Good Bye Firefox, Good Bye Dropbox.

Last week I made my decision to finally use Chrome as my primary browser, and Google Drive as my primary cloud storage.

And this is the reasons why.

Why I Left Firefox for Chrome.

I use Firefox since … forever. The first time I use it I think I was still using Windows 98 or Windows ME PC. It was the best browser.

I usually own not-so-powerful machine because all I need for work is basically a working web browser, text editor, and sometimes image editor.

But because I use low powered machine. A performance issue is very noticeable.

Couple years ago, I start to notice that Firefox is getting slower (a lot). All that could fix is regular clean up for all history, cache, and cookies. It’s kinda use less RAM than Chrome, but there’s definitely a problem in history and cache management.

And then I notice that it load really slow (sometimes freeze) for JavaScript heavy site (Google Maps, etc). Chrome in the other hand, have no issue with JS heavy sites. So, I actually use Chrome if I need to open Google Maps or Firefox fail to load the page.

So I upgraded my laptop to a decent i3 processor (no more atom), and no more issue. All good.

But several month ago, Firebug dead. MultiFox dead. I use both on daily basis. And several add-ons start to show issues and bugs.

Several weeks ago LastPass no longer save the settings. The biggest issue is the JS Source Map is not working in Firefox Console.

CMIIW, I think the cause is related to the development direction of Firefox e.g new profile/user management (kinda like Chrome profile management). But until last week latest update. This feature is not fully implemented.

And it’s so easy. I simply imported all my bookmarks to Chrome, and it’s up and running smoothly with no issue. And it feel a lot snappier than Firefox.

I tested using Speedometer (test for rendering JS in browser), and it shows that Chome (at least in my test) is 30% faster than Firefox (Wow, that’s why it’s really noticeable)

I’m really happy with this decision.

Why I Left Dropbox for Google Drive.

I use Dropbox since 2011. I’m actually still very happy with their product. I don’t use a lot of space, only around 5 GB, I only store important files, mostly client’s projects (I’m a free Dropbox user).

I use Google Apps (now G Suite) since 2012. That means I paid $5/month for the last 5 years (can’t live without their GMail). Even though I get 30 GB on my Google Drive storage as part of the package (a lot more than my 7 GB limit on my free Dropbox account), and even-though I actually paid for it, I never actually use Google Drive.

I tried it, but Dropbox was better. Google Drive used to have sync issue in Windows, I don’t like their web app IU (their initial UI, years ago), etc.

Because I moved to Chrome, So I decided to give Google Drive another chance.

And I love it. Their latest UI is great, very neat Android integration, no more issue on Windows.

One reason that I think Dropbox is superior is because the ability to create direct link for public/shared files. I don’t use it for file hosting for my site, or something like that, I use it just to share small files (mostly screenshots) to my clients.

And several months ago, they decided to remove that feature.  I don’t know why, but for me, the ability to share my files directly (not embedded via their webpage so others can download it) make me feel like I “own” the files more. I love it, because no other file sharing can do that.

Without this feature, both Dropbox and Google Drive have the same value for me. And because I have 4 times more storage in Google Drive, it’s really a no-brainer decision.

So, I finally accept Google as my overlord.

What about you? What’s your primary browser? What’s your preferred cloud storage and file sharing app?

Comment below, let me know, and tell me if you already accepted Google as your overlord as well.