If You Haven't Taken To Chrome Yet, Try The New Beta

by Sam Dean - May. 05, 2010Comments (9)

For years now, my browser of choice has been Firefox, an open source success story that now commands 25 percent of the browser market, according to data from Net Applications. The primary reason I use Firefox is that the extensions available for it are tremendously useful and keep annoyances to a minimum. From AdBlock Plus to iMacros, extensions help make the case for Firefox. However, after using the new beta version of Google Chrome, I'm committed to using it for many, though not all of my browsing tasks.

For some time now, Google has been delivering new and improved beta versions of Chrome at a faster rate than Mozilla has been delivering new versions of Firefox. That's partly due to the sizes of the audiences for the browsers, where Google has under 7 percent market share compared to Firefox's 25 percent, and is a gap that may close eventually.

Nevertheless, each incremental step that Google takes with Chrome results in noticeable improvements. As many have reported, the new beta of Chrome is significantly faster than previous versions. Google claims that Chrome is 200 percent and 300 percent faster than previous versions, respectively, on V8 and SunSpider benchmark tests. You can in fact feel the faster performance. I loaded pages all around the web almost instantly while Firefox often took more than 10 seconds to load them. There are significant Javascript performance enhancements in the new beta.

The new Chrome beta also, finally, includes a bookmark syncing feature so you can easily carry your preferences over to Chrome installations on other computers and devices. And, Chrome has built-in Flash integration, which, among other things, means that you can seamlessly watch much of the video content on the web.

It's becoming a two-browser world, from my perspective, and the two browsers I reach for are both open source. Going forward, I will use Chrome for many of my web-based tasks due, primarily due to its speed, but keep Firefox and its useful extensions available when I need them.

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by an anonymous user on May. 05, 2010

Which version are you talking about. This will help those not sure if they are on that new, cool version, and also help context. Software gets updated so quickly, it will be useful in the future to know which version this was about.

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by Sam Dean on May. 05, 2010

There is a link to the new beta in the first paragraph. It's version 5.0.375.29

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by Leslie A. Joy on May. 05, 2010

I've found that while Chrome has less extensions overall, their number is growing. Currently, all of my must-have extensions are available on Chrome.

In addition to that with the ability to move and re-organize tabs and incognito browsing, I need less extensions overall.

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by Sky on May. 06, 2010

I tried Chrome but after a few days of testing came back to Firefox.

Reasons:

I can't disable disk caching in Chrome as I can do it in FF(incognito mode has caching to disk disabled, so why not make it an option in options?) - hammering my ssd with I/O and get a few seconds lock up. FF is more customizable atm, love about:config.

You can't disable downloading of a few page elements, all content blocking software disables the ad after it is downloaded and rendered. Again, stresses the network and pc more than it should, FF has no such problems.

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by El Spamolito on May. 11, 2010

Chrome has been bettered in many areas but still I prefer to use Firefox because of its speed.

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by El Spamolito on May. 13, 2010

Google Chrome is no longer a beta, but you can download a new beta version if you want to. Google Chrome is faster than Firefox. Chrome is very basic, but with Chrome, you cannot download any toolbars or addons.

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by shan silva on May. 20, 2010

Google Chrome is surely an enchantment for the users who desire a stable browsing experience; it may have flaws, which I hope will be addressed in the future versions of the browser. When comparing the efficiency, design, speed, security, innovation and the simplicity, it is pretty much clear that Google is going to absolutely transfigure the browsing experience in the years to come.

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by edward on Jun. 03, 2010

i've used google chrome i liked it i offer it www.oyuniks.net you can look there

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by an anonymous user on Jun. 19, 2010

I really don t use chrome from google. It is the best to use Firefox.

http://www.auto-my.com

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