Browser wars! Chrome 18.x vs Firefox 12

Chrome 18.x or FireFox 12?

That's the big question isn't it? I use both, to put it simply they both seem to excel in their own specific areas; FireFox uses next to no memory so I use this on my old XP machine with 192MB ram  and FireFox is running fine, I use the increasingly more popular Google Chrome on my netbook as it seems to put significantly less strain on my puny Atom processor and therefore lets me open more tabs and stream flash video smoothly. Although I do use FireFox on my desktop as I find it much more aesthetically pleasing.

I have not included Microsoft's Internet Explorer in these tests as I believe that it is unfair as it is a Windows specific browser and to be honest I didn't think it would stand a chance against Chrome and FireFox.

On my "project" RAM is tight so when web-browsing an economical browser is essential; with a simple website open with few adverts Google's Chrome browser managed to use an astonishing 105MB of RAM. While FireFox on the other hand used a measly 72MB! Now to many of you this either won't make any sense or you won't really care but if you have an older computer with a small amount of RAM the 33MB of now free RAM could make all the difference and could drastically improve your browsing experience. Once point to FireFox!

Now Google claim their latest version of chrome (18.x) offers better graphics for older computers and they are right! Using the game on Fire fox's own performance section, on my netbook, the FPS is so low the game is unplayable, on the other hand, using Chrome, the game is a delight to play! One point to Chrome!
Note: I will be updating this section with findings from my project once I have access to it after the weekend.

Both browsers claim fast start-up times, chrome even claims that it will start immediately! But is this really the case?
All tests done with one tab open (Google) and timings starting from when the icon is pressed until the page has finished loading.
Using my netbook: (Windows 7)

• FireFox 12 took 6.4 seconds to load Google

• Chrome 18.x took 2.8 seconds to load when it was already running in the background

• Chrome 18.x took a whopping 18.4 seconds to load when it wasn't running in the background

Using my desktop PC: (Windows 7)

• Fire fox 12 took 3.7 seconds to load Google

• Chrome 18.x took 1.1 seconds to load when it was running in the background (basically instant to the eye)

• Chrome 18.x took 4.1 seconds to load without it running in the background

The winner of this round is your choice! You choose whether it is fair to have Chrome running in the background for this test or not!

The last thing (and arguably the most important) is the search/address bars featured on both Chrome and FireFox. Again, both excel in their own different ways; completing a simple google search works the same in both browsers but when searching for a web page where you have forgotten the URL, the browsers are separated. Chrome's "Omnibox" does a very good job of remembering the home pages of the sites that you have visited, but does not seem to remember the individual sections of the pages you visit making searching for that product you saw on amazon a slightly more tedious task. FireFox's "Awesome bar" on the other hand learns from your browsing habits and tailors it's behavior to suit you, so bookmarks become almost unneeded as simply typing the fist few letters of where you want to go in the the search bar will take you there automatically.

Overall I believe it is simply personal preference and situation as to which browser you should use. If you use a netbook or computer with sufficient RAM but a small amount of processing power Google's Chrome is the way to go but on the other hand, if you use a PC with a small amount of RAM then FireFox is defiantly the way forward. Using a powerful PC with lots of RAM and Processing power the difference between the two will be insignificant, here I would go for FireFox as I find features such as "Tabs from other computers" are difficult to live without.

If you think I have missed out a vital test (or browser for that matter) please let me know in the comments below, but please do not leave any criticism about the opinions expressed in the article as it is not here to be 100% un-bias, but simply somewhere for people to start when making a choice between browsers.