RSSFirefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 3: Finding a place for more tabs
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published July 7, 2009, 5:26 PM
(continued from previous page)
Since Firefox relies on a conventional window device as its homebase, there's certain limits as to how sensitive it can be to unconventional mouse events, such as those that Chrome is experimenting with now. Many of the browser's more versatile tab functions are actually provided by way of third-party add-ons such as Tab Mix Plus, ColorfulTabs (which tints tabs by group and order of spawning, like IE8), and Tab Kit (which, we note, beat Tab Mix Plus to being updated for Firefox 3.5). But that's the way Mozilla development typically works: If a feature provided by an independent developer in the community is good enough, Mozilla would rather sanction and promote that feature rather than absorb it into Firefox without accreditation.
Until Mozilla's developers get bold and try a non-standard window, however, it will not be able to compete with Chrome or any other browser in the area of desktop arrangement. So the add-ons are limited to providing functionality within Firefox windows. And since Firefox 3.5 has only now enabled the user to drag an open tab between two windows without the receiving window reloading the tab's contents, add-ons such as Tab Mix Plus have to rethink the way they work. Tab Mix Plus' biggest benefit (and Tab Kit's as well) is enabling multiple tab rows within a single window, eliminating the need for scrolling through infinite open tabs along a partial row (until you try to open more than three row's worth of tabs, that is…something I can end up doing quite easily).
For now, when you drag an open Firefox 3.5 tab outside its window, you can deposit it on the desktop. Firefox will open a new window for it, but its location appears to be designated in the old-fashioned manner determined by Windows itself. Using the window device model Microsoft conceived in the 1980s, when a window produces another window, the child's default location is just below and to the right of the parent's, leaving just enough room for both title bars. So the position of the mouse pointer when you release the button is inconsequential, since Firefox's window device doesn't have the sensitivity to record the location of the pointer at the time of release.
Arguably, if Firefox had a Chrome-like ability to let the user group open tabs in multiple locations on the desktop, Tab Kit's or Tab Mix Plus' stacks of rows might become outmoded. For example, if I could just open a small window and keep it on the lower left of the desktop, and just dump multiple pages on the same topic into that window as I find them, then break them out into categories such as "trusted" and "suspect" at will, then I might never end up with a single window full of more than three stacks of tabs.
Maybe this heat was a gimme for Google from the beginning, but given the fact that Chrome hadn't scored any points in our showdown up to now, it really needed the break. In lieu of absolute answers for the moment about how the Web should differentiate published pages from functional applications, Chrome offers a much richer tool set for the user to figure it out for himself. That leaves our running score for now at Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (1).
KEEP SCORE ALONG WITH BETANEWS:
- Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 1: How private is private browsing?: Firefox 3.5 (1), Chrome 3 (0) after 1 heat
- Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown, Round 2: Are bookmarks outmoded?: Firefox 3.5 (2), Chrome 3 (0) after 2 heats
did you know you can drop firefox tabs into chrome?, only works with firefox 3.0 not 3.5 atm
and that if you close a tab your form data is saved like i just did when i accidentally quit the betanews tab
btw chrome updates itself in the background, so win, with firefox you have to WATCH IT update :p
Score: 0
|One of the best tools for organizing tabs in Firefox is Tree Style Tab
https://addons.mozilla.o...n-US/firefox/addon/5890
It permits tabs to be organized vertically, which is perfect for widescreen monitors, and of course as a tree, tabs can be nested, as well as easily moved and closed.
The only problem right now is there is an incompatibility issue in FF3.5 between Tab Mix Plus and Tree Style Tab, where new tabs opened from an existing tab are opened in the wrong location, but I'm sure this will be resolved soon.
In fact, I'm thinking of dropping TMP soon and going only with Tree Style Tab, as it's that convenient.
-- Drew
Score: 1
|I dropped the bloated TMP (after using it for years) and stuck with Tree Style Tabs and it has made a HUGE difference. I just install a handful of lightweight and essential addons to fill in for TMP:
Tab Wheel Scroll
https://addons.mozilla.o...n-US/firefox/addon/6501
LastTab (a lot better than Ctrl-Tab addon)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/112
Session Manager
https://addons.mozilla.o...n-US/firefox/addon/2324
Tabloc
https://addons.mozilla.o...-US/firefox/addon/12536
I no longer have to remember the laundry list of settings for TMP on every fresh Firefox install.
Score: 1
|welcome and thank you for mercy
Score: 0
|Totally unnecessary stuff (to me at least)...
Here's what I've found:
Page loads: I view a *lot* of forums and comments sections where I constantly refresh. Firefox reloads faster. It seems to pull images and such from cache, only downloading new or changed content. Chrome seems to pull *everything* from the server regardless. This takes longer.
Firefox Wins. If anyone knows a way to configure Chrome to reload from cache unless a change is detected, please let me know. There are no options for cache handling in the options window.
Session Management: I restore previous tabs, and frequently go back a session or two (especially when multiple windows were involved). The session management in Firefox *exists* and can be added to with a plethora of plug ins that extend the functionality greatly. Chrome has *one* option for restoring past tabs or a list of tabs *on startup only*.
Firefox wins.
Updates: Firefox updates consistently, but forces you to watch it do so when you launch the browser. Chrome updates consistently and you never even know it happened unless you watch the "about" window. Sure, there's a program running int he background to do this, but I have yet to find a system that bogs down because of this.
Chrome wins.
Now, I can live with the "reload on startup only" Chrome gives me if I can find a workaround for the page-(re)load issue. If Chrome has this and I haven't found it yet or gets it soon, I will ditch Firefox in a heartbeat.
Score: 0
|For late nighters, Google has announce it will be producing an OS.This will be interesting to see how this pplays out along side a possible DOJ investigation.
Score: 0
|I still think Chrome should've won round 1 (Or at least gotten more testing). I still can't reproduce the results you found relating to cookies being stored until reboot with Incognito mode. As soon as I close the Incognito window, and open a new one, everything is gone, shopping carts are empty. Like others said, you may have still had a Chrome process running in the background and not known it.
Score: 0
|FF 3.5 tab management is one of my least favorite features. It is extremely unintuitive to slide open tabs behind a greyed out arrow that typically indicates inactivity...
Score: 0
|I have to disagree. I, finally, like the way new tabs are opened in FF. By clicking the square with the plus sign. Great move, very convenient and like IE which had FF beat in this area.
Score: 0
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