The advent of Chrome marked a important phenomenon in software industry. Before Chrome, software companies firmly believed the fact that rewriting from scratch is nonsensical and waste of time and resources. But it was such a painstaking work for the programmers to debug millions of lines of code with almost no documentation. It sometimes spoils the minds of the programmers and gets reflected in their personal life. Take a look at http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/12/codes-worst-enemy.html if you had the patience. Also have a look at the article http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html which asserts my point. Chrome proved all of them wrong. Old field tested code is no more to be obsessed if it has become a unmanageable behemoth. A rewrite can definitely give peace to the souls of the programmers. Chrome proved that a complete rewrite can make the code slick and it’s very much near firefox in functionality. And time it took for a decent version of Chrome, was very much lesser than imagined. Despite the dramatic advent of Chrome, I acknowledge the fact that Chrome still has to improve to compete head-on with firefox. There were rumors that Google is now making a OS to compete with Windows which I heard, Steve Ballmer laughed off. But going by the Chrome’s stint, I’m expecting OS from Google next year, which could even be an upgraded version of android.
I was comparing Chrome 3.0.195.27 and firefox 3.5.4. Chrome was slick when I just had 3-5 web pages open. But above ten tabs, it becomes sluggish. Firefox had better support till 20 tabs. The memory occupied by both the programs at this juncture was more or less same with Chrome being more sluggish when I alternated between the tabs.
Firefox obviously supports the most websites as it had been around quite long. There were times when I would have filled a lengthy form and had trouble in submitting it in Chrome. I had to switch back to Firefox many times since certain bank websites doesn’t yet work with Chrome.
And then comes the lack of plugins. Firefox has a plethora of plugins to give it ammo for the next 10-20 years. Following are the plugins I miss in Chrome,
1)Dictionary Helper
2)FireShot
3)FireBug
4)DownloadHelper(FreeDownloadManager is doing a good job for Chrome)
5)Zooming Image
6)DownloadHelper
I’m sure many would miss even more. The only issue, I have with Firefox is the initial delay in loading which I hope will get fixed soon. It’s pleasing to know that Firefox has matured in stability now and crashes are very very rare. Based on the pace at which Chrome is being developed now, I believe that Firefox will lead the race for perfection followed by Chrome and then Internet Explorer.
