of IE6 users probably come from bootlegged vanilla XP installations with (surprise-surprise) automatic upgrades turned off in regions like China.
And then there once was Firefox, in its heyday the only alternative to The Microsoft Way. Now, it tries to maintain a release schedule that is only rivaled in speed by some out-of-whack neutrinos. Somehow its upper management got deluded into thinking they needed to mimic their new-found rival to stay relevant. While that sentiment has some truth to it, the way it was executed hurt their core user base more than they could siphon off users from either IE or Chrome. Because people who like Chrome, will use Chrome. And not something that desperately chases Chrome, but fails to address other critical issues in the process.
Unfortunately Chrome removed the (experimental) side tabs feature in the last update so I'm back to Opera now.
The tree tabs idea for Firefox looks quite interesting though, I think I'm gonna give it a shot.
Hey chill out man. It's far from clear that the GP is not a website developer. I mean, probably not, but it's not implied by the content of his post.
If you are one, then I don't understand your objection to what he wrote. Presumably you too would like 100% W3C compliance to be the norm, and not have to bother with all that IE-specific shite. If you can write standards-compliant code and the latest IE copes with it OK (and earlier IE that don't are in the ridiculously small minority that you can ignore), then I think you would both be in agreement that it's not a bad thing.
If you're implying that this will never be the case and IE will always be both obtusely non-standard and absurdly market-relevant then I think your position is reasonable but I personally don't think both of those conditions can remain true indefinitely.
I used to do web development back when IE5 was a thing and almost nobody used Firefox or saw the point of web standards. Have we come a long way since then or what?
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
I decided to lose a mod point to add that since I upgraded to 8 gigs of RAM, I run all my browsers (not just their cache) from ramdisk. I have setup a 1 gig ramdisk, I copy to that one my "master" portable installations of FF8 (and FF9 for making comparisons) and run my browsers exclusively from ramdisk.
This technique has the additional advantage that FF's cache is also on the ramdrive and from what I have seen this offers me the fastest possible browsing experience. When the cache and browser bloat grows too large, I delete this copy and make a new one. In addition, all temporary files (downloads, installations, things to unzip/unrar etc) are also processed in the ramdrive, thus reducing the overall fragmentation of my hard disks. Finally, the technique has also security benefits, since all my browsing history and cache are safely erased every time I reboot or wipe the ramdrive.
The only drawback is that when FF extensions are updated, I have to update my master copy too, which is a small price to pay for always having access to a "clean and mean" FF copy every time I desire so. If you are the type that adds new bookmarks all the time, just copy bookmarks.html to the "master" installation before shutdown.
To sum up, I think that everybody will benefit from using a ramdrive, not only those using SSDs.
If you close a program and it insists remaining in memory for 3 hours without the process being killed, you definitely have either an OS issue, or some exotic plugins/addons combination issue. For example, from my experience I regularly see that FF has a particular difficulty unloading flash from its memory (running x64 here).
To troubleshoot the issue, and to avoid installing/uninstalling Firefox all the time, use the portable version from portableapps.com and keep a clean master copy of it somewhere. Then copy this installation somewhere else and use that one to start adding your usual addons to pinpoint the problem.
Don't bother your elders, kid. You don't know the difference until you've tried one.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
"* "Breaking even" on mem usage I'd like to think @ this point... but it's really for the future I want "all 64-bit" here in programs I use, mostly!"
What does that mean?
I don't use Linux because of the security (my computer is behind a firewall with zero open ports; I'm not browsing from a server anyway, and the data I care about is in my user account). I use Linux because of the usability (yes, for me Linux is more usable than Windows). For security on browsing, I use Firefox with appropriate extensions (esp. NoScript and RequestPolicy).
Oh, and all your lists are not Linux breaches anyway. If you run insecure software, it will be a security risk on any operating system. For example an SQL exploit is completely system agnostic (and even web server agnostic). Next you'll tell that Linux causes spelling errors because people writing on Linux machines make spelling errors.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The problem is, your OS allows you to run for a week without restarting. Switch to windows, and your Firefox memory problem will go away.
You can do all the same stuff in firefox, and have been able to since before Chrome existed.
but only slowly and shittily.
It's 2011. Here's a nickel, kid, get yourself a real computer.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
no seriously, i don't understand how you can tout ""just works"[1] and coming back from sleep to live connection in about 5 seconds" as reasonable plus points of chromeos when literally every os in existence has been doing it for years!
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
yeah, firefox runs only on REAL computers. anything which has 8gb ram and core i7 extreme asskick edition is just not real enuf for firefox.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Why do you leave the program open for months? I mean, does it really take that long to fire it up again? Does it not remember and auto-load the last tabs you had open when relaunched? Do you never install updates requiring a reboot? Honestly interested in what you are thinking here - I can't understand why one would want to leave ANYTHING open for that long. I close things out when I am done for the day. If I want to reopen the same tabs, I bookmark them and relaunch or let the program reopen them for me. Even knowing that Lion reclaims memory from "inactive" apps I see no reason to leave anything running if I am not still using it.
and why is everyone calling me 'kid' today?? i'm not a fucking kid. its you guys who are too old.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
I'm gonna bring in your comments from #38415244 so we can have the conversation in one place.
try side tabs in about:flags
I don't seem to have that option. Chrome 16.0.912.63 (build 113337), which is the latest google-chrome-beta in Google's APT repository.
its quite nice, but its not completely tree style :(
I bolded, italicized, and double-starred "full" for a reason. People have offered me lots of "kinda sorta not really" solutions -- you saw the list I posted, I presume. I call them "critical features" because they're deal-breakers for me.
bartab is now available as an experimental flag in about:flag.
I don't seem to have this one, either.
Save/restore tabs between browser sessions?? chrome probably invented this!
Um... save/restore tabs was around in Firefox before there *was* a Chrome. Session Manager is just an extension that gives me more control over it. And checking the release notes, it was first released in 2006. Chrome was first released in 2008. So the Session Manager extension is also older than Chrome.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
and why is everyone calling me 'kid' today??
It's because you're saying some ridiculously sophomoric kiddie shit. Yes, I mostly run Firefox on a tri-core Phenom II, but I also run it on a 900 MHz P3 and it's fine. I run all the same extensions on both platforms, too. Chrome used to be faster, but recent editions' memory footprint is just as ugly as Firefox. Meanwhile, Notscripts is garbage compared to Noscript, it doesn't actually work, and the load of running a bunch of crap JavaScript that Notscripts has failed to block on that little P3 of mine (EEE701) is enough to put Chrome well ahead of Firefox in the CPU usage category. So when you have something to contribute to an adults' conversation, probably people will stop calling you "kid". I didn't get a memo, if that's what you're asking.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Could've or could have NOT FUCKING COULD OF
by "family computer" you mean a PC shared by all members of one household
He obviously meant a computer shared by the family
That's what I said. The opening was a joke.
As far as your idea that the vocal opponents to computer sharing have some sort of global say, let me just say... who the fuck cares.
Those who moderate up their comments care.
I just made me feel real dumb :P Yeah, I could have runned it as a separate profile.
That question is as irrelevant as the question whether you are writing your posts from a Windows computer is to your awful post formatting.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Except they haven't.
Windows takes a fuckton longer than 5 sec to come from sleep (at least S3, only an idiot does ACPI S1, and forget fresh boot or hibernate) and get a live wireless connection again - my conventional Acer 11.6" laptop takes over 30 sec with Win7. OSX isn't much better. Half the time Linux is lucky if S3 and resume works because of shitty ACPI implementations. From a cold shutdown I'll get back on within 10 sec or so.
As to "just works": this is the secret sauce. It's virus proof. It's luser proof. If you screw up the system, the absolute worst you'd have to do is pull the battery, flip the switch to dev mode, boot up, and once it's done wiping the stateful partition put the switch back and seal up. Now you've got a fresh stateful partition (no user data on device) and provided you've got Chrome Sync set up (which you really should do) in a few minutes you'll have your bookmarks, etc. back; the only things of consequence that's not saved are cookies and system preferences. Also it's got two independent copies of the operating system, so if one gets screwed up (bad update, for example) the system should detect it and reload the good copy. Your grandfather can't break this thing.
It's not for everyone though. It's really only good for use as a second or third computer because of all its limitations, but as a Web terminal you can't beat it.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
"IE8 has recently jumped from near 1:1 parity with Chrome 14 to many dozens of times its market share! Even IE6 is decimating it!"
Amazing what selectively picking your browser versions and only looking at the one statistic that seems impressive will do.
If this is true http://www.favbrowser.com/internet-explorer-will-auto-update-itself/ then the internet may be a happier place, and IE 6 and 7 a thing of the past... Let us hope!
I just downloaded and installed Chrome, and nowhere in that process did I discover what version it was. Even in the "About Chrome" link of the tools menu it does not tell me.
Heavy is the head that wears the tinfoil hat.
I swear I can feel 32 bit applications thunking down when I run 64 bit OSes. In fact, it's one of the reasons I still use a 32-bit OS.
It's been a long time.
If the interface is so bad, why not just right click and change back to the old one?
It's been a long time.