Firefox vs Google Chrome..........Browser war!

Linux user, how many different Internet browsers do you have on your system? You have Konqueror if you use KDE, Iceweasel or Epiphany if you use Gnome, and optionally, you might have Firefox, Google Chrome or Opera. You might have all of those.

You need so many browsers because none of them is perfect. And, Chrome comes closer to perfection than Firefox does. Since Google released the Chrome browser, Linux users have converted to it by the hundreds of thousands. Although Firefox claims millions of downloads, you can bet that its usage is not close to the number of downloads. Maybe you’ ve seen stories declaring, as Keir Thomas did on this blog last year,thatFirefox is deadwhileChrome looks increasingly like a better choice. But why is Firefox taking all this abuse? In short, because its alleged strengths are its greatest weaknesses.

Firefox fans tout the browser’s use of extensions, or add-ons, as one of its many boastworthy features, but if you’ve ever connected to a site that uses some new Web feature that Firefox doesn’t support, you’re out of luck. Those same extensions often break other extensions on the way in during installation. Further, why should a user constantly download and install extensions for such common Web gadgetry as Flash or PDF? Why aren’t those extensions included by default if their inclusion is necessary for a rich web experience? How often has Firefox notified you at startup that there are updates for one or more of your extensions that result in no updates, or that upon updating, you'll have to restart your browser only to find that the extension update broke your browser.

This exercise is time-consuming and tedious. It’s almost as bad as patching and rebooting a Windows system. You find that simply opening your browser to check stock prices becomes so involved that you forget why you originally opened it. But Firefox extensions aren’t the only problem. Firefox is also so notoriously slow that on older systems, it’s almost unusable or it takes so long to open that you find yourself clicking the icon multiple times, thinking that your original launch didn’t take for some reason. Chrome, however, is usable and responsive. Now you understand why Firefox might not survive the browser wars. Its extension model is annoying to use, it’s slow on older systems, it’s slower than Chrome on any system, and its extensions break other extensions.

Firefox also has a problem with installation on some systems. Unless your distribution has a Firefox package that you can install via your system’s software installation application--such as yum, apt, or YaST--you might want to opt for something a little easier, like Chrome. It’s easier to install Internet Explorer on some Linux systems than it is to install Firefox. You can install Internet Explorer on Linux usingIEs4Linux.Whyyou’d want to it is beyond all that is righteous, but you can do it.

But Thomas' analyses notwithstanding, there is one glaringly positive aspect of Firefox: It works better on Windows than Internet Explorer does. But that isn't much of a victory, since Chrome works better everywhere. So, what's so great about Chrome? It's just another browser, after all. It is a browser but it's brought to you by Google, the world's best developers, and by dozens of other open source projects such as zlib, webkit, tlslite, ICU, libpng, and iStumbler. Chrome integrates with Google's other offerings: Gmail, Google Apps, Google Calendar, Picasa, Reader, and Blogger, to name a few.

When Google threw its hat into the browser ring, you knew that it had something excellent in mind for the world's Web users. Chrome is now the browser to beat. It might not have thelion's share of the browser marketnow, but wait two years and it will. Microsoft and Mozilla will wonder what happened to their stranglehold on Web browsing. You might think that Google aspires to become the nextMicrosoft by its apparent lust for world domination. That might be true, but at least it will be an open source takeover- Ken Hess .

Another reasons to experience Google Chrome..............

Consider Google Chrome.........I've experienced it!!

I found that its faster and even can help you to find the things that you looking for which are not available in other browsers.....

Chrome’s user interface has been developed to be minimalist, something quite different from other web browsers. Moreover Google Chrome promises to vastly improve stability, speed and security of web browsing as compared to its competitors, though independent analysis suggests WebKit and Mozilla have recently come out with faster web browsers.

Some of the special features of Google Chrome, that give it an advantage over other web browsers include:

• Speed – Chrome uses the V8 JavaScript engine and DNS prefetching to look up sites faster. Overall, it has consistently performed much faster than its competitors other than (possibly) Firefox 3, though results are disputed.
• Security – 2 blacklists with the latest updates (for phishing and malware) are regularly downloaded off the internet and the system keeps informing users whether the sites they want to visit are harmful. In addition, Chrome attempts to ensure that malware on one tab does not infect another, nor does it install itself. Chrome allows a plug-in to operate in a different process while itself running under very low privileges to increase safety. Also, it avoids embedding of ActiveX controls and its ‘Incognito’ feature does not allow the browser to store any cookies or historical information from the sites. visited
• Stability – Chrome uses a multithread browser while a separate process is allocated to each site and plug-in, which allows for isolation for each tab whereby failure (or a breach) in one tab does not affect another tab. Another advantage is that overall memory allocation is less in this scenario. The ‘Task Manger’ actually allows Chrome users to see each tab site’s downloading details, memory usage, etc.
• Interface – While the user interface is similar to other web browsers, the tab bar is flush with the top of the title-bar when the window is maximised, but appears below it when minimised. Chrome allows building of web applications as it includes ‘Gears’. The new tab page is different from most other browsers as it shows thumbnails of the 9 most visited sites. The ‘Omnibox’ functions both as a search and URL box and the tabs appear at the top of the window instead of the bottom as in most other browsers.
• Extensions – Chrome supports some extensions featuring gesture recognition, additional development tools, etc, but these must be installed separately.
• Tracking – Chrome allows Google to track usage details through mostly optional mechanisms, such as client ID, page not found, bug tracker, etc. Regular updates to Chrome are also available automatically, unless specifically excluded.

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/internet/google/articles/49300.aspx#ixzz0vYe9QlkR

A remarkable story.....and how a young 21 years old did it last 6 years....and the privacy issues....

Facebook to hit 500 million users, but meteoric rise has come with growing pains

Facebook is expected to say this week that it has reached 500 million users, making it the biggest information network on the Internet in a meteoric rise that has connected the world into an online statehood of status updates, fan pages and picture exchanges.

In its six-year history, the site has become ritualized in our daily lives. It has even attracted the unwilling who join for fear of being cut out of the social fabric. It has connected old friends and family. It has helped make and break political campaigns and careers. It has turned many of us into daily communicators of one-line missives on the profound and mundane. And it has tested the limits of what we care to share and keep private.

The sheer impact and sized of the Facebook universe has captured the attention of federal regulators and lawmakers who are struggling to protect consumers and their privacy as they flock to this and other sites like Twitter. The privately held company that still thinks of itself as a startup is also learning how to handle the new responsibilities that its massive trove of information about its half billion users brings .

“As the amount of personal information shared on social networking sites grows, and the number of third-party companies and advertising networks with access to such information grows, it is important that consumers understand how their data is being shared and what privacy rules apply,” wrote David Vladeck, head of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission, in a letter last January to the privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy and Information Center.

The milestone will be celebrated, according to The Wall Street Journal, by a public relations campaign with users sharing stories of how Facebook has affected their lives. And the half-billion-membership mark has captured the attention of Hollywood, with Sony Pictures set to release "The Social Network," a movie on Facebook's origins in October.

The half-billion-member-mark can’t be understated. To put the number into perspective, the population inhabiting Facebook now equals that of the United States, Japan and Germany combined. Or, two Mexicos and a Brazil. The universe of Facebook membership is less than half the population of India, but in the last year the social networking Internet site has doubled in size.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment for this post.

The Silicon Valley Web site is now the biggest online trust of our vacation photos, electronic rolodexes, and recordings of how we felt about President Obama’s candidacy for president, the ban on headscarves in France and the Lindsay Lohan’s rollercoaster ride with sobriety. Seventy percent of users are outside the U.S., and one-quarter of all users are checking in and updating their pages from their cell phones.

And now Facebook is grappling with the growing pains that come with its influence. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 26, created the company out of his dorm room at Harvard University just six years ago. The firm recently moved its headquarters from University Avenue in Palo Alto to a bigger campus on Page Mill Road.

“A big part of the challenge that we’ve had is that we’ve grown from tens of thousands of users to hundreds of millions,” Zuckerberg said in a news conference on privacy policy changes last May. “It’s been a big shift along the way, and it hasn’t always been smooth.”

When Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) blasted Facebook for failing to join the Global Network Initiative to fight online censorship, the firm's policy director Tim Sparapani said in a C-Span Communicators interview last March that Facebook doesn’t have the same resources of members Google and Microsoft. When asked about the company’s child safety efforts, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg noted that the company has done much to try to educate members but with 1,800 employees, it isn’t able to cover every base.

“They are very much like many technology companies that are about the technology first and growing quickly for an IPO (initial public offering) and thinking about consumers and privacy as an afterthought,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC said in a recent interview.

The biggest misstep was the company’s change in privacy policy last December, which sparked complaints by privacy groups to regulators and user outrage on comments boards.

Facebook eventually walked back on some of its changes. And the firm says it is learning as it goes. It has expanded its office in Washington and recently hired former White House economic adviser Marne Levine to head its global policy group out of D.C.

“We don’t pretend that we are perfect,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with Post Tech last May. “We try to build new things, hear feedback and respond with changes to that feedback all the time.”

By Cecilia Kang | July 19, 2010; 6:00 AM ET

Categories: FTC , Facebook , Privacy

(From Google blog.............)

What do you think on initial simple social network effecting us yet created inside a simple dorm......??