I have been an avid Google user for nearly a decade. For the longest time I have used the Google stack in nearly every area I can. Today I am removing one piece of that stack…the Google Chrome Browser. Why? Speed and system stability.
I know I am extreme case…but I want my browser to make my life faster, not bring my machine to its knees every morning. I even did a speed and resource comparison of Firefox Vs. Chrome about a year ago. I could launch my 75 tabs that I open for my daily reading(it used to be 96..but I have eliminated some sites since then) without any drama, while this would peg my CPU I could keep working while Chrome busily munched through all of the information. About 3 versions ago I noticed that Chrome has started using more and more CPU for the same work. I do not care about the ram usage as my machine has 32 gigs installed. Chrome never went about 7 gigs or so. For the past few days when I open my daily reading tabs Chrome not only pegs the CPU but also would crash the video drivers making my screen go blank until Chrome completed the page loads. Turning off Chrome’s hardware acceleration made the loads times even worse and would result in the CPU being so overtaxed the system would freeze up…sometimes it came back..sometimes it didn’t. I went as far as to reformat my SSD and reinstall windows from ground zero..I even tried it on a base windows 10 pro 1703 install with no further updates…Chrome still effectively crashed the box on a reliable basis. This is unacceptable for anyone..much less me who depends on his machine for his livelihood. I then update my machine to the latest patch levels..reinstalled all of my software and fired up Firefox. After Firefox did its update install I did the same thing..75 tabs all at the same time. Firefox pegged my CPU..but did NOT hang, freeze, crash, mess with the video drivers…nothing…just like Chrome used to do. That made up my mind. Chrome is not just dormant it has been fully removed from my main machine and will get removed from other machines as i run across them(I have a few devices..<G>). Chrome had a good run, but lately they have been making my system unstable. ETC Maryland’s new recommended browser is going to be Firefox from this point forward.
*UPDATE* I will rerun my browser tests in another upcoming post.