Will Google Chrome replace Firefox?
Firefox 3 has all but replaced Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 as my main web browser on 3 desktops, 2 laptops and a netbook. The main reason? The plugin support that allows me to customize the browsing experience to be as clean and sleek as possible. With the new Google Chrome, this new beta browser makes even more tempting to try it out. Initial impressions are good with it’s promise of multi-process tab browswing built from the ground up. Google Gears is integrated immediately, which was a nice surprise when using Google Reader for the first time. We’ll have to see how it’s plugin support compares to Firefox’s established base of developers.
Did a quick test to see how the memory footprint compared across all 3 browsers, Firefox 3.01, Chrome 0.2.149.27 and IE 7.00.6000.16386. Type “about:memory” in the address bar in Chrome. Surprisingly, IE showed the least memory amount used. Always felt that IE was a bit sugglish on page loads but who knows what other background processes it’s sharing with Vista 
The UI for Chrome is definitely very appealing, clean sleek look with just a tabbed interface and none of those useless icons and toolbars to clutter the browsing experience. This looks to be a real asset on the screen estate challenged netbook since it has a very small viewable area. Hopefully, it’ll stand up well during tests. Looks like a very promising start for a beta product from Google.
A nice little usability feature which I just noticed is that when pasting an item into the address bar (which also acts as a search input) is that it intelligently determines if it’s a URL and will show “paste and go” or a search item and shows “paste and search”. Nice little touch to make life a little easier for users.
I’ve switched to Chrome use perhaps 60% of the time, Firefox 30% and IE only 10%. It’s a good browser and I recommend it highly. Firefox, I just need those helpful plugins.