Firefox vs. Chrome

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.