Chrome rules!

Dearie me, I remember that message. Used to get it at least every three days.

I feel a new flame war is about to start. ;D

Wait, you still aren't using Chrome?

I remeber those old days also.
Chrome is is streamline, so fast, so light, and very reliable, because each task runs on it's own process!

The only thing chrome lacks is add ons... Quite possibly they are half the reason firefox is so slow.

Honestly, I was a little skeptical at first, but give it a go just even for one week. There's no turning back :)

> Wait, you still aren't using Chrome?

I wanted to give it a test try as soon as the homepage options dialog works (it currently opens the custom homepage, instead of a blank page as I set it to in two places, whenever I Ctrl+N open a new window).

I think it's blank enough :)
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7933/picture2qpo.png

Philipp I can totally understand why you'd want to stay with FF because of that. I don't like the custom homepage either. I never use it. Even still, tabs open much faster in Chrome than in FF for me.

The reason FF is so slow is because the UI is implemented in XUL to allow extensions to manipulate it.

What, no mention of AdBlock as a reason to stay with Firefox??

This bug was entered at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=452770 last year and it was marked as a duplicate of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=286355 which was already submitted in 2005!!

If you want to speed up the troubleshooting you can vote for this bug.

Amen my brother.
Sick of that error.

Want to make the switch to chrome, but there a select few add-ons I can't live without.

I have never seen that message, and I've been using Firefox since its Firebird days.

It's why i switch to chrome too...
But there is no extensions in chrome :'(

Use both! I use Chrome for all of my actual web browsing needs, and I use Firefox+Firebug for web development.

> What, no mention of AdBlock as a reason to stay with Firefox??

Yes, adblock+, greasemonkey.......

thats why i still use ff

Firefox is still better with addons. When Chrome gets addons like Firefox, I'll switch to Chrome

i've had chrome crash plenty of times.

Chrome is for fashion victims.

Amen. I like Firefox, but it crashes on me every day. It hangs up even more frequently.

Yes! Why in the world does this happen to me all the time? I thought it was something wrong with my computer

killall -r firefox

it always works ;-)

Chrome doesn't compete until it is release ready for linux.

The Chrome task manager is so win, it's not even funny. Half of those Firefox hangs are caused by Flash, the Great Satan of system stability. In Chrome, Flash can be terminated without killing any tabs. Brilliant

why dont you use IE8

It's ready enough for Linux. chris, don't be a troll.

A web browser only competes on one platform at a time. On Linux it's a dead end for Firefox.
I've been using Chromium on Linux since the PPAs are available. It took me barely 3 days to make it my default browser.
Since a couple of weeks, I completely wiped Firefox out of my computer; I can now run Flash inside Chrome.
Tabs crash more often now, sure, but the entire browser does not. It never consumes insane amounts of memory, like Firefox used to with no tab open at all.
And that bloody message... how many times, just how many times have I seen it. I had an aliased `firefox' to killall -9 firefox-3.5; firefox. That's how bad it was.

I'm writing this message from Chrome on Linux with 14 tabs open, including 2 youtube vids. One is currently running. The total memory consumed by all chromium-browser processes is 71MB, which is what Firefox consumed at start up.

I miss Firebug though; Webkit's devtools might be much higher quality, they lack the smoothness of fb.

I prefer FF however, and during the day like this, especially ;-)

http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/2009/07/31/firefox-1000000000-downloads/

Did you mean: Fx ? Top 1 result shown
# Firefox
<<How do I capitalize Firefox? How do I abbreviate it?
Only the first letter is capitalized (so it's Firefox, not FireFox.) The preferred abbreviation is "Fx" or "fx".>>
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/releases/1.5.html

Results for: FF
#Friendfeed

Philipp, any particular reason you'd prefer a blank page to the New Tab Page? NTP is too slow, NTP is distracting, something else...?

FWIW I don't know of any imminent plans on our part to modify what shows up when doing ctrl-n/ctrl-t. We'd probably rather address difficulties users have with the NTP by fixing the NTP rather than throwing Yet More Options at our users. It might be possible to address this with an extension. (I'm not following the extension APIs or future plans there very closely.)

(And yes, I am a Chromium developer.)

I would love to try a working version of Chrome on Mac OS X. Firefox works majority of the time but having the browser crash when watching youtube videos is just stupid. Plugins shouldn't crash a browser like that.

Another way to work around it is to add -no-remote to your startup command, it practically means that the new firefox process will run independently from any previous processes. (Normally only used if you want to run various profiles or versions at the same time)

Oh, and thought I have tried switching to chrome/chromium various times in a few days I would be drawn back to my good old minefield (firefox nightly) because some weird extension I desperatly needed wouln't naturally be available in chromium (and I am NOT using adblock plus). PS. For those who like the chrome UI try out the topper extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8790 . Personally not using it anymore, as it wasn't working on mac I believe...

Jerome: How did you get Flash working in Chrome? I am extremely interested to know that!

Anyway, I find Webkit's developer tools an equal match to Firebug. :)

If they'd add a sidebar, I'd be with chrome... I have too many tools for work that are built around the sidebar... There are a few other extensions that are great for web work (a good portion of what I do), but I don't mind keeping FF around for that...

> FWIW I don't know of any imminent plans on our part to
> modify what shows up when doing ctrl-n/ctrl-t. We'd probably
> rather address difficulties users have with the NTP by fixing
> the NTP rather than throwing Yet More Options at our users.

This is not about "More Options" – the option to use a blank page is already there in Chrome, it just doesn't work (i.e. it's a bug)!

You can set the options to show a blank page in two places ...

Options -> Basic -> On startup -> Open the following pages -> about:blank
Options -> Basic -> Home page -> Open this page -> about:blank

... but that setting is simply not respected when pressing Ctrl+N.

Bart
It tells you on the warning page ;-)

"Plugins (e.g. Flash) are partway implemented and will cause frequent crashes. Use --enable-plugins to turn them on if you're ok with that; the browser is otherwise quite stable"

So just add --enable-plugins to the end of the shortcut location.

Colin Colehour

http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-mac/22243/

Whoever stills talks about AdBlock has never heard of Privoxy.

Whoever still talks about AdBlock and Greasemonkey has never heard of AdSweep ;)

Philipp:
   Well, I don't think that's a bug. Those options are not for new tab page but for startup page (which shows when you open Chrome) and home page (which shows when you click on the "go home" button on the toolbar).

> Those options are not for new tab page

I don't use tabs, I open a new window with Ctrl+N.

Call it what you will, but I think that if I go to two different places to tell Chrome that I want "about:blank" and nothing else, then if that's still not enough, it's fix-worthy.

I don't particularly mind, by the way, as I'm relatively happy with Firefox (next to the issue mentioned). I just figured that as soon as Chrome fixes certain basic bugs/ optimizes their option dialog, I could start give it a test-run to see if I like it overall.

The most recent dev builds use a new "new tab page" that is customizable and can look almost like about:blank:

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/158224.html#id158230

I suggest to use the dev channel, which is very stable and it has the most recent features (incl. themes, extensions, user scripts, better developer tools).

http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel

Philipp: Cookie and Ionut basically make the points I could make. The option behavior you refer to is intentional, not accidental: the "home page" is what happens when you hit alt-home or press the (optional) "Home" toolbar button. We don't open the homepage for new tabs (new windows are just new tabs in a unique window).

What I'm trying to say is that I understand what you're trying to do but can confirm that there is (intentionally) no way to do it right now. Helping us understand _why_ a blank page there is useful for you would be great. There are enough different ways we could theoretically let people control tab behavior here (what to show on start, what to show on "home", what to show on new tab, what to show on new window; each could be blank, user-specified, the "New Tab Page", "copy the last focused tab") that we're trying to select a subset that allows different use cases without being overwhelming (our target behavior is not to reproduce Tab Mix Plus). So knowing the use case for a blank page makes it more likely we can design a behavior that will let you address that use case, even if it doesn't give you precisely the option you want now.

As Ionut points out, the New New Tab Page can have nearly all elements removed to make it blank. Perhaps this is a sufficient workaround for now?

Peter, I don't need the New Tab page, but rather start with a blank window (to then type a domain name I may never have entered before; to then use my shortcuts like "g" for gmail, "s *" for search, "r" for reddit, "f" for Friendfeded; to type "blo" to see all relevant blogoscoped/ blogsearch/ blog-something pages pop up in the address bar etc.; I could continue). Until Chrome has this, like any other browser does, then Chrome is too cluttered for my purpose here (and one of the main reasons to switch to Chrome would indeed be its otherwise clutter-free-ness).

By the way, I also mostly don't use browser tabs – I use my OS tabs – but that would probably explode the discussion now :) Chrome nicely consolidated the two user types (browser tab vs OS tab likers) into one, though, so it's really no problem... because the tab bar doesn't take away any space. That's a superb solution.

> Perhaps this is a sufficient workaround for now?

Firefox is my sufficient workaround for now... the Chrome issues are really no problem for me (all I was saying is that if they are resolved I'd start give Chrome a test try). But no, that wouldn't be a solution to me either.

Right now, you're telling me one of your main goals is to keep the options dialog simple and to not overwhelm users with choice, and yet, apparently it wasn't simple enough for me as a casual user. Perhaps a look at the option dialog usability, and how users understand – not necessarily how a Google employee defines – words like "home page", "new tab", "on startup" could help point to solutions, and perhaps point to words which remove ambuigity. If you give users options like e.g. "Use DNS pre-fetching to improve page load performance" – and soon, themes – I could imagine there may be a way to offer people to never show the New Tab page (and not necessarily by making the options more complicated – there might be ways to consolidate it, and Google should have enough clever usability designers to explore this).

Even when that New Tab page becomes really smart, some people may already know where to go and have their own ways to go there fast (Firefox always correctly focuses the address bar to speed that up, something Chrome also doesn't do)... and some people simply like to start out their thought and browsing process with a "blank slate" – maybe it helps them think when nothing's being pushed on them.

Here's my idea for the Options dialog:

Home page:

[ ] Blank page
[x] Navigation suggestions
[ ] Custom list of pages

(expandable list of options, hidden by default, displayed only if you select "Custom list of pages")
---------> Customize the new tab page
---------> [ ] Blank page
---------> [x] Navigation suggestions
---------> [ ] Custom page

I assumed that the user who wants a blank home page or the NTP as the home page will have the same options for the new tab page.

Chrome can't be compared to Firefox
and Firefox can't be compared to Chrome...

> [x] Navigation suggestions

Just as you I think one of the first things Google should do to improve this is to get rid of the name "New Tab page". It's a misnomer because it

a) describes container, not contained, i.e. it's a name of the location, not the actual content; "Frank sets his New Tab page to Navigation suggestions" makes some sense whereas "Frank sets his New Tab page to the New Tab page" doesn't. (Probably Google wanted to keep the name as open as possible to easily introduce new stuff in the future – pimping Google services like Docs or Gmail one day, perhaps? – but you got to give it *some* name.)

b) it introduces the problem with the name "Tab", which is not sufficiently defined when it comes to "Tab vs Window". For instance, you can click Wrench Icon and select between "New Tab" vs "New Window", yet when you click "New Window" that window will read "New Tab" (because every window has one tab). So what's a window?

And once they allow people to set their default page to be blank, they should automatically focus its address bar and get rid of the cluttering text which reads "about:blank" (which right now is not even fully selected & ready to overwrite it when you hit the tab key... if you'd just start typing the address would read "example.comabout:blank"). I think of it as a bit of a Litmus test... once Google fixes these more basic things, I would guess that the chances are higher that they also fixed quite a bit of other problems which might become hurdles in everyday usage.

geez, it annoys You? then why are You using Windows? I thought that this system annoys much more than little flaws in FF, rly.

first, fix for You:
there is -moz-no-remote switch which can solve your problem, google for it first.

second, Google Chrome 2 should be called Alpha. Seriously, when it seems to work with more advanced page with jquery+jquery ui scripts (for instance http://mlchat.appspot.com) – Chrome 1 does not. I had problem with similar project with Chrome 2 which was http://flatforma.appspot.com – it didnt even want to load. Chrome 2 still does not respect his settings (there are few of them only but many of them dont work and its not only mine opinion, but people I've been talking about Chrome). As an example of features which does not work – Chrome's reporting to Google which cannot be disabled (it does not matter if you turn it on or off) makes local development of javascript app impossible. I admire Your threat – but i suggest to start using no-remote feature, which IMHO everyone should know, especially using online banking services. Take care!

I submitted bug 441717 about this problem a bit over a year ago.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=441717

Feel free to contribute to it.

It's an embarrassment to Firefox, really. It's probably the single most common error any Firefox user is likely to receive, and not only is the error text factually incorrect, the error is also preventable.

I tried Chrome out about a week after it's debut, and I haven't looked back since. No other browser even comes close to it's lightning-fast speed.

I was always a big Firefox proponent, but now it just seems like an overly bloated slug of a browser. I have come to appreciate Chrome's simplicity and extra screen real estate.

Less is more.

Wait add on to shift Chrome.

Chrome is full of surprises :-)

Chrome’s New Feature: Click The UI Designer To Close The Window.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/05/chromes-new-feature-click-the-ui-designer-to-close-the-window/

Headline on Reddit:

Chromium bug report: "What is the expected result?" "an X button" "What happens instead?" "Some guys head"

I recently switched to Chrome for the same reason! That message would pop up every time I tried to launch Firefox again after closing it. Chrome is so fast... Seems to be a bug in its spell checker though, since it's not underlining misspelt words (and yes, the box is ticked for it to check ;))

Ya that message was pretty annoying but I always thought it was because of my 4 year old PC...good to know that it was my PCs fault :)

My Firefox usage has tapered off since Google released Chrome 3.

JEShack, wasn't that discontinued by it's owner? Personally, I found the process too cumbersome to go through.