Last Updated on October 1, 2010 by Dave Farquhar
I used Google Chrome this week while I waited for Firefox 3.5.1 to come out. I like both browsers but still prefer Firefox by a slight margin. But Chrome is nice to have for those times when Firefox has unpatched vulnerabilities.Popups: Chrome wins hands down. Firefox doesn’t block all popups, but in a week of using Chrome, I had zero popups. None. That was nice.
Searching: Firefox wins. Most people don’t mind hitting ctrl-f to search, but I’ve grown used to Firefox letting me search by hitting the / key. It’s faster and easier and now that I have the feature I hate not having it.
Blinky crap: Firefox wins. I can disable animated GIFs in Firefox and I can use Flashblock. Maybe I can get Chrome to disable animation too, but I know where to look in Firefox. Firefox will stay near and dear to me as long as it lets me block all that blinky crap.
Speed: Chrome runs Google Maps and the new Yahoo mail faster and on a marginal PC it scrolls text a bit better. But I think Firefox finds sites faster. Both are much faster than IE though, and after suffering through 8 hours of IE at work every day, either one is heavenly.
Search bar: If all you do is search Google, Chrome is better. I routinely search Amazon and eBay, a lot. Chrome’s way of doing it is clumsier than Firefox even though it uses less screen space.
Frankly I like both browsers but I’m glad to have Firefox back. I may find myself alternating between the two based on whatever I happen to be doing.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
For searching in Firefox, there’s also the "no-slash" option. Under Tools | Options | Advanced | General, in the top box labeled "Accessibility" is an option for "Search for text when I start typing".
It’s just one keystroke, but it’s still one keystroke.
Out of curiosity, did you run “unchrome”
(http://www.abelssoft.net/unchrome.php) on your
Chrome install to remove Google’s unique tracking ID
that gets installed with the browser?
Another link about the tracking ID:
http://lifehacker.com/5111556/unchrome-anonymizes-
your-google-chrome-installation
I should have also stated, that I haven’t had a pop up
window occur in Firefox since I installed the NoScript (
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722 )
add on a year or so ago. This along with Flash Block
and AdBlockPlus makes for one smooth surfing
experience in Firefox.
Gernam company SRWare has produced a version of Chrome without all the privacy-invading parts. They call it Iron. http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php