Something wrong happened between Google and Mozilla and suddenly friends became competitors - the true reasons why Google is developing it’s own browser are still unclear and very fuzzy. Sergei Brin says we need to re-think our browser experience and move it to the next level - make everything you do on a computer through the browser. Maybe it’s the new Google’s vision on modern internet technology development, who knows.
But in case of browsers war which has already began I stand for Firefox. And here are 8 simple reasons Why.
- Customization.
Google Chrome’s comes with a default “skin” without the ability to customize it - what the hell, guys, let me change the default color! Firefox allows to change theme and even modify it with CSS files and I am not talking about the tons of freeware Firefox skins on the net. - Add-ons.
Extending your browser with different add-ons became essential for me as I started blogging. For example, with Digg extension I can easily submit my article. Delicious add-on synchronizes all my bookmarks with my delicious account and PicLens gives me a great opportunity to browse through Youtube videos and Flickr pictures in animated 3-D mode. According to Google, Add-ons are non-efficient because they should be re-written after any major browser’s update. - Ads.
One of the simplest reasons why there would never be AdBlock addon or ability to block ads in Chrome just because 99% of Google’s revenue comes from such services as Adwords and Adsense. That’s why you’ll never be able to bypass tones of internet ad areas with Chrome. - Development progress.
I love to follow the developing progress by using alpha and beta versions of a product. I also enjoy reading the developer’s conversations about how this or that feature should be made and what icon set to use. This is developing transparency. I know what to expect - none of features are hidden from the eye. That’s why I always test Firefox’ nightly builds and enjoy new features the developers have implemented recently. None of this is in Chrome. - Bookmarks organizer.
Google’s Bookmarking mechanism looks exactly like Firefox’ one, but organizing the bookmarks place could have been better and maybe tagging ability will come in next versions, but now I feel like the absence of it is critical for me. - Independence.
What is Mozilla’s major development? A browser. I know the developers can freely join the team and spend their forces on building a better browser. Google has tons of applications and some of them were really forgotten many times ago and deprecated. - Default search engine.
Have you seen searching in Chrome? You type in address bar search engine’s name and then press tab so you can FINALLY type in search term. You can’t manage search engines, only typing. - Awesome bar.
Awesome bar functionality completely lives up it’s name. It’s intelligent, it really does open the website I want as soon as I type 2 letters in and shows me the most relevant results. In Google Chrome we have the most visited websites and no arrow at address bar, that shows the most visited sites or different options for searching and accessing website I want.
May be it’s all the part of Google’s new vision but we can’t see radical changes and improvements so far, maybe they should have waited with their very first beta release. And if we are talking about new features of Google’s Chrome - we can easily Enable Chrome’s Best Features in Firefox.
Which do you think browser is better and why?
