Content-Type: RST Let's poke a beehive with a stick. Or rather, poke the browser wars with one. See, recently I tried to switch to `Google Chrome`_ for a bit, to see what's up with it. Chrome is the newest arrival in the browser wars, (relatively) fresh from the labs of web giant `Google`_. If you don't know what Google is, try googling it. .. _`Google Chrome`: http://www.google.com/chrome .. _`Google`: http://www.google.com But hold up a second. "Browser wars"? What is this? "Browser wars" is a catch-all term for arguments between the different web browsers out on the market. Usually, this is between `Microsoft Internet Explorer`_, `Mozilla Firefox`_, `Google Chrome`_, `Apple Safari`_, and to a lesser extent, `Opera`_. Previously to Chrome's appearance, the web browser scene looked sort of like this video ad: .. _`Microsoft Internet Explorer`: http://www.microsoft.com/nz/windows/internet-explorer/ .. _`Mozilla Firefox`: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ .. _`Apple Safari`: http://www.apple.com/safari/ .. _`Opera`: http://www.opera.com/browser/ .. raw :: html

You can find it on YouTube here.

Back then, the old Netscape browser was more relevant, and Opera was less so, which is why Netscape appears there. In short, the playing field was: Internet Explorer belonged in a sanitarium; Safari was shiny; Firefox was the serious and "good" browser; and Opera/Netscape was an "elitist" browser that its users harp on endlessly about. Plus, Firefox had (and still has) the backing of most of the open source community just because it is one of the most wonderful open source programs ever made. .. figure :: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/perspective.png http://xkcd.com/198/ But then Google Chrome comes on the scene. Its shininess is comparable to Safari's, it's faster than Firefox, and is backed by a giant comparable to the one backing Internet Explorer. Plus, its engine (the part of the program that actually renders the webpage) is open source! That's right, the Chromium engine is completely open source, and the Google Chrome browser is only a Google enhancement upon the already-existing Chromium browser. Plus, Chromium/Chrome contain a feature no other browser has: separate computer threads for each tab. What this comes down to for most users is that if one tab crashes, the entire browser won't. As a longtime Firefox user, I was skeptical about this new arrival, and quickly labeled it as Too Good To Be True™. Well, over time, my friends gave it positive reviews, and it gained Linux support, so I eventually decided to try it out as my main browser. The first thing that struck me about it was its space efficiency: .. figure :: /upload/google-chrome Google Chrome .. figure :: /upload/mozilla-firefox Mozilla Firefox Chrome doesn't waste space with all the File, Edit, View, etc. menus at the top. It also overrides the operating system's window manager borders in order to do away with the title bar, which essentially would just duplicate the information found in the tabs anyway. It also replaces the status bar along the bottom with a small box in the lower left corner which only appears when it has relevant information (such as "Loading..."). The speed increase was also noticeable. Some Javascript-intensive pages ran much faster, and page load times increased a bit. Plus, my tabs didn't reload when I detached them from a window! Overall, it made a very good impression for its basic features! But then I switched back to Firefox. Why? Mostly, because of the add-ons. This is the point in my post where Chrome users get indignant and point out that Chrome has add-on support too. Maybe so, but it's nowhere as powerful as Firefox's add-ons. Here's a look at what I use: - `Adblock Plus`_: Wave goodbye to annoying web ads! These things sometimes take longer to load than the page itself, so why load them and lag yourself down? Adblock actually blocks the loading of ads. In Chrome, the closest thing to Adblock is a version that loads the ads, then sets their CSS to ``"display: none"``. Kills half of its usefulness... - `Download Statusbar`_: Small and sleek download manager that can be used as either a bar across the bottom of Firefox, or as a single icon in the bottom right. Compared to this, Google's unconfigurable download manager is just clunky, even if it's shiny. - `Firebug`_: The web developer's best friend. A very intuitive app for everything from HTML debugging, to Javascript tracing, to CSS visualization. Chrome supports all of this natively, but its interface was a bit less than desirable. - `Fastestfox`_: Adds a whole bunch of useful functionality to the browser. My favorite part of it is the automatic loading of the next page in a sequence of pages, like a search or a webcomic archive. It helps me waste time much more efficiently! .. _`Adblock Plus`: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865 .. _`Download Statusbar`: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/26 .. _`Firebug`: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843 .. _`Fastestfox`: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9825 Plus, there are a lot of cool plugins I don't use, with features from having the tabs listed vertically on the left, to Firefox being a FTP client, to it being a 3D photo manager. The way add-ons are currently done in Chrome, this is impossible. All of this, combined with the fact Firefox is completely free and open source, plus me bein gused to its interface more, is why Firefox still holds its "default browser" status on both my computers. .. figure :: /upload/firefox-cat Hey, don't blame me. It's not a fsufitch post if I didn't have a cat, and this is what came up most when I googled "firefox cat". **Edit:** Dywon Davis had something to say about Chrome's multiple processes: .. sourcecode :: plaintext (11:11:19 AM) Dywon Davis: filip; blog fail (11:11:34 AM) Dywon Davis: chrome isnt the only browser with seperate processes per tab (11:11:43 AM) Dywon Davis: IE8 actually has that too, lol (11:14:33 AM) Dywon Davis: lol, oh and one more thing; if you try to kill one of the tab processes, IE automatically restores it and goes "haha, you thought you could kill meh! FAIL" Be that as it may, I'm too lazy to confirm it right now, and I've had IE freeze enough times on me that it really doesn't raise its status in my eyes.