Now that Chrome's extension is out, it's about time I blog about it my opinions about them. What about the other browsers? No, they're out of the equation for me. These are the only 2 browsers of choice for me. I like Opera too but I don't think they're as fast and as customizable as Chrome or FireFox. IE is not even the picture. As for Safari, again it's because of the lack of customizability and I don't really like how the browser render html document.

Firefox

What I love: Almost everything. I like how modifiable Firefox. For a browser geek, Firefox empower users with the ability to edit, tweak, and play with however they want. I think this is probably the result of the open source nature of Firefox. Next would be the theme, it gives user a change the look of Firefox completely to look like however they want it or to look like any other browser I want. I can easily turn Firefox to look like Chrome, Safari and even Opera. If u like personalisation and customization like I do, then you'd understand why having the ability to fully personalize is a strong point of a browser. Then we have the Firefox plug-ins which is very very handy since internet nowadays is no longer just a static hmtl page document any more but a fully integrated and dynamic interface with different add-on applications like flash embed, Javascript, video embed...etc. In order to view all these in the browser, it has be equipped with the capabilities to run them, and that is what the plug-ins do. Finally, the one thing I love the most about Firefox. Extensions. It unlocks so many abilities in the browser. It redefines the definition of browser completely. That was also part of the reason why I ignore other browser from my choice. Having browser without extensions is like being handicapped online... nah I'm just kidding. It's not that dramatic. I have to admit that after being given the power to do almost whatever you want, I'm addicted and like any other unholy mortal, I'm not willing to give up that power especially when I have a choice of keeping it.

What I don't love: Hmmm... that's would be firefox 3.5! I really hate FF 3.5. It's supposed to be major update but it's anything but stable. First of all, it fails to run all my favorite extensions regularly. That means sometime I find some extensions is not enabled and it say "not compatible" but after I restarted the browser, it became back ok but the ones that were ok have problem. Argh... it's frustrating. Another more frustrating thing would be the constant crashing. Image having like 20 tabs on and it crashes. *pissed off* Without with ado, I immediately converted back to 3.0. And I'm in love again. Another thing would be the large system resource consumption. But I don't really have much complain about that because I think maybe it's due to the fact that I installed too many plug-ins and extensions. Lastly, it would be the browser restart requirement. It does get on my nerves sometime when I have to always restart the browser after installation of extension or theme. Just imagine when you wanna go around and try out new extensions and new themes, the thought of having to restart every installation and removal may kill your mood. I really hope they'll find a way to work that out.

Chrome

What I love: The speed! and the smooth loading! I'm blown away. When I tried Chrome 4.0 for the first time, I was literally wow! And the broader viewing space with fewer things eat up the the space. Also, I love the smooth tab transition. To put it simply, everything is just smooth, from starting browser, adding tabs, closing tabs, and closing the browser. Next would be theme, I've already mentioned that I love personalisation. So yes theme is always a plus. And yes! the recently released extensions. Nothing much to say, it's very similar to the Firefox extension. What I want to highlight is that extensions and theme installation and removal in Chrome do NOT require any browser restart!!! A very strong point indeed. I find it very convenient and time saving.

What I don't love: If you try ctrl+alt+Del and look at the task manager when you have Chrome running, you'd see that even if you only have 1 window of Chrome but have like 4 or 5 Chrome precesses running, which I have no idea why is it so as well. Since each of them consumes quite a small amount of resource, I didn't bother to look them up. But still, I'd prefer having 1 process for 1 application. Another issue for me would be the apparent lack of customization power. If you look at Chrome interface, it seems that all it wants you to do is surf net and not bothered with anything else. This is very good for none IT-savvy user or a non geek person. But from a geek's perspective like me, I feel that it takes away too many things out of sight - one of the very main one would be the menu bar. Seeing less things giving you the impression that there isn't much there thus there isn't much you can do.

FireFox vs Chrome

For net surfing experience, I have to give it up to Chrome, no doubt about that. For features, customization power, and user's empowerment, I would stand for FireFox still because I still believe that FireFox is still far ahead of Chrome for that. Another thing would be the download speed and download management. Somehow, the download speed I get from FireFox is considerably faster than in Chrome. On top of that, DownThemAll! is one the best thing that ever happened to me on FireFox. It liberates me completely from my reliance on download manager software. And being a browser add-on, it integrates more seamlessly with the browser than external download manager. DownloadHelper and ColorZilla are another 2 I can't live without. So far I don't think Chrome has them yet. In fact, there are a lot of add-ons that I rely on that aren't there yet in Chrome extensions archive. I can go on endlessly on extensions so to keep it simple, I have greater browser experience with FF than Chrome.

Conclusion

If we look at browser for its traditional definition, Chrome wins. However, if you look at it as a complete software package, Firefox wins. In conclusion, if you are just looking to surf net, go for Chrome but if you like doing and trying out a lot of nonsense like me, then go for FireFox, at least for the moment (because Chrome extensions archive is still at a very early phase, so we will not know what happen next when their extensions library grow substantially.) For me, my final choice is that I choose to stick with both - Chrome for surfing web, FireFox for every other things.