Firefox losing to Chrome: And here's why

Recently i had made a thread on Firefox issues i had been facing.

I tried install older version i.e 3.0.2 but still lot of lag issues....seems like Firefox is gonna soon beat IE7 in Lagging Championship.

Then i tried using Google Chrome today... and omg..i have yet to see such a fast and light browser.

it opens so fast and each page loads with ease....okay maybe i didnt give it enuff stress with my power browsing when i open 15 tabs under 10 seconds... thats how i surf usually.

but then i did a memory Test i.e which browser is heavier as it opens.


i was shocked to see the results:




(both Browsers are highlighted in Light Blue..check out the Memory usage)


seems like i am gonna try Google Chrome for a week..and if i feel comfortable..i may leave Firefox for a while.

Firefox literally chokes down my entire system.. even Gaming leaves me with more to do than firefox.

 

I have used Chrome since the day it was released and it still feels super fast and super light. I love Chrome.

 

I tried Google chrome for a while, and I liked it a lot. I might actually start using it if, and only if, I can still use Stumble with it. Haha.

 

but doesnt it have any addons or something to extend the functionality?

 

Yeah, it does.

http://www.mychromeaddons.com/


I just downloaded it, I'm going to start using it more and see how I like it now.

 

Yeap.

That's the downside of Chrome. Chrome might have some nice built-in features but it will never be as much as Firefox's add-on does (Although I really like the multi-threading features... which Firefox don't have...). If you prefer having the speed than all the good features, Chrome would be a good choice.

EDIT

Ok fine, I was wrong, did not see lordhidetora's post when I'm posting.

 

While I'm using Chrome as primary it still has some annoying bugs and thus use FF3 as a backup. Hotmail for example won't open in Chrome, mouse wheel and tilt buttons and text box issues with a bad spell check. But I am still using Chrome over FF/IE because it is actually working faster and not lagging.

 

Yeah, I might make Google Chrome my "work" browser and Firefox my "fun" browser.

All in all, I don't think I could ever turn my back on Firefox, haha.

 

I have huge problems with Firefox too. Always hangs up my lappy with no apparent reason.

 

Better than hearing "losing to IE" news.

 

Looking on older threads, I see a lot of people are having problems with Firefox lagging and stuff and switching to Chrome.


It's been fine for me, so far. Most likely, because I just got my lappy back from HP, reofrmated and all.

I think one of the things that are going to stop people from using Chrome so much, might be the lack of addons. If Google does something with that, then I think a lot of people might be willing to make the switch.

 

I don't understand people who have constant problems with FireFox. Never does it crash on me, lag or etc. and I've been using FF for years. Firefox will never lose to Chrome, as of now. Chrome is still a new browser and lacks add-ons which makes FF so great. Chrome will soon get add-ons as well, we'll see how it matches up as far as stability and creativity.

Also, nocturnal you said you tested each browser as it opens as far as memory...by default Chrome loads a BLANK PAGE, your FF was at 125k...so obviously your default home page is different than a blank page.

My FF loads at 50k because my home page is Yahoo. Lots of stuff to load on there or else it would be lighter, not to mention all my add-ons it loads.

 

in my experience fastest to slowest : Chrome 0.4.154 , Opera 9.6, IE7.0.6, Firefox 3.0.4. I'm not only talking about program and page load times, but also the general response times in opening new tabs, switching between tabs, starting a new download, minimizing/maximizing etc.. FF certainly is the slowest...

 

This is why I left Firefox some time ago. I found Opera to be much faster and more responsive, so I was using that as my primary browser. Then I switched to K-Meleon, which uses the same engine as Firefox, but is quite a bit faster (although page load times are only slightly faster). I downloaded Chrome the day it was released and was blown away by the speed. It had some bugs though, especially with flash and some plugins, but it has improved. Once most of the bugs are worked out, I will be making Chrome my main browser. Firefox was way too slow for me. The addons are nice, but I can live without most of them.

 

That resource usage is very impressive. Frankly, I'm always extremely surprised that Firefox sucks up so many resources, it seems like such a light browser. Still, I'm too used to Firefox and its add ons to switch to Chrome. I'm hoping Firefox 3.1 improves dramatically.

 

If you add up all the chrome processes, don't they make a resource hog?

Chrome is way faster on my system though.

 

I really didn't like Chrome's UI which made me switch back to FF. Speed wise, Chrome was faster than FF. In terms of resources, FF, despite at times using quite a bit compared to my other programs, rarely actually effects my system. When I added FF's flexibility with its UI, it easily beats Chrome for me. Eventually, Chrome will probably have the same flexibility, when that happens, I'll re-evaluate my position. I'm guessing the UI will still ruin the experience for me.

 

This. 10char.

 

what is so great about add-ons anyway... i don't even use any? whats the point lol.

 

adblocking, mouse gestures, download managers, screenshot taking tools that grab the whole page vs. just visible page.

There's plenty of reasons why addons are awesome

 

I was watching Sunday Night Football on FF and just one window took 179MB. My biggest problem with FF3 being laggy was due to Vista. Once I switched back to XP all the slowness and lag in FF3 went away.

Chrome is definitely faster than FF and uses less resources. I like how it even automatically imports your FF bookmarks. Is Chrome based off of Firefox?

 

I doubt it, I think Google is just a fierce competitor.

 

For the memory comparison, to be fair, you guys need to add all the "chrome.exe" processes together, you can't just pick one and use it against the single "firefox.exe".

 

Exactly. If you add them up, it easily matches or exceeds FF.

 

IE8 has about the same memory usage as chrome, and works the same way so...

 

not really since each tab is its own process its not comparable...(Since chrome opens a new process for each tab, and FF does not)


The comparison would have to be between chrome and 10 tabs, and 10 FF windows (to get the same effect)... Chrome obviously wins that by a landslide.

If chrome opened tabs in the same process like FF does well 1. it would defeat the purpose of how they built chrome and 2. chrome would be a lot less resources too for that 1 window multi. tab compared to FF 1 window multitab.

just give up. Chrome > FF.

 

I still can't get myself to use FireFox or Chrome over IE. The problem I have is that most websites that use activeX controls ONLY work in IE. I'm talking about alot of sites that do live video streams, special video players, in-browser 3D games etc. Most things like that don't work in any other browser than IE, and they all seem just as fast as one another to me.. All of them start in less than a second, fully load pages in milliseconds, and give me no problems..

 

How does this work?

 

Not really? How is it fair to take one of the many Chrome processes and claim that it uses much less memory than FF? No matter how many windows or tabs you open in FF, it is still one single process. For Chrome, that's not the case.

 

I just did a few quick tests on memory usage for both Firefox and Chrome. I opened both browsers and opened almost entirely the same tabs on each browser. I added all the processes of Chrome together to get its memory usage, so no argument there.

I also continually used both browsers.. I never closed them during testing. This is how I normally use my browser.

First test:

Here, I just browsed around a little bit, going to different sites and reading articles.



Initially, with one tab open, Chrome was clearly using less memory.


Second test:

I continued browsing and went to Youtube and watched a video.



Again, Chrome was clearly using less memory.. a lot less in this case.


Third Test:

3 tabs open here.. different websites, all loaded with images.



With multiple tabs open, you can see Chrome is starting to use more memory. This is understandable because it essentially has multiple versions of itself open.


Fourth Test:

6 tabs open here, different content rich websites open.



Woah. Chrome is using a lot more memory than Firefox now with more tabs open.


Fifth Test:

Here, I closed most of the tabs I had opened before, just going back to one tab.



Firefox is using EVEN MORE memory than it did in test four, even though I closed 5 tabs? On the other hand, Chrome is using just a fraction of the memory it was using before.. and it's using EVEN LESS than it was during test one.


So, through objective, relatively unscientific testing, it is quite easy to see that Chrome handles its memory much better than Firefox does. Earlier today I was using Firefox, one tab open, and realized I hadn't closed it in a day or two. It was using 400,000k memory. That's insane.

Firefox may use less memory with multiple tabs open INITIALLY.. however, over extended usage, you will see Chrome using much less memory than Firefox. If you want to avoid this problem with Firefox, you have to clear out its memory by closing the program. Chrome, on the other hand, will automatically purge its memory through usage, so you never have to bother closing it.

 

I'm with Stewie here's my result. This is taken from one of the PCs here at my work.

FF3 vs Chrome
Each browser was a fresh install, no add-ons, cleared cache etc... I had one tab open in each, both displaying the yahoo homepage. Seems Chrome is not so light after all.

Not too mention FF3 is about 27MB after install and Chrome is about 53MB. I'd have to say the OP has published an epic FAIL.

 

Here is a good review, of course each one has its own advantages, but overall Chrome isn't > FF.

http://www.techradar.com/news/inter...chrome-vs-ie8-vs-firefox-3-1-462848?artc_pg=1

While single tab, Chrome uses less memory, but for multiple tabs, it's a difference case.

 

Try using Firefox for a few hours, and see that memory usage go way up. also, look at the CPU usage for Firefox.

 

I have FF oopen all day all the time. I think I just caught the CPU usage at a spike. I am looking at it now and it is ZERO.

Edit: Yup it was when the banner changed on yahoo. I just watched it.

 

I have FF open all day too. Its memory usage becomes absolutely ridiculous. As I said in my epically long post on page 3, I had one tab open in FF that was using 400,000k of memory. That simply doesn't happen with Chrome.

 

Likely because Chrome treats each tab as a seperate process. And that's fine. It has it's advantages, but I still think the OP published a fail. I am going to leave chrome and FF open all day on that PC, nobody really uses it. I will take a screenie near the end of the day and post my results.

 

I have my post on page 3 that already tests this. I have been using both browsers all day. Chrome simply handles its memory better than Firefox does.

 

Good test... but still I argue you cant compare Chromes tabs to FF tabs because Chrome opens a new process for each tab while FF does not... so instead you should open 3-4 tabs in Chrome and 3-4 separate browser windows in FF to test the difference that way. would IMO be a more accurate test, and you'll see Chrome is way way way way way more efficient/faster.

 

you guys don't seem to get it.

Since Chrome opens a seperate proccess for each tab, you cant compare multi tabs of Chrome with Multi tabs of FF.

The accurate comparrison would be to open multiple seperate broswer windows of FF and multiple tabs of chrome (or multiple browser windows of chome doesnt matter since tabs/windows are the same in chrome)

someone please do this or I will have to - to show you all.

 

No, Chrome uses the same rendering engine as Apple's Safari; Webkit.

And to all the people making tests and etc. Does any browser really bog your system down to a point where everything becomes laggy? Most of our pc's have 2gb or more ram, memory usage shouldn't even matter. Why use a browser because of low ram usage when in own actuality it doesn't even matter. :x
Unused ram is wasted ram.

And to the person who said whats the point of Firefox add-ons.
Please experience them, and you will see the point.

 

Good remark, yes you need to close FF completely to clear the memory. But it's kinda unfair for FF though, because the way Chrome is designed, each tab/window is pretty much its own process, when you close them, you're actually closing the process like if you close FF completely. This is one advantage for Chrome, but overall I wouldn't say Chrome is better.

 

I concede, Chrome uses less memory, fantastic! So does that mean it's truly better? I mean I only have like 2-4GB of Ram at my disposal on any number of computers I use. The difference between 77,000k and 135,000k while wasting time on youtube seems rather insignificant, no?

I still don't like the fact that there IS another browser (more work for web designers and devs) and I don't care for Google knowing even more about me than they already do. So I still say FF is better.

If the OP had published a more thorough test I would have been happier to read it and not waste my time testing browsers.

 

still haven't found a single useful plugin that makes FF better than chrome or IE using no plugins...

what use can a plugin possibly serve but to slow ya down.

 

That's what bothered me about the OP's thread. Even the title is false.
And actually if you look at his screen again, Chrome is using a lot more CPU than FF. 15 to 1.

 

I don't think that's a very accurate test at all. You should be testing both browsers with the same methods so you should test a Firefox window with 3-4 tabs and compare it to a Chrome window with 3-4 tabs. Firefox would display the total resource usage while Chrome would display 3-4 different processes and you would add up all their resource usage and compare them. Just because Chrome uses a different process system doesn't mean that you should treat it differently when running tests - you immediately compromise your experiment that way. You're testing for the same end result which is to have one browser with 3-4 tabs. Don't start comparing apples to oranges.

 

Yes and the LOVELY GoogleUpdate.exe that gets installed rather mysteriously when you install Chrome. Gotta love Google for following the Apple method of software installation "Here's what you want, oh and here's some other crap you don't but we are giving it to you anyways!" So in all fairness I think we need to add that process to the total amount of resources used by Chrome. I know it's like 1,500 k but still, it shouldn't be there!

 

Agree with you but it's fairly easy to get rid of googleupdate.exe to stop running permanently. Get rid of it in msconfig and also delete the task in task scheduler when your computer goes idle. After that, googleupdate.exe will never run again.

 

No you shouldn't because FF is designed to open 1 proccess, hence when it freezes you lose all your tabs, Chrome is designed to open a new procces for each tab.. Obviously seperate procceses will add up to more most likley. However, its better to have seperate procceses so a crash doesnt lose all ur work.

With this in mind, since chrome opens a sep. proccess for each tab and FF doesnt (bad) you have to test FF under the same conditions as chrome which is opening a new browser for each "tab" where-as in chrome you can just tab them out.

and thats my whole point unless u test this way u are comparing apples to lemons.. (chrome = apple FF = lemon)

 

Yeah firefox saves its "closed tabs" so you can bring it up quickly through the cache. Which also leads to it taking up a bigger footprint.

Regardless when did RAM usage become such a big deal

Unless you're running on old hardware which many people are not here, the only thing that should matter is CPU usage and if it is preventing you from multi-tasking.

I would not using Chrome on an older computer, but I'd probably use Firefox if I needed the addons, or Opera if I did not.

They obviously cater to different people and frankly, most of the tests done, are not done very well to be honest.

Also you need to be comparing Vanilla Firefox to Vanilla Chrome. I'm not sure if those tests were. Some addons like to bog down Firefox

 

I know how to get rid of it, I am just saying Google is taking liberties they shouldn't, as usual.