In 2008 I switched to the Chrome web browser. I was a very early adopter. As a person who made their living as a web professional, it was not convenient. No one was using Chrome at the time, so I still needed to keep other browsers around for testing. That was okay, for the previous 6 years, I had been a Firefox user, and was used to checking projects on various browsers.

Chrome has had a good run. Not only has it dominated MY web browsing life for nearly a decade, but it has come to dominate the majority of websites. Depending on who you listen to, it has at least 50% of the browser market and as high as 70%. Not bad.

Sadly over the years, Chrome has become bloated. Sites crawl and lockup on my 3 year old work laptop. Since nearly everything I do is in the browser, this is kind of a big deal.

At onetime IE felt safe at the top of browser mountain.

On November 14th, Firefox’s new browser “Quantum,” finally came out of Beta and was made available to the general public. I decided to give it a spin and I was hooked. It easily handled dozens of tabs and importing everything from Chrome was a breeze.

It felt to me like Chrome was the pinnacle of browser technology and that no browser would ever make me feel a difference in my browser experience again. I was wrong. After the long slog of dwindling returns on Chrome, the new Firefox is noticeably better and I am not the only one who thinks so.

I even started using their Pocket service, which I had largely ignored up until now and I love that as well. With its recommendation system, I find myself not opening Feedly as much anymore.

The online world is full of surprises. It is easy to get complacent as a consumer and a company. Mozilla is showing that they can reinvent their flagship product and wow people.

I am not sure if it is too late for Firefox to make a comeback in a browser war that Chrome has come to dominate, but you never know. At onetime IE felt safe at the top of browser mountain. I for one am now a loud and proud member of team Firefox and will be telling everyone I know.

That being said, I will also keep a copy of Chrome around to continue to see the online world the way the rest of world sees it.

Hmm, I feel like I have been in this exact same place before.