Firefox 4 vs. Chrome 11 Beta

It was a big week in the never-ending Internet browsers race. First, Firefox 4 was finally launched two days ago  – last of the next generation browsers to hit the market,  trailing behind Chrome 10 and Internet Explorer 9. It brought some new and interesting changes to UI – a brightly colored Firefox start button, that looks like something nicked from a recent Opera version, plus a tab-pinning function, no doubt nicked from Google. I just wish that Firefox would go further with their “borrowing” spree and include a cool IE9’s option to pin the websites to your task bar. But this release was not only about reused UI ideas. Reviewers praised new Firefox for its improved speed, GPU acceleration, and compatibility with latest and greatest standards, including HTML5. Over all, it’s a very modern, lean and mean browser, a clear improvement over previous 3.6 version.

The reactions were overall very positive, so no wonder Google, fiercely competing with Firefox for a second spot in the browser market, decided to steal some of its thunder and scrambled to push the new Chrome beta out of the door. They managed to do so yesterday, and after just a couple of hours, tech fanatics all around the globe were commenting various new Chrome features. So how does new Chrome compare to new Firefox? While Firefox 4 seems to be concentrating more on general polish, increased speed, and some UI changes, Chrome creators actually attempted to came up with something new. First up is the speech input option. Although it won’t help you much if you’re a non-native speaker with a runny nose, it works well enough, and Google claims that popular websites will pick this one up. Soon, you might be able to ask Google for a search query, or name things you want to look for on eBay.

But that’s not everything. There are also 3D Cascading Style Sheets. If you’re not a tech-oriented person, this may sound like a mouthful. But to put things simply, 3D CSS will allow websites to include some nifty 3d effects and transformations, like page flips or cylindrical menu’s, or page content bending under the mouse cursor. But that’s only if webmasters take time to code the effects visible only to a small number of browsers. Then, there is also speed. Even though it’s only an unpolished, beta version, Chrome 11 still manages to outperform Firefox 4 in several benchmarks, including javascript  Sunspider and Futuremark’s Peacekeeper. Which one would I pick? Well, it’s a bit unfair to compare a finished product, like Firefox 4, to beta test version, even though Chrome 11 Beta is surprisingly stable and bug-free. Unfortunately, most of the improvements offered by Chrome will become useful only after websites adapt them. And by that time, Firefox will no doubt be sporting similar features. It seems that for now Chrome and Firefox are in a deadlock, with neither likely to increase the market share. Because never-ending races don’t just end like that, you know.