

Ask HN: Is Chrome now the standard for web developers? - ElongatedTowel

I&#x27;ve been using Firefox in combination with Firebug for years and it seemed that most web developers are quite fond of that combination. But in the recent year or so the development of Firebug not only has slowed down, but seems to be target of mockery.<p>I&#x27;ve been listening to a ton of podcasts this year and everytime the topics browser or development tools comes up people are talking about Chrome. Sometimes mentioning Firefox with a certain tone that implies &quot;If you&#x27;re still using that old...&quot;.<p>I&#x27;m surprised. I like Firefox as my main browser. But there is probably a connection between the development speed of Firebug and the popularity of Chrome&#x27;s developer tools. Having two browsers running using only one of them to develop feels rather odd, but I feel like I&#x27;m missing out otherwise.<p>What happened that made Firefox vanish out of the vocabulary of most developers?
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gee_totes
I made the switch from FF to Chrome about a year and a half ago. Here's my two
cents:

What sold me was better memory management and better (in general) CSS3
rendering. I normally work with two windows open, one that has all my cookies
and stuff so I can do web searches, and another with a blank persona so I can
do development. Having two instances of Chrome running vs. one instance of
Chrome and Firefox running seemed to lead to less crashes.

Regarding the dev. speed of Firebug, the lead dev on Firebug went to lead up
work on Chrome's Dev tools[0]

I still find Chrome's dev tools lacking and the interface hard to navigate. I
also miss the plugin ecosystem that Firebug had (I could send xdebug messages
straight into Firebug, which was amazing!)

[0][http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20080338-264/firefox-
world...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20080338-264/firefox-world-loses-
web-dev-guru-to-chrome/)

~~~
ElongatedTowel
Didn't know he switched. That's disheartening. The Firefox developer tools
sadly aren't anywhere close to what I like to use. Although it's been quite
some time since I checked. I always miss the ability to do xpath queries
directly in the browser (which is a rather hidden feature in both Firebug and
Chrome though).

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munimkazia
Firefox lost it due to bad memory and plugin management (what I remember
reading), and Chrome came in the right time when people were looking for
something faster and snappier. After that, Chrome's developer tools
outstripped firebug too. And they were faster in implementing a lot of HTML5
features. But I think firefox is making a big comeback now. They have made
their browser much faster and there is a lot of exciting work happening on
their developer tools. I'm slowly getting frustrated with Chrome on my
android, and firefox seems far better on it. I was stuck to Chrome due to the
sync, but I am considering moving to firefox for desktop and mobile.

I'd also like to say that Chrome is in no way a standard and shouldn't be
considered as one by any developer worth his salt. If you make a website that
doesn't work as well in firefox, you have lost my respect. (unless you are
doing a Chrome experiment or something).

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spikels
Yes - there has been a shift from Firefox/Firebug over the last couple of
years. Google has put a lot of effort into improving the developer experience,
both UI and features, while F/F has improved at a somewhat slower pace. Google
has also put a lot of effort into courting developers at conferences and with
blog posts and video tutorials with people like Paul Irish and Addy Osmani. It
has been very effective - just look how often Chrome DevTools is now mentioned
on HN vs Firebug. Lastly the growth of Chrome's browser marketshare means it
make more and more sense to develop on Chrome. One key to all of this was the
earlier switch to more frequent and automatic browser updates.

Editorial: I'm not sure this is a good thing. Chrome DevTools can be used to
influence the web dev ecosystem and Google has very different interests than
most developers. But so far they seem to be playing fair as best I can tell.

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qwertyboy
Back in 2008, FF was on a downward spiral. It was getting bloated, slow,
annoying... And then Google came out with Chrome.

It took FF less than a year to get their s __t together and fix their browser.
Today it 's great, but the harm was done. Most of the people who moved to
Chrome never looked back, and still remember FF as a slow, annoying browser.

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RRRA
Also I think in the next few releases FF is going to improve their tools a
lot! Now, chrome seems to be pushing development of very marketable features
(For the better or worst) like speed while leaving aside privacy or other
focus... I hope FF can regain traction in the long run or any similar
projects...

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EnderMB
I still use Firebug, mainly because I'm more familiar with it than I am with
the Chrome developer tools, I like the UI a lot more, but that's probably my
own personal taste rather than it being a better UI. I rate it as being on-par
with the Chrome developer tools, and quite frankly I don't consider either to
be better than the other for general front-end dev.

That being said, I am really not a fan of the in-built Firefox dev tools. For
the life of me I don't understand why Mozilla are dedicating their time to
building up their own dev tools when Firebug is the preferred environment for
front-end devs that use Firefox. Again, this could just be down to personal
taste, but it feels like it's a wasted effort. I'd prefer to see those
developers spending time on improving Firebug.

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ozh
IMHO Firebug is superior to anything regarding web dev (hence, Firefox)

~~~
tptacek
The Chrome/Webkit debugging tools are pretty fantastic:

[https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-
tools/](https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/)

I'd be interested in what you get out of Firebug that I don't get out of
Chrome's debugger.

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PLenz
We're developers, we are both tool makers and tool users. Limiting ourselves
to either Chrome or Firefox (or IE or Opera or...) is - well - stupid.

Use the tools we have. Use all of them. Make sure your code works everywhere
(reasonable - I.E. 6 is as far back as I go currently) Anything else is a
disservice to your self, your craft, and your users.

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neoyagami
I use Safari , chrome for testing compatibility

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taktix
I think Firefox has stumbled in the past few years but will experience a
resurgence for two reasons: 1) privacy issues and a growing, healthy distrust
for the behemoth that is Google and 2) the Chrome browser is slow, less
responsive and more resource hungry on the popular Windows 8 OS.

Also, Firefox is a great browser!

