Google Chrome gets even faster ... On Google sites ... According to Google

I find that Firefox 3.5b4 is just as perceptibly fast as Chrome and I get to use all my extensions. About a month ago I gave up Firefox and tried using Chrome and IE8 for 2 weeks each as my sole browser. In the end, even though I liked Chrome's minimalist nature, I simply missed my extensions too much and moved back to Firefox. Also, I came away from that experience with newfound respect for IE8. It's a very good browser, more configurable than Chrome, but it was just a little bit more sluggish than Firefox.

Now I guess we should all rewrite all that rich, fast compiled C and C# code for apps that run in an interpreted scripting language on least common denominator displays and trust our data to live on somebody elses servers. No thanks. I gave up "smart" terminals and went to Personal Computers over 30 years ago. I see no reason to go back to the days of glass house computing even with a terminal that's "faster". Now, smart, distributed apps with redundancy in the cloud? There we're talking. As I say in my sig: If "Web 2.0" was the equivalent of replacing the dumb terminals of "Web 1.0" with smart terminals then Live Framework is the equivalent of replacing those terminals with a peer to peer network of personal computers of all shapes and sizes.

The more I use Chrome, the more I like it, but it's still not as feature rich as IE8 and Firefox, the latter with no extensions (clean install), to be used as an everyday browser. I like that I can now remove thumbnails from the New Tab page but that's about it. Auto-fill? Full-screen mode? I guess since Chrome did not have those features, it's okay to talk about them but, still, it's nothing big. I also like the stability improvements. I don't understand who Google says Chrome has tab isolation (something it brought to the table -- according to the Web) but all the times Chrome has crashed on me, the whole browser went down. IE8 tab isolation is better.

Well, I'm going to use Chrome for all things Google. Nothing else. I know for all things Google, Chrome is faster than IE8. I also have a Yahoo and Hotmail account. Quite honestly, Gmail is just faster loading and responding than both Yahoo and Hotmail. Even Yahoo email is faster than Hotmail in IE8. I like Hotmail and all the Live Essentials that come with it. And for this services I use IE8. For me now, it's now become IE8 and Chrome. I'm done waiting on the next major update from Firefox. Now I know I'll most likey get blasted by some for admitting to using Chrome...but hey for all things Google it works and works faster.

@mikegalos: "Now I guess we should all rewrite all that rich, fast compiled C and C# code for apps that run in an interpreted scripting language on least common denominator displays and trust our data to live on somebody elses servers." This is the kind of backwards thinking that resulted in Microsoft finding themselves behind on the web. BTW, C# "compiles" to an intermediate language which is then interpreted. It does not compile to machine code. JavaScript is the language of the web though. Get with it. It's 2009.

Chrome and Safari 4 are flat out faster than the rest, even the latest FireFox. That said IE has more add-on's than either. Then again the more ad-on's/plugins you have the greater the chance of a browser crash. After using FF for a long time I basically gave it up and went to the latest versions of IE on the PC and Safari on the Mac and I don't really miss the plugins. FF on the Mac is buggy, its the only application that crashes on my Mac. I use Windows for work and while I am permitted to have FF on my PC and do, IE just works way better with business related applications. However I found out today that I cant login into http://now.netapp.com with IE8, so I removed it since I am on that site daily almost.

I have not found Safari 4 beta any faster than anything else on a Mac, although I'm typing from my $399 Vista laptop. I won't put Safari on it [my cheapo lappy] since I don't even care to use it in a Mac. i Use FF on a Mac and IE 7 on my PC's. Just say no to Google!

@drwam runt that test in his link.

@echap: But you are right about the C# being compiled by the JIT. Still, JavaScript has a far larger and important role to play in the web than C# does. Plain and simple.

"Yes, but they randomize the results by deleting the last digit of your zip code after 15 years. :)" Despite the smiley, that's not far from the truth. Google does nothing to protect identity for the first nine months and then does some limited privacy steps at 9 and 18 months but even after 18 months they don't reach full anonymization. A comparison of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft's search data retention policies (including a chart showing the relative times) is available at http://microsoftontheissues.com/cs/blogs/mscorp/archive/2009/02/10/compa... To me, the key thing to remember is that Google is a one trick pony and that trick is not about your privacy. They're in the business of selling information about you as targeting data to advertisers. That's their only significant money maker and the one that drives everything else they do.

"That's their only significant money maker and the one that drives everything else they do." And if people are dumb enough to let them do that, then more power to them. Your privacy is your responsibility...not the companies that you freely and knowingly give your info to. --tayme

@mikegalos: You use live.com mail?

@mikegalos: And yet you are the biggest fanboy of the biggest convicted monopolist of all time. An Evil corporation too.

"@mikegalos: You use live.com mail?" A perfect example. I use Outlook as a mail client for several mail servers. All of them can either use a rich interface such as found in Outlook or fall back on a less powerful interface when I'm limited to accessing data through a browser. I don't choose to access my mail via the inferior interface when I have a choice and I have backups which suffers the limitations of the AJAX model and implementation when a real application isn't available. The best benefits of multiple worlds while avoiding their disadvantages as circumstances allow. Exactly the scenario that the "Web Apps are the future" people don't acknowledge in their religious quest.

Obviously, Paul doesn't mind some people hijacking his site to fluff their ego when they are unable to gain any readership on their own blog. In other cases readers have been suspended for less. That is the worst kind of censorship, selective. But as I have said before, it is Paul's site. He can run it as he sees fit, even if a single reader is causing him to lose other readership, along with his credibility. --tayme

"even if a single reader is causing him to lose other readership, along with his credibility. " You could be talking about a lot of people on this site with that remark. Case in point: "robertsjoe said: @mikegalos: And yet you are the biggest fanboy of the biggest convicted monopolist of all time. An Evil corporation too."

"even if a single reader is causing him to lose other readership, along with his credibility. " What do mike's remarks have to do with paul's credibility, though? Opinionated commentators is good for business, especially if they give the impression that they know what they're talking about. It's kids like robertsjoe that are hurting him.

@shark - Just add the word "Having" to the beginning of your sentence and your grammar is fine. Regardless, I did not mention any names in my statement, you can each make your own assumption of whom I was referring to. It may have been more than one person... --tayme

Dude1313 "Main reason to use FF for me: Ad Block Plus." One thing that absolutely amazes me is how totally consistant that is. I've seen literally hundreds of people say that. I can't recall seeing any other product that was so universally used for the features of one 3rd party add-on. "And as much as Mike like's to hammer Google as a "one trick pony"... that one trick pony is kicking the crap out of the competition combined. " No question about that at all. Google is absolutely the king of their market. The trick for them is whether they can translate that into any other markets. As a reminder, 20 years ago, WordPerfect owned word processors, Lotus Development owned spreadsheets, Ashton-Tate owned databases, IBM owned personal computer hardware, Novell owned networks and Apple owned GUIs. Every single one of them so totally controlled their product line that competing against any of them was considered a fool's game.

shark "People like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Bill O'Reilly, etc" I'd suggest that Rachel Maddow deserves to be on a different list than Olbermann or O'Reilly. She actually IS an expert in her field and not just a commentator. As opposed to being a broadcaster who has picked up politics as a niche, Dr. Maddow is a Rhodes Scholar with a Doctorate in Political Science from Oxford who picked up broadcasting. This is not to say that I always agree with her but I do know that when her view disagrees with mine I have to take her view seriously and spend time pondering where we disagree and why.

Here are two screen shots of IE8 being WAY more secure than Chrome: CHeck this out of IE8 vs Chrome: http://twitpic.com/5myy7/full

""web apps are slow, that's a fact many don't care dealing with, but a fact." Exactly. While web apps have a place even adding in fancy names like "Web 2.0" and "AJAX" doesn't change the fact that what runs in the browser is still slow, limited scripting code. Even ignoring the browser limitations themselves you'll note: Apple's attempt to say "you don't need to write native apps for the iPhone - just use AJAX web apps" was met by such laughter from even their hyper-loyal developers that they had to do a 180 and switch to native Objective-C native app" Spot on. With regard to the AJAX iPhone apps, even the famous SJ RDF was insufficient. It was laughable, and I don't think Steve had much fun with that presentation. They just weren't ready, and it would have been much better just to say that. The app store and the integration with Xcode, once it arrived, was great, but the stop gap was a joke. Not only are web-based apps slow, when the net stops working, THEY stop working. This will matter less when the network has the reliability of the electric grid or water facets, but we are orders of magnitude away from that. Plus, I trust putting my documents on my computer, not google's or yahoo's or Microsoft's. Many serious issues there. The final thing is that web-based apps (as I believe MIke also noted) are an uncomfortable regression towards mainframes/terminals. Been there, done that, not interested in a repeat.

Shark "Mike, just curious, do you take Bobby Jindal's view seriously?" I did to some degree when he was less known (I still disagreed with him on virtually every issue) but do so less now that he's become the poster child for the party and has started speaking in talking points and bumper stickers in anticipation of running in 2012. His Republican Response speech was, frankly, embarassing for everyone involved and hopefully taught him a lesson in the costs of being a party spokesmodel.