In 2008, the browser segment (not to mention the Internet segment) was very different from today. Internet Explorer has dominated the scene, yes, but Firefox managed to convince almost one in every three users. And then in September of the same year, Google unexpectedly introduced Chrome.

This browser came with many important new features, and Google was smart enough to talk about them in an original way, in a comic book way. Scott McCloud was the artist responsible for bringing the Google team’s lyrics into this format, and the result was an unforgettable staging.

Source: Scott McCloud

The offer surprised with its understanding. New ideas such as minimalism, speed, and isolated tabs in their own virtual space (if one crashes, the entire browser does not crash, plus security risks are avoided) brought a new breath to the market and were gradually adopted. Growing.

I was one of those who transformed. After using Firefox as my browser for a few years, I’ve come to use and love Chrome every day. And years later, I started to hate him. As the summer of 2017 came to an end, I decided that Google’s advancements no longer convinced me and I went back to Firefox, which has been my default browser ever since.

Why did I do this? At first, to test Firefox 57 (“Firefox Quantum”), a major release that introduced a new rendering engine and improved issues that always hindered it, such as memory consumption.

Something you probably think you’re also affected by: to minimize the violation of privacy for example, it is fixed in Chrome. Google’s collection of browser data is notable – it even does this in incognito mode, surprising – and I wanted to put an end to this practice.

Support for the Open Source philosophy also attracted me when it came to making business changes: if Mozilla has been characterized by one thing over the years, it is trying to bet on this model and also on open standards.

This development became the sole proponent of an alternative rendering engine alongside Safari, which has not been available on Windows for years. Everyone uses Chromium as a base: Edge does it, Opera does it, and there are a few others following this trend.

So another reason was to try Rebellion against Chrome’s imperial ruleis a great browser in many ways, but its market share allows Google, like Apple, to try to influence the evolution of the web just like Internet Explorer did back in the day. There are many examples, but maybe you remember the criticism Google AMP received.

My farewell to Chrome was actually part of an effort to slowly get rid of my addiction to this giant. I’ve been using DuckDuckGo as the default search engine in Firefox since 2020, but I occasionally use Google in case the results aren’t what I’m looking for. But there are still a lot of steps to take: At this point I’m still using Gmail, but at least I’m rid of Google Photos, which terrified me in 2017.

The weight of ideological reasons is therefore remarkable, but there are also practical reasons: at this point I am already very happy with the way I work. With Firefox, its shortcuts or extensions, I know it inside and out and allow me to configure the browser exactly the way I want.

In fact, the ability to customize it, as with the address bar, is another of its strong points. There are opinions for every taste in the performance department: those in charge of Mozilla keep an up-to-date and detailed graph of Firefox’s performance against Chrome, and things look very even (and not particularly fast in any case).

Meanwhile memory consumption Once again, the scenarios are very different, and both have come under criticism for their high memory consumption – although Chrome is generally punished more here – but it doesn’t help that in general all web pages become heavier as time goes on. time.

Is Firefox a better browser than Chrome? I couldn’t say it, but it’s clear to me that for now best browser for me. Fortunately, there are other alternatives that will allow me to throw off Chrome’s yoke—I have a few installed on my Mac mini, but I only use them occasionally—but for now, Firefox fits the bill and remains the alternative I’m most comfortable with. And I hope it continues like this for many more years.

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