Google Chrome, to the non-technological observer, this may seem like a very lightweight application by it’s looks and performance. However, once you get in deep and dive under the hood you will be horrified. Let me start off by saying Chrome is robust in it’s own right; however, with the way that it hogs memory it will not receive my seal of approval just yet.
When it comes down to mobile devices, Chrome is the way to go. The browser is fast, memory unobtrusive, sleek, and all-around beautifully designed. On the other hand, on the desktop, this beast is a complete resource hog. I am totally enthralled in the Google ecosystem, between my Nexus devices and content from Google Play — I am Google to the core. However, for some reason, I cannot seem to drop Mozilla Firefox, which has been my browser of choice since it was 0.4 Beta (thanks to Kevin Rose). Why? The answer is simple, Firefox used to be a memory hog; but, Mozilla realized this and corrected the issue. This browser is far less bloated that it has ever been, performs exceptionally and renders web pages like non other.
Now, let’s take a look at Chrome. Being a Google user, I felt the need to give Chrome a true end to end test. From the outside looking in Chrome looks like it uses no memory at all. However, when you view your processes on the task manager you will notice that for every tab you create in the browser Chrome is essentially creating another instance of itself. Why? Firefox doesn’t do this, it manages all open tabs in one browser instance instead of virtually creating a separate instance for every tab. This is why Chrome falls to 2nd place in my browser ranking.
Bottom line: If Chrome fixes its memory issues, there would be no reason for me to stay with Firefox for my desktop browser of choice or at least let them duel it out on my machine.