Will Google Chrome's speed displace Firefox?

If "only the paranoid survive," as former Intel CEO Andy Grove used to say, then Mozilla, the organization behind the open-source Firefox browser, needs to put its paranoia on overdrive.

That's the sense I got reading through Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady's billet-doux to Chromium, the open-source project behind the Google Chrome browser. O'Grady has long been friendly to Mozilla and a dedicated user of Firefox. When his head is turned by another browser, it's time for concern.

Yes, Firefox continues to grow its market share, now sitting comfortably at 22.47 percent, while Chrome is far behind at 2.59 percent. But O'Grady is an influencer (even if he has yet to persuade me to adopt the Linux "desktop"), and his reasons for preferring Chrome are important:

The open source version of Chrome is far from perfect; the recently enabled plugins which permit the usage of Flash and so on are regularly disabled and/or non-functional, the rendering engine still has its occasional issues, and too many poorly designed browser-sniffing sites give it a hard time. But it's just so damned fast. And speed is not just a feature, but a feature I prioritize.

Not in the rendering. Although its from-scratch V8 Javascript engine definitely gives sites like Google Docs a boost, I've found Firefox 3.5's counterpart, Tracemonkey, very competitive on most sites. But that's where the good news ends for Firefox.

In virtually every other sense, Chromium outperforms Firefox. Google's browser launches more quickly, features snappier tab creation and--perhaps most importantly--doesn't bog down after prolonged usage. And while the performance gains when measured might seem minute...they really add up over time.

As O'Grady notes, his observations apply to the Linux versions of Chrome and Firefox, but they still should give Mozilla pause.

In this little war, however, perhaps Microsoft is taking Firefox's side, at least against Google. As The Register reports, Microsoft Office Web Apps, due out in 2010, will support Firefox and other "familiar Web browsers," which doesn't include Chrome, Safari (for Windows), or Opera. Apparently, Microsoft will only be supporting those browsers that don't have an operating system competitor attached to them.

The browser market has become hugely competitive and, as a result, more innovative and much more interesting. I'm confident the Mozilla team will respond to Chrome's apparent speed advantages, but equally confident that Google, Apple, and Microsoft will work just as hard to outflank Mozilla and the other browser competitors in other ways.

All of which is good for you and for me as we enjoy the results of the competition. Now if we could just get this level of competition in all areas of software.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

[redmarine]

I won't make the shift to Chrome unless I can use something similar to AdBlock Plus and NoScript. I simply hate ads as they are highly intrusive these days and the fact that they take up so much space on a website. Have you ever tried to block all ads on a website? They look so clean and solid.

Also if I can't choose that Google will keep their hands away from my private data I refuse to make the shift even if there are no ads.

[ngngokkiu]

AdBlock+ for Chrome

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/46974

To use:
1. Switch to the dev channel (http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel)
2. Launch chrome.exe with the --enable-user-scripts flag (add --enable-user-scripts to chrome's shortcut).
3. Create a directory called User Scripts in your user data directory

Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
Windows Vista: \Users\username\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

4. Copy 46974.user.js to the script directory.
5. Restart Chrome, press Alt+B to choose ads to block, Alt+E to edit current blocks

[Mike_Beltzner]

Matt, don't you worry, we're quite paranoid.

Building a browser from scratch and taking out almost every feature found in most other browsers is a great way to get a bare-bones, stripped down, fast rendering engine. Our task is a little trickier, engineering-wise: we need to take a hard look at our codebase and figure out how to streamline, update older code, and optimize. But trust me: we're up to the challenge, and enjoy having competitors that push us to be better.

This is what we wanted for the web: a competitive space with people trying to make the web a more compelling place to be.

[Magallanes]

what?

Neither Firefox (Browser,Netscape), nor Chrome (Webkit) was build from scratch.

[hawkeyeaz1]

I have been a FireFox user since it came out, and I have stuck with it despite the other options. Chrome too, has taken me, though I still use FF as a backup browser. I like the plugins FF has, and I like the features FF has that Chrome does not, but as Grove mentions, the startup time and the Javascript speed win out. FF 3.6 does load faster, and I do acknowledge more plugins/addons slows it down, and Chrome will suffer the same fate almost certainly (though both can mitigate the slowdown). But when testing the two w/ RSA encryption and key generation, Chrome comes in around 200ms, while FF 3.6 (currently) comes in about the same as 3.5.2 at about 2000-5000ms. For a web that is using more Javascript, including (potentially) RSA encryption or similar high processing power programs, Chrome has a champion, but I really do want FF to meet Chrome in Javasript and loading/new tab speed.

After all, Google isn't really aiming for the browser market, but the application market, so Chrome isn't a contender in the same way as FF is in the browser wars.

[hawkeyeaz1]

Oh, Chrome also reloads pages (from the server) very fast, whereas FF is still a bit slow. Of course the server lagging has some effect with both, Chrome is fastest there too. This is another place for FF to meet Chrome, but if it meets Chrome in the other two, it will probably meet it here as well.

[Admodieus]

It's not the rendering speed that is making me consider switching from Firefox to Chrome; its the development speed. Chrome is getting incredibly close to getting Bookmarks Sync as well as extensions. The new developer's build has support for Windows 7 jump lists and themes.

Compare this to Firefox, which looks absolutely awful in its current form on Vista/7 and still doesn't utilize the Windows 7 jump lists. I know some of these issues will be fixed/implemented in Firefox 3.6 and 3.7, but at the current pace, Chrome will be my default browser by the time they come out.

[talking poo]

I really don't understand these speed wars.

I guess with the Pros it matters. For an average Joe like me, its like stepping up to the plate trying to tell the difference between a 98mph fastball from a 94. Its all fast to me.

I really don't know how anyone can trade tons of useful add-ons for a small time difference.

[rapier1]

A lot of people focus on the numbers rather than a the total experience. An optimal solution looks at the user experience as a whole instead of the base metrics. Now, the people that should be excited about the performance boost are the developers.

[vikinzer]

The thing you have to consider is what are people doing on the web. If all they are doing is browsing then they probably don't know the difference. The thing is "average joe" is changing. Once upon a time in the long long ago of two years ago that's all pretty much anyone did. Even the hard core users were still "just surfing". A little ebay time, a little facebook time, some casual research, some video here and there and maybe pandora in the background. As more and more people are using gchat, and google docs, and other online "applications" those memory leaks, and slower rendering times start to compound each other. Maybe you don't notice how quickly a page loads because a small portion of your time is spent loading, and most of it is spent reading the page, but is you are waiting on that performance lag with every IM, and document format tweak you are going to notice, and as online applications take on more and more of the functions of desktop applications and we aren't just throwing pre-drafts of blog posts into google docs/MS's online offering, but starting to do image editing, and some desktop publishing layout work we're REALLY going to notice.

You might say the average joe isn't going to do these things. I say the average joe is the one who is most likely to feel that what's offered by early online apps is "good enough" and the hard core users are the ones who are going to cling to Photoshop and InDesign. So yes, the speed really REALLY doesn't matter to the "Average Joe", mister plumber man.

[MEPace]

I agree. I have a 5 Mb/sec cable connection and I very seldom am waiting on the browser to load. Usually when I do wait it's the server holding me up, dealing out data at 100 kb/sec or less or after having loaded 46 of 48 items waiting on that last little bit of info (I generally assume it's some adserver holding it up).

[mahurshi]

A leaner and faster web browser might make sense once people start editing documents online (when the web version of microsoft office comes out, for instance).

For now, I'll stick to firefox :-)

Mahurshi Akilla

[talking poo]

@vik - awesome explanation. You bring up some great points.

I definitely fall into the "good enough" category. I've been using Picnik, Google Docs, experimenting with JayCuts, etc...
I didn't realize a chunk of the performance of those apps were due to what browser you use. I've always assumed hardware, IP connection, server issues that bottle-necked speed.

[sting7k]

No it won't because a number of websites still don't play nice with Chrome.

[jackdaniels08]

As Google stated, browsers need to get as fast and instantaneous as flipping through the pages of a glossy magazine.

[rob1400]

Chrome's speed is attractive but I am still sticking with Firefox because of the many add-ons available. I am more hopeful that Firefox can catch up on the speed first than Chrome can catch up on the functionalities.

[EvanSei]

I think that unless fire fox really get on the ball, chrome will take over within the next few versions and all but the most dedicated firefox users will leave, of course from what I have seen FF is trying to improve but is it to little to late? only time will tell

[v.ap]

I find Firefox slower in Linux than in Windows. And it has a lot more memory leaks as well (gets more laggy over time). I've been happiest with Konqueror, even more so than webkit-based Opera or Arora (same engine as Chrome), but Gmail and other Google AJAX sites don't play well with it.

[Astrophizz]

Opera doesn't use webkit, they have their own rendering engine.

[pithenumber]

until chrome gets lots of addons

im sticking with firefox

[Genjinaro]

If Opera's speed (fast as hell) didn't stop Firefox I doubt Chrome will.

FireFox is still a hog to launch vs Chrome & Opera, I prefer Opera's features with my Ad-block scripts over Chrome which has none.

[GeSchmidtt]

I started using Chrome when I started seeing Firefox using 400 to 500 mb after leaving a couple of pages open for a couple of hours. Whether there is a memory leak with Firefox, or in one of the 5 or 6 ad-ons I use, it is unacceptable. I thought 3.5x would fix the problem but that made it worse. So I down graded. I still love the features in Firefox, and find some of the add-ons indispensable, but I have to say that if Chrome keeps progressing it will win the prime place on my desktop, and I am no big fan of Google.

[monkeyfun14]

The reason why Chrome is a threat is because they move extremely quickly have a quick and easy method to get brand new builds and a massive developer community to keep it built up. Making it hard for even other open source communities to keep up.

[gerrrg]

My personal usage as follows:
1. Chrome - because it's fast, and won't break the entire browser if one site goes bad.
2. Firefox - because Chrome doesn't always work well.
3. IE8 - only because of the dang ASP pages scattered throughout the net.

[Thad Boyd]

"As The Register reports, Microsoft Office Web Apps, due out in 2010, will support Firefox and other "familiar Web browsers," which doesn't include Chrome, Safari (for Windows), or Opera. Apparently, Microsoft will only be supporting those browsers that don't have an operating system competitor attached to them."

Uh?

I'm pretty sure the non-Windows version of Safari...well, you can see where I'm going with this.

(Seconding redmarine, BTW: Adblock has become an essential feature for me. I like Chrome, but until it has an Adblock equivalent it's fundamentally broken AFAIC, no matter how fast it runs or renders.)

[pentest]

Not amount of microseconds that Google can shave off will replace the fact that Chrome exists to collect information to assist their only real business: advertising.

[sargunster]

My fav browsers:
Firefox - for the extensions
Chrome - for quickly checking something and closing
Opera - for sync with my phone

Now if someone could put these features into one browser, that would be great. :)