Has Firefox Finally Been Beat?

A few days ago, some one leaked information about a project that Google has been hiding for several years. Google Chrome is Google's answer to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Chrome is a totally redesigned web browser; built from the ground up it aims for speed and security. I have been a fan of Firefox back in the days of 1.0 but after trying Chrome I have to say I'm reluctant to going back to Firefox for several reasons.

1. Speed - Incredible, unadulterated speed! One of my biffs about Firefox has always been the slow start up times. General web surfing has always been faster than IE but the start up times have at times taken longer than 30-40 seconds on an older PC. Chrome is faster than even IE with start up times and surfing is even faster than Firefox 3.

2. Memory Usage - One of the negative things thrown around by IE Fan boys is that Firefox is a resource hog, and to a degree they are right. Most of these problems have been fixed with 3.0, IE has been shown to use more memory than Firefox has ever. Chrome continues to run smoothly even after marathon surfing.

3. Secure - Chrome was built from day one with the thought of security. IE is not secure due to some short sightedness from the beginning of the project. Active X controls allow someone to take control over your browser with relative ease.

Even with these advantages over Firefox I think that power users will really struggle to cross over the the shiny side. One of the biggest disadvantages to Chrome is that unlike Firefox there is no add-ons for Chrome. Also right now Chrome is only available for Windows XP and Vista. Lastly, Chrome has few options available for power users to tweak.

Over-all, Chrome is a very good browser. I will be watching it's development in the future. I think that for the everyday user Chrome will be a perfect replacement for IE. For the power user, I think that it will be a while before we will cross over to Chrome.

If you have not yet tried it, give it a chance before you write it off as a fad or just not for you. Click here to go to the download page.

What do you think? Comment and let me know.


UPDATE:

After having used Chrome for a while I have just a few things to add.

1. Flash is not as fast as in Firefox. I have an older PC that I use at work (2.0 Ghz, 2.0gb RAM, on board video). I found that Chrome makes all Flash (youtube.com, dilbert.com/animation, any flash based games) drop frames.

2. Java based apps are much faster than in Firefox.

3. I miss my Ad block Plus add-on.

4. Spell checking does not work everywhere it should. (such as while I type this blog)

5. It works best in google based apps (gmail, google docs, etc...)