Why Firefox and not Chrome?

[vjr021]

So, anyone know why Motorola went with the Firefox browser and not use Chrome as the Atrix native?

I am getting used to using Chrome, and I really want the Atrix, witht he laptop, and the HD dock... the whole 9 yards... I travel, and work from home, so both of these solutions work for me.

I suppose this will be the first time I DON'T buy a new phone on day#1 of release, until I see how everyone else likes it.

 

[zhelf]

this has already been discussed many times its because firefox performs better on lightweight linux installs which is what is being using for the webtop dock. chrome is still too intensive and im assuming not stable enough other wise they probably would have used it.

 

[dtboos]

Yah I had a similar question. Check out this thread for some more info.

http://forum.androidcentral.com/motorola-atrix/54246-laptop-dock-why-firefox-why-not-chrome.html

 

[potatoho]

I wonder how the Atrix would perform with a full screen Dolphin browser. When it zooms up the phone-in-a-window is it an improved resolution or just fat bits?

 

[dtboos]

I wonder how the Atrix would perform with a full screen Dolphin browser. When it zooms up the phone-in-a-window is it an improved resolution or just fat bits?

The duplicated phone screen will be blown up, but should look fine.

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

Chrome and Firefox switch places on Linux. On Windows, Chrome is by far lighter and performs faster (although Firefox 4 beta is getting better). On Linux, it's the complete opposite. This is why virtually every Linux distribution comes with Firefox pre-installed.

 

[potatoho]

Chrome and Firefox switch places on Linux. On Windows, Chrome is by far lighter and performs faster (although Firefox 4 beta is getting better). On Linux, it's the complete opposite. This is why virtually every Linux distribution comes with Firefox pre-installed.

I've not had that experience. Chrome on my Linux feels lighter than Firefox. Maybe it's a toss-up regarding resources, but it sure feels faster.

It probably came down to some licensing issue. Like maybe AT&T wanted to install a byte counter in the FF code

 

[corneliusm]

Biggest problem is that Chrome is a memory hog. Each tab on Chrome is a separate process, which requires extra overhead for process space. I have seen over 3 GB Ram used (on a 8GB system) just running Chrome- granted, I nearly 30 tabs open and had the browser open for a day. However Firefox rarely goes beyond 500mb for me- Chrome makes up for the memory usage with a fast UI and true multithreading (since each tab is a process, it gets scheduled across all cores by the OS).

While Chrome may fare well on a PC with 2+ gig of ram, the Atrix only has a 1 GB of RAM, and 128 MB of that is dedicated to the GPU.

So that leaves a total 896 MB of ram for running Android. Desktop Chrome would eat that up easily.

 

[potatoho]

Why didn't they just run a high resolution webkit view. The same thing they run in the phone but maybe with some more native stuff for speed. I haven't had any real problems running things in the phone browser or dolphin which are using the webkit.