I have been using Chrome for a few days, and while I like it, it won't replace FF3 simply because of the plug-ins. Just can't live without Adblock and a few others. But, the integrated Gears is killer for using with Gmail.
Anyway, I did a quick test myself to see what if any the differences were. I like others could find no real improvements in speed, though if you use your browser to check GMail, the 'Create application shortcut" (Gears) is dramatically faster than either FF3 or Chrome itself.
Anyway, I did another test checking memory usage on Windows XP:
I loaded both Firefox and Chrome with the same 3 tabs: (Twitter, Bloglines, Gmail): For this, FF3 used 90MB; Google Chrome: 95MB
I left each running, reading email, checking Twitters and reading feeds in each equally. I left only those 3 tabs running, though I did use the sites within the tabs.
After 30 mins, with the same tabs: Firefox memory use had grown to 113MB, Google Chrome went down to 92Mb.
After 30 more mins (1 hr total): same 3 tabs, Firefox memory use was 124MB, while Chrome was: 77MB.
I thought this was interesting. I do admit that this isn't an "apples to apples' comparison, since Chrome has no 3rd party plug ins (aside from Flash etc), while FF3 has several plug-ins, that likely are to blame for some of the memory leaks. I will try to retest with a plain vanilla FF3 profile, and see if there is any difference.
I think I may have found one quite significant problem with Chrome. When you tell it to download a file, even an executable, it automatically opens it. Looking at the on-line help, they say you can change this behavior. The install I just un-installed had that option, but it was ghosted.
Files are opened on my computer when I say so, not before - especially executables!
It's gone from my machine until it comes out of beta and then I'll give it another shot.
So, Chrome is still the champ in this test. CNET did more tabs, but basically measured memory usage at what I call "Start". I personally have found that it is browser use over time that matters more, since I leave my browser windows open for long periods of time. Chrome does indeed take more memory initially, but seems much more well behaved with it than FF3.
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Anyway, I did a quick test myself to see what if any the differences were. I like others could find no real improvements in speed, though if you use your browser to check GMail, the 'Create application shortcut" (Gears) is dramatically faster than either FF3 or Chrome itself.
Anyway, I did another test checking memory usage on Windows XP:
I loaded both Firefox and Chrome with the same 3 tabs: (Twitter, Bloglines, Gmail): For this, FF3 used 90MB; Google Chrome: 95MB
I left each running, reading email, checking Twitters and reading feeds in each equally. I left only those 3 tabs running, though I did use the sites within the tabs.
After 30 mins, with the same tabs: Firefox memory use had grown to 113MB, Google Chrome went down to 92Mb.
After 30 more mins (1 hr total): same 3 tabs, Firefox memory use was 124MB, while Chrome was: 77MB.
I thought this was interesting. I do admit that this isn't an "apples to apples' comparison, since Chrome has no 3rd party plug ins (aside from Flash etc), while FF3 has several plug-ins, that likely are to blame for some of the memory leaks. I will try to retest with a plain vanilla FF3 profile, and see if there is any difference.
Files are opened on my computer when I say so, not before - especially executables!
It's gone from my machine until it comes out of beta and then I'll give it another shot.
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Did you look at test 3 from my link above?
http://lifehacker.com/5044668/beta-browser-speed-tests-which-is-fastest
I'd be interested to know if your results come out differently.
Yes, I retested using plain vanilla FF3, without any plug-ins. Compared to my earlier post, here is how it turned out:
FF3 with 3 tabs: 88MB; 30mins later: 95MB, 1hr later: 98MB
So, my results show for 3 tabs running under XP (SP2, 2GB memory)
Chrome: Start: 95MB; 30mins: 92MB; 1hr: 77MB
FF3 (plugins): Start: 90MB; 30 mins: 113MB; 1hr: 124MB
FF3 (plain): Start: 88MB, 30mins: 95MB; 1hr: 98MB
So, Chrome is still the champ in this test. CNET did more tabs, but basically measured memory usage at what I call "Start". I personally have found that it is browser use over time that matters more, since I leave my browser windows open for long periods of time. Chrome does indeed take more memory initially, but seems much more well behaved with it than FF3.