Brave browser

I wrote a post about Brave recently, and found that Brave browser is interesting. So, I am switching to Brave from Chromium for a trial.

A brief introduction about Brave: Brave is developed by Brave Software, which is founded by Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript and former CEO of Mozilla Corporation. Firefox is the product of Mozilla Corporation. However, Brave is built on Chromium, the open source project for Google Chrome. So, I personally perceive Brave as the Chromium with the soul of Firefox. That is why, it makes Brave different from Chromium and Firefox.

Why not Firefox?

Actually I was trying to switch from Chromium to Firefox before. However, Firefox doesn’t fit my needs. Since I am doing web development, sometimes the web browser will be crashed. Firefox crashes more frequent than Chromium. The worst is, Firefox crashing will cause systemd core dump and the computer slow down, until I do hard reboot on the computer. That is very bad development experience.

Besides that, Firefox rendering engine is different from Chromium. Most of the web developers I know are using Chrome. If I am using different web browser, the CSS styling may be varied. It will be difficult to do testing and review.

Bookmark sync

Bookmark sync is one of my main requirement to choose a web browser. Chromium and Firefox both support bookmark sync, with the requirement to create user account.

Brave is a little different, it doesn’t require any account created, but it can sync between desktop version and mobile version.

Please take note that, Brave desktop disabled the Sync feature by default. This can be enabled by going to brave://flags, then enable “Enable Brave Sync”.

Besides that, we can doing copy-paste for the bookmark folders from Chromium to Brave easily. Need not to export and import.

Side note: Workspace (personal method)

Since I am migrating from Chromium to Brave, I also discover a method to manage my workspace.

Most of my works require Slack as the communication channel, so does other communication applications like Skype, GMail, Google Calendar, etc. These web apps need to open during working hours.

I was using All-in-One Messenger long time ago. However it focuses on messengers only.

Then one of my project managers mentioned Shift. It has similar interface like Slack App. But I didn’t try any of them. I used alternative app, namely Franz. After some time of using Franz, the app limits to three services only, meaning I can maximum run three services at the same time, such as one GMail, one Slack, one Google Calendar, no extra.

After Franz, I found the other alternative, that’s Rambox. It is very good solution so far.

The rationale that I use different app for the communications is to decentralize the usage of single web browser for all tasks. Let’s say the web browser crashes, the communication app can still work.

However, I plan to centralize every task in Brave, in order to try out the potentiality. In order to make a working environment similar to Rambox or Franz, this is what I am doing:

1. Create a bookmark folder, eg: Workspace
2. Create all the bookmarks for my working web app in the folder
3. Whenever I work, just right-click and open all bookmarks in the folder in New Window
4. Practise that the New Window is for communication only, don’t open new tab for browsing or development.

By doing the above, Rambox will be unnecessary.

Firefox or Chromium (software development)?

I was switching from Chromium to Firefox as my primary web browser recently. Then, I switched back to Chromium again.

Chrome was usually claimed that it consumes a lot of memory. And recent Firefox updates claim that it is faster and consumes less memory. That is why, I switched to Firefox. I agree that, it is much faster than before. However…

I faced a critical issue. One less important issue that I would like to mention is, Firefox does not support Google Hangout.

The critical issue I faced related to JavaScript. During the web development or even visit CircleCI (which I believe it has heavy usage of JavaScript), if the JavaScript has severe errors, whatever web browser you are using will stop respond or slow down. But, Chrome (Chromium I mean) deals the issue differently from Firefox. The whole computer will be slow down temporary (may be several minutes), then at the end, the page will be shown as “dead” and I can control over my computer again.

In the same condition, Firefox will expand the memory (possibly exponentially) due to the errors. Then the computer starts slowing down and stop respond until I do a hard reboot. Based on my observation, the memory grows and uses all the RAM. When the RAM is not available, the memory is immediately stored into the Swap. Because storing into the Swap, that is the hard drive, it is much slower for me to switch to a Terminal to kill Firefox. And even I successfully switch to a Terminal, typing the command and see the response takes approximately infinite time, yet the Swap memory usage keeps growing non-stop.

As a web developer, I prefer to use Chrome.

Firefox or Chromium (Google Chrome)

Yes, again web browser. I am using Firefox. Only sometimes Chromium (Google Chrome). Mainly Firefox. If someone ask me, which one I choose, I definitely answer Firefox. But, if someone ask me, which one I prefer, then it will be difficult to answer.

Firstly, I would like to go through why I choose Firefox as my primary web browser.

Because of DownThemAll. There is no alternative extension in Google Chrome like DownThemAll. Why I like DownThemAll so much? I use DownThemAll with GreaseMonkey to download my favourite mangas (comics). This is something Google Chrome still cannot do it, based on my current knowledge. GreaseMonkey generates the links, right-click, then I DownThemAll.

Another two addons, DownloadHelper and FlashGot. Both of them allows me to download any online video or audio streaming. Google Chrome doesn’t have this type of extension.

Actually, all of these limitations of Google Chrome are because of extension API restriction. That is why, there is no similar replacement for DownThemAll, DownloadHelper and FlashGot. However, I wonder why there is no one uses NPAPI to build the similar extension in Google Chrome.

Next advantage of Firefox is the bookmarks. The best feature I like is the tagging feature. This help me to search my unorganised bookmarks easier. I know, Google Chrome uses a different approach to solve this problem. Google Chrome is more to cloud computing and searching algorithm, it solves the problem by using Google Bookmark search. This is something I don’t like, without internet connection, Google Chrome can done less thing than Firefox. (You might said, without internet connection, your web-browser can do nothing, yet I can said, I can still do the web development without proper internet connection, or manage my bookmarks when I don’t have internet connection.)

Then, if I definitely choose Firefox over Google Chrome, why do I need to post this blog? Sure, there is some beauty about Google Chrome which always makes me to consider to switch to it. Firstly, its interface is really clean and simple. The interface make me feel more to the webpage instead of web-browser. Firefox makes me feel that I am using Firefox; Google Chrome makes me feel that I am visiting the websites.

Secondly, for the developers, creating extension using Google Chrome is super easy comparing creating a Firefox addon. Firefox addon needs to follow a lot of convention and using XUL, which is not easy to learn (for me). It needs to create “chrome.manifest”, “install.rdf”, and so on. The documentation is also not very good (I personally feel).

Thirdly, Google Chrome has Chrome Web Store, this is something which Firefox lacks of. But even if there exists Mozilla Web Store, I will not prefer it, unless the Mozilla Web Store is a superset of Chrome Web Store, then I may like it.

Then, there are several other reasons, such as Google Chrome open and close is faster than Firefox. Though Firefox startup is far more better than its older version, it is still slower than Google Chrome. And if closing the Firefox, then you want to start the Firefox again, you need to wait a while. Besides that, enable or disable the addons needs to restart Firefox also. May be this is the price paid for the good addons like DownThemAll, FlashGot and DownloadHelper.

Chromium is really good in netbook

Compare to the Firefox, I prefer to run Chromium in my netbook. This is because the screen of the netbook is small, and the resolution is low. Using Firefox, the toolbars and file menu already occupies half of the screen. I think Firefox 4.0 will solve my problem.

Then, using Firefox on the netbook with Ubuntu, playing Castle Age will make Firefox slow down. May be the reason is the netbook memory is smaller than normal laptop.

However, I am still using Firefox on Ubuntu. Because of the powerful extensions on Firefox, such as DownThemAll, FlashGot, etc.