Replacing Firefox with Google Chrome
 

Hi All,

I wanted to suggest to the team that we switch from using Firefox to Google Chrome as the default web browser for the Lucid release.

At UDS the Ubuntu Mobile team lead announced that they would be switching to Google Chrome as the primary browser for the Lucid release for the Ubuntu Netbook edition. *Most all developers at UDS were using Chrome, and in informal tests Cody and I found it to use much less writeable memory than Firefox.



For example, the other night, I started two new browser sessions - one with Firefox and one with Google's Chrome Beta (not Chromium), and opened up four tabs:
Xubuntu.orgGmailOpennebula.org

and search.yahoo.comAll browser extensions were removed (not just disabled).* Without doing any additional surfing, Firefox was using 55 mb of writeable memory*, while Chrome was using only 18 mb of writeable memory.* I've been using Chrome as my default browser since UDS, and notice no performance issues.* It also offers a wide range of browser extensions, so it would not represent any major regression in terms of features.* Besides, any user who wanted to install Firefox could easily do so.



With regards to the packaging, I'm sure we could tie-in with any final packages that the mobile team wound up using (I'm not sure whether they intend to use Chrome or Chromium).* Chrome will certainly be receiving support throughout the LTS life cycle.



I know that Charlie had said that switching browsers for an LTS wouldn't be a great idea, but given the points I've mentioned above, it seems one worth considering.* What do you think?

Jim

* I checked this using the system resources app.* As Cody noted to me, you need to make sure you're looking at writeable memory rather than the default memory usage that gets displayed.


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Replacing Firefox with Google Chrome
 

On Wed, 2010-01-13 at 10:57 -0600, Jim Campbell wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I wanted to suggest to the team that we switch from using Firefox to
> Google Chrome as the default web browser for the Lucid release.
>
> At UDS the Ubuntu Mobile team lead announced that they would be
> switching to Google Chrome as the primary browser for the Lucid
> release for the Ubuntu Netbook edition. Most all developers at UDS
> were using Chrome, and in informal tests Cody and I found it to use
> much less writeable memory than Firefox.
>
> For example, the other night, I started two new browser sessions - one
> with Firefox and one with Google's Chrome Beta (not Chromium), and
> opened up four tabs:
> * Xubuntu.org
> * Gmail
> * Opennebula.org
> * and search.yahoo.com
> All browser extensions were removed (not just disabled). Without
> doing any additional surfing, Firefox was using 55 mb of writeable
> memory*, while Chrome was using only 18 mb of writeable memory. I've
> been using Chrome as my default browser since UDS, and notice no
> performance issues. It also offers a wide range of browser
> extensions, so it would not represent any major regression in terms of
> features. Besides, any user who wanted to install Firefox could
> easily do so.
>
> With regards to the packaging, I'm sure we could tie-in with any final
> packages that the mobile team wound up using (I'm not sure whether
> they intend to use Chrome or Chromium). Chrome will certainly be
> receiving support throughout the LTS life cycle.
>
> I know that Charlie had said that switching browsers for an LTS
> wouldn't be a great idea, but given the points I've mentioned above,
> it seems one worth considering. What do you think?
>
> Jim
>
> * I checked this using the system resources app. As Cody noted to me,
> you need to make sure you're looking at writeable memory rather than
> the default memory usage that gets displayed.

Jim out of curiosity what does epiphany use in comparison?

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Replacing Firefox with Google Chrome
 

Dave Morley wrote:

On Wed, 2010-01-13 at 10:57 -0600, Jim Campbell wrote:


Hi All,

I wanted to suggest to the team that we switch from using Firefox to
Google Chrome as the default web browser for the Lucid release.

At UDS the Ubuntu Mobile team lead announced that they would be
switching to Google Chrome as the primary browser for the Lucid
release for the Ubuntu Netbook edition. Most all developers at UDS
were using Chrome, and in informal tests Cody and I found it to use
much less writeable memory than Firefox.

For example, the other night, I started two new browser sessions - one
with Firefox and one with Google's Chrome Beta (not Chromium), and
opened up four tabs:
* Xubuntu.org
* Gmail
* Opennebula.org
* and search.yahoo.com
All browser extensions were removed (not just disabled). Without
doing any additional surfing, Firefox was using 55 mb of writeable
memory*, while Chrome was using only 18 mb of writeable memory. I've
been using Chrome as my default browser since UDS, and notice no
performance issues. It also offers a wide range of browser
extensions, so it would not represent any major regression in terms of
features. Besides, any user who wanted to install Firefox could
easily do so.

With regards to the packaging, I'm sure we could tie-in with any final
packages that the mobile team wound up using (I'm not sure whether
they intend to use Chrome or Chromium). Chrome will certainly be
receiving support throughout the LTS life cycle.

I know that Charlie had said that switching browsers for an LTS
wouldn't be a great idea, but given the points I've mentioned above,
it seems one worth considering. What do you think?

Jim

* I checked this using the system resources app. As Cody noted to me,
you need to make sure you're looking at writeable memory rather than
the default memory usage that gets displayed.



Jim out of curiosity what does epiphany use in comparison?



Or midori.



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Replacing Firefox with Google Chrome
 

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Pasi Lallinaho <open@knome.fi> wrote:








Dave Morley wrote:

Jim out of curiosity what does epiphany use in comparison?



Or midori.

We would have to look at those, but given the lack of extensions and keyboard shortcuts for Epiphany, and the newness of Midori (have you tried opening gmail in Midori? It reverts to the standard-html gmail interface, and requiring sites to interface with Midori as if they were interfacing with Safari shouldn't be something we should go with for an LTS).



I don't mean that as a knock against Midori.* I have the Midori PPA installed, and use it with some frequency.* It's under really active development, and it is a great project, but I don't think it would be ready for use as the default browser in a release.*



Jim

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Replacing Firefox with Google Chrome
 

Jim Campbell wrote:




On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Pasi
Lallinaho <open@knome.fi> wrote:




Dave Morley wrote:


Jim out of curiosity what does epiphany use in comparison?





Or midori.






We would have to look at those, but given the lack of extensions and
keyboard shortcuts for Epiphany, and the newness of Midori (have you
tried opening gmail in Midori? It reverts to the standard-html gmail
interface, and requiring sites to interface with Midori as if they were
interfacing with Safari shouldn't be something we should go with for an
LTS).



I don't mean that as a knock against Midori.* I have the Midori PPA
installed, and use it with some frequency.* It's under really active
development, and it is a great project, but I don't think it would be
ready for use as the default browser in a release.*



Jim


I agree. I can't even open Gmail in Midori.



We would like to have know the memory usage differences just for
curiosity, maybe for Lucid+1/2. I'm really interested in getting Midori
in at some point.



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Replacing Firefox with Google Chrome
 

On Wed, 2010-01-13 at 19:12 +0200, Pasi Lallinaho wrote:
> Jim Campbell wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Pasi Lallinaho <open@knome.fi>
> > wrote:
> > Dave Morley wrote:
> > >
> > > Jim out of curiosity what does epiphany use in comparison?
> > >
> > >
> > Or midori.
> >
> >
> > We would have to look at those, but given the lack of extensions and
> > keyboard shortcuts for Epiphany, and the newness of Midori (have you
> > tried opening gmail in Midori? It reverts to the standard-html gmail
> > interface, and requiring sites to interface with Midori as if they
> > were interfacing with Safari shouldn't be something we should go
> > with for an LTS).
> >
> > I don't mean that as a knock against Midori. I have the Midori PPA
> > installed, and use it with some frequency. It's under really active
> > development, and it is a great project, but I don't think it would
> > be ready for use as the default browser in a release.
> >
> > Jim
> I agree. I can't even open Gmail in Midori.
>
> We would like to have know the memory usage differences just for
> curiosity, maybe for Lucid+1/2. I'm really interested in getting
> Midori in at some point.
>
Jim a lot of the stuff that was broken I believe has now been fixed in
epiphany. (I could be wrong)


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Replacing Firefox with Google Chrome
 

HI Jim

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Jim Campbell <jwcampbell@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know that Charlie had said that switching browsers for an LTS wouldn't be
> a great idea, but given the points I've mentioned above, it seems one worth
> considering.* What do you think?

I also use Chrome/ium and performance-wise it's much better even on my
fast machines. It doesn't seem to be in main or universe yet though,
which I'm quite sure would be a prerequisite for getting it in
Xubuntu. Did they perhaps also discuss a roadmap for its inclusion at
UDS?

-Jonathan

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Replacing Firefox with Google Chrome
 

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 12:57 AM, Jim Campbell <jwcampbell@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wanted to suggest to the team that we switch from using Firefox to Google
> Chrome as the default web browser for the Lucid release.
>
> At UDS the Ubuntu Mobile team lead announced that they would be switching to
> Google Chrome as the primary browser for the Lucid release for the Ubuntu
> Netbook edition. *Most all developers at UDS were using Chrome, and in
> informal tests Cody and I found it to use much less writeable memory than
> Firefox.
<snip>
> With regards to the packaging, I'm sure we could tie-in with any final
> packages that the mobile team wound up using (I'm not sure whether they
> intend to use Chrome or Chromium).* Chrome will certainly be receiving
> support throughout the LTS life cycle.
>
> I know that Charlie had said that switching browsers for an LTS wouldn't be
> a great idea, but given the points I've mentioned above, it seems one worth
> considering.* What do you think?

I quite like Chrome. I created a "browser responsiveness benchmark",
and found that Chrome basically always responded within 100ms
regardless of background tasks, while Firefox could freeze for
hundreds of milliseconds (and sometimes even for seconds) at time.

http://www.ucc.asn.au/~mccabedj/BrowserResponsivenessBenchmark.html
http://osdir.com/ml/ubuntu-sounder/2009-10/msg00288.html

However, I am a bit surprised that Chrome will be in Lucid, as I
thought that Chrome was not easily packaged. As I understand, RedHat
is not packaging Chrome yet:

Callaway: Chromium: Why it isn't in Fedora yet as a proper package
[December 1, 2009]
http://lwn.net/Articles/364528/

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