I finally said goodbye to Chrome.
After 6 years of championing it as the premier browser I had grown frustrated and distant . There were tears, heartache and questions galore; “How did this happen?”, “Was it something I did?”, “Was this inevitable?”. In the end it came down to my frustrations with performance during my day-to-day use. I have seen the benchmarks and Chrome performs better than most in general use and its ability to sync between platforms is second to none.
But I don’t put hardware or software through “general use”.
As an IT administrator and web developer, I am constantly putting my systems under stress. When my browser opens it needs to load 10-15 pinned tabs as well as any additional tabs for each session. To manage that load I run plenty of RAM (16GB), lean towards the Intel i7 series processors and enjoy the support of an SSD.
The problem I’ve had with Chrome is the way it manages it’s memory; each tab in Chrome is it’s own process. The heart behind sandboxing tabs is that if one crashes, it doesn’t tank your entire browser. It also lets the system use more memory than the browser may typically use because each instance vies for its resources independently. This works well in theory, but in practice, I have had nothing but trouble.
Maybe it’s because my processor isn’t top of the line (4th gen dual-core i7) or because I have too many open tabs. Either way, it simply does not meet my needs anymore.
Currently, I’m going back to Firefox, but I plan to give both Microsoft Edge and Opera a fair shake. It will take some getting used to, but I hope to find a better solution to my browser problems in the coming months.
Maybe we just need some space? They do say that “time makes the heart grow fonder,” right?
Katie Allred says
I had this same problem! I’m on a mac running 8 GB of ram. I love Google Chrome. It has worked great for years. I defended it with honor. But two weeks ago, I switched to Firefox and haven’t looked back. It works so much better and is less of a memory hog.
Sean Leacy says
Mind if I ask how many tabs you normally keep open? Do you pin tabs? How new is your Mac?
Firefox was my bread and butter until Chrome came along. I’ve tried a few since I left but only one (so far) has really felt right. I’ll be writing a follow-up soon ☺
Walter Wimberly says
I’ve been moving away from Chrome did several months. Google has made changes to it which negatively effect is written in Microsoft sites, and wise Dynamics CRM at my office. IE11 I like beget than other versions and I could live with.
For home, I’m using Firefox for a lot of stuff, mainly when Chrome revived the ability for screenshot tools to save the image to the clipboard.
If Firefox would support 64bit,i may not ever leave it again.
Sean Leacy says
Support if 64-bit would be great! I’ve been running Chrome in 64 for a while now and hoped that would solve the issue but it still persisted.
For all the hate IE gets, IE11 is pretty great (especially in the enterprise). It’s very stable just doesn’t have the plugin directory and cashing performance of some of the others.
What about Firefox captures you? Do you use Sync across devices?
Zach says
Their currently is a 64 bit version of Firefox – it launched just a month or two ago. It’s available from here http://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/12/15/firefox-64-bit-for-windows-available/
Sean Leacy says
I saw that! Now I have to circle back and see if it changes my opinion at all 🙂
Robert Rouse says
I’m putting Brave through its paces right now. It’s slated to be at version 1 by the end of the year. Brave.com
Sean Leacy says
Looks promising! I love the concept but am always hesitant to jump in to a project like that as a daily driver not knowing if it will continue to be developed a couple years down the road or not. I’ll definitely give it a shot though!
Greg Simmons says
Firefox is my go to browser. For me, IE is best referred to as “other browser downloader.” I tried Chrome when many were touting it’s speed and general awesomeness. But, I too keep many tabs open all the time – (19 as of right now!). Firefox will slowly grow memory usage up to 1 GB if I leave it open too long – like all day. Chrome would bring my machine to its knees. For info, I’m running an i7 with 16 GB of RAM, so I’m on better end of resources.
While FF has had its fits and starts, it has become extremely stable. Now, if all the webdevs will adopt HTML5 and other tools and abandon Flash and Java scripts.
Sean Leacy says
The built-in integration of java and flash for Chrome were amazing. I was able to build out a new system and never have to disgrace it with the installation of Adobe Flash. A part of me died when I had to make that download after trying a few other browsers. Firefox was the first browser I went to after leaving Chrome; it was familiar and had a lot of the same features.
We’ll see where I end up 🙂
Stephen says
I moved over to firefox from chrome about a year ago and havent looked back sense! However, just a warning, they are bring multi processes to firefox
Sean Leacy says
I saw that! I really have no problem with each tab being it’s own process if it’s done well. Unfortunately Chrome tends to take a bit more than I’d like it to and ends up crashing. The first tab that hung in Firefox crashed the whole browsers and made me immediately regret leaving Chrome. I’m 2 or 3 weeks out now and only launched it a few times to check browser compatibility. So far, so good 🙂
Viking KARWUR says
Hi,
Please try Brave Browser http://www.brave.com http://www.github.com/brave or follow their twitter @brave
Thanks!
Sean Leacy says
It’s been downloaded and I’ll have a run-down on my experience with it in a post later this month 🙂
Chris Wilson says
I still use chrome for certain tasks, especially as the alternative at my office is IE (something that really shouldn’t still be around). But I left chrome as my primary browser last year. I found that on a couple of occasions my MacBook’s battery would drain quicker than if I was using photoshop! I’ll admit that I probably had too many tabs open, I don’t use as many now and I believe chrome get’s on a little better with Macs now but I haven’t really had too many negative side effects of switching to Safar (Although I do still need to run chrome every now and again. FLASH!!! )
Sean Leacy says
Safari works great if you are invested in the Apple/iOS/OSX ecosystem. As a web developer I always have Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE and Opera available to check code/design in to make sure what I’m doing works across all main platforms.
I can’t wait for the final death of Flash. Seeing sites like Pandora still relying on it have put me off from using their services.
Paul Oyler says
I use Chrome everyday even though I would actually prefer using Firefox. I really like using the FF Web Developer Extension better than Chrome’s Web Dev Tools (just ‘feels’ better to me) but my trouble with FF is I get constant “script stopped working’ errors, usually in a tab I’m not even active, and it just brings everything to a halt. If I could find a way to stop that from happening I’d go back to FF in a heartbeat.
Sean Leacy says
I was the same way with the web dev tools but Chrome’s grew on me over time. As a web dev it was hard to make the move in the first place but I as able to find a new work flow that facilitated Chrome. Have you ran the developer tool to see which script is hanging?
Paul Oyler says
It seems to be random different scripts, which is really annoying.
Sean Leacy says
Strange! Have you tried uninstalling it and running something like CCleaner and cleaning up the appdata zombie files?
Paul Oyler says
Yes. Have unistalled several times. Have run CCleaner, Malware Bytes, Spy-Bot Search and Destroy, and a portable version of Clam.
It will run okay for a week or two then it starts popping up with errors. Finally I just quit using and moved to Chrome. Now I only use FF for cross-browser checks and if I really need to use the web dev tools there. I still get so frustrated and lost with Chome web dev…
Sean Leacy says
That’s one of the most frustrating parts about working across multiple platforms. I prefer to run 1 browser as my daily driver but have a few apps here and there that just won’t work without being in a specific browser. It really bugs me when developers write for 1 specific platform.
Eric Dye says
I’ve tried moving to Firefox from Chrome several times, but I only last about a day. That being said, I started using Firefox for my “work” browser as I’ve setup several tab groups. So while I use Chrome as my “main” browser (2-3 tabs, 2-3 pinned tabs), I jump to Firefox for heavy lifting of 20+ tabs.
Sean Leacy says
Doing web development I’ve always had to run all browsers but my main had always been Chrome. Are you running both at the same time? So Firefox runs your “work” tabs then Chrome runs all your personal tabs? Are you using Windows 10’s separate desktops to compartmentalize your work spaces as well?
Eric Dye says
Yes, running both at the same time. I keep thinks like my Asana and Trello tabs pinned in Chrome as well. Running Windows 10, but not doing the whole workspace thing.
Sean Leacy says
Workspaces is nice if you are like me an easily distracted but I rarely find myself running more than once browser at a time unless I’m doing web dev and testing code.
Lesnik says
Brave browser and Vivaldi. Mozilla tries so hard to emulate Chrome to 100% with ripping all customization features out, Mozilla totally has lost their way, seeing nothing good in a browser which only rips off others (customization from Opera and now minimalism and very few features because of mimicking Chrome).
Brave and Vivaldi are the best showcase that you can indeed make something useful with Chromium/Chrome. If you want to use Chrome without annoyances and Google crap, i would try out Vivaldi or Brave. Much better than Chrome and Firefox!
Sean Leacy says
I’ll definitely have a run down of my experience with Firefox in the follow-up post later this month. It’s not the browser I moved to Chrome from anymore but some of the updates have made for a better experience. I’ve got both Vivaldi and Brave installed and gave them both some screen time 🙂
Jonathan says
I am rocking a 2015 imac i7 with 16gb ram and I usually have multiple firefox windows open with more than 20 tabs each; sometimes I open up a plethora of bookmarked tabs to the tune of 100-150 and they all open. I jump around through them and never experience the lag and slow down…I must be doing something right/different to not experience the above issues. And just to give an example: sometimes I have multiple youtube tabs open ready to play videos I have saved up, tabs for reading, website ideas, pinterests, facebook, twitter, play.spotify.com and many others.
Jonathan says
meant 2013 i7, 3.1ghz model.
Sean Leacy says
I’m not saying it’s entirely Chromes fault. Some users are able to run it just fine on their hardware doing more than I am but after a couple of months installed I have to blow out the entire directory and do a fresh install. If I hadn’t had to do this bi-monthly refresh on both OSX and Windows I’d say it was just a OS problem but I’ve had the same experience on everything except my Linux installs but I’m not really on them enough to run them through their paces.
joy says
I ditched Chrome and I sent them one of the most disgusting letters I could ever write for their “feedback”. I’ve been using Edge for several months now. Not having any problems, yet. One thing I really hated with Chrome is that it’s a memory hog. Not all people with computers have 8-16 GB of RAM and Core i7s, I guess Google forgot that.
Sean Leacy says
I’m glad to hear you like Edge! It’s built really well for Windows 10 and ran very smoothly for me in my testing. It doesn’t have the extensibility that I need from a browser but was absolutely solid! Even with 16GB of ran Chrome gave me trouble. The follow up article will give a run down on all the browsers I’ve tested and where I’ve ended up now that I’ve been off Chrome for a month.