And Firefox isn't that slow in its latest incarnations.
Chrome extensions are limited to modifying the current page and displaying an extension icon. They can't modify the browser itself. (Although no extension system will ever compete with Emacs for fully modifying the host application, Firefox does a decent job.)
I have a few thousand bookmarks in Delicious, but I've nearly stopped bookmarking altogether. I noticed that I almost never look up bookmarks later, so I've started keeping really important urls in org-mode and discarding everything else. Google is good enough for most recall. For everything else, org-mode reminds me that the bookmarks exist which I tended to forget with Delicious.
Google is fine for most recall, as long as what you're looking for isn't in the darkweb (like my dozens of achive.org bookmarks), but why bother with Google, extra steps, extra friction.
Side effect of the awesome bar and compulsive bookmarking though: I rarely have more than a dozen tabs open because picking up where I left off has so little burden.
And yeah I do end up with thousands of bookmarks I probably won't even use again, but it doesn't interfere with anything.
Me too. I will never understand people who complain about Firefox (or any other browser) getting slow when they have 50 tabs open. If you had 50 physical documents on your desk, wouldn't you put away at least 40 of them in a neat stack elsewhere? Just having them all spread out in front of me would give me a headache.
And yes, I also end up with thousands of bookmarks in a very complicated hierarchy. Sometimes this makes the Bookmark manager crawl to a halt.
This article inspired me to try Opera again. But now 10 seconds spent in the Pentadactyl quick-start guide have made it clear that I'll be back on Firefox after being a dedicated Chrome user for at least four years.
Plus after closing a tab, the "tabs don't resize until you move the mouse away" thing. And tabs living in the titlebar, so they get Fitts' Law infinite width targets in full screen. So good.
One set of users finds that Chrome "looks better". (Although, personally, I not infrequently differ from these opinions.)
Another set of users find that Firefox "behaves better" and/or is "more customizable".
I find myself more in the latter camp. While I greatly appreciate some of Chrome/Chromium's technical points, I find that both with its UI and with Google web properties, the designers are running amok. Unituitive and minimally discoverable widgets and behaviors. Common "power user" functionality disabled (anyone juggling several items/contexts should, in my opinion, rather value most recently used (MRU) ordering in tab cycling).
(As a comparative example, the "breaking" of Alt-Tab in Ubuntu Unity is somewhat analogous; I want a one keystroke (or key-pair-stroke) step to get back to my last context, whatever fricking program was running it.)
To the specific point in the parent, minimal tab size can be adjusted in Firefox (Google up the relevant setting accessible via about:config .)
More generally, Firefox lets me control how I used web resources. Chrome, less so, and Google seems to be moving in the direction of further and further slotting the user into their desired experience. (Sound familiar?)
As for extensions, the Firefox extension ecosphere I still find navigable (although it does appear to be suffering; making and maintaining an extension does not appear to be a particularly rewarding experience). The Google ecosphere I've mostly given up on, but when I take the occasional glimpse it still appears to be, viewed in the large, opaque and poorly organized and/or presented.
So... I keep my Chrome installation clean and use it for "secure browsing" to a limited set of properties.
I use an extended Firefox for tackling the larger, hairy web.
(And Opera to further segregate a few other items.)
By the way, Firefox also has the "tab doesn't resize or move until you move the mouse away", and it's pretty useful indeed...
Chrome has the best "Incognito" mode, though... after Opera's "Private tab" feature, of course :-).
(It used to be an about:config setting, but apparently it's now handled by UI CSS, so you could use a CSS file instead of the addon if you wanted)
I also surf a lot more than the average user and i use the default Chrome settings. Middle click and Tabs are everything i need.
What you are talking about, doesn't sound like a lot. I don't download much and everything get's straight to my download folder. But you are right about this one, not very customizable. Is there no api for an extension?
I'm also not sure what you mean by "not being self-contained." Chrome relies on OS subsystems where appropriate because it simplifies management and provides a consistent user experience--that's why we use the OS certificate store and proxy configuration settings. We've also seen quite a bit of enterprise uptake because Chrome is the only browser that provides full centralized management on all supported platforms (via Windows group policy, Puppet, etc.).
these things are awesome! firefox just doesn't work with most sites on my company's intranet (particularly with authentication), but when i use chrome, everything just works.
I don't run an IT department, but the self-updating browser seems like a pretty good win. Doubly so when it's very secure.
As a power user I don't know (I don't even consider it), but as a developer I see my colleagues struggling with Chrome's over-aggressive cache every day, and it truly boggle's my mind that Google's developers, with their roots in the web, still provide no way for chrome to be sane cache-wise. The bloody thing caches more aggressively than Internet Explorer, getting it to release cached files is an exercise in frustration and you can not trust that it's done so without checking the actual code it's downloaded in the devtools.
While I'm writing this, I should also point out that browser sync is a great example of how Mozilla and Google take a different approach to solving the same problem. Firefox's sync encrypts all data locally using a cryptographically secure randomly-generated key then uploads it to Mozilla's servers. Chrome's sync, by contrast, only encrypts passwords locally by default, leaving bits like your browsing history unencrypted on Google's servers. Chrome does have an option to encrypt everything, but you have to enable it in the preferences. (Firefox has no option to disable client-side encryption.) Even when you enable client-side encryption in Chrome, your data is encrypted with your Google password. This is less secure than Mozilla's approach because 1) your password likely isn't sufficiently complex or random 2) Google sees your password periodically (e.g. when you log in to Google services), meaning they possess the key to unlock your data. With Firefox Sync, Mozilla never sees your private key, so there is no way for them to see your data. Ever.
Google's business model means they have an inherent interest in your synced/private data. Mozilla has no such interest in it. Therefore, Mozilla locks the door and throws away the key.