I’ve been a loyal Chrome user for as long as I can remember, but lately, I’ve felt a growing dissatisfaction. There are multiple reasons for this, from privacy concerns to resource hogging and limited customization options.
1 Privacy Concerns With Chrome
The privacy issue here isn’t just with Google Chrome; it’s with Google in general. Undoubtedly, Google makes amazing products and offers them for free, be it Maps, Gmail, Docs, or Sheets. But why does Google offer them for free instead of charging users? That’s because Google gets something far more valuable in return.
Behind the scenes, Google collects an enormous amount of personal information across all of its products. With this data, it can create a comprehensive profile of a user and serve them targeted ads.
The same applies to Chrome, which stores search history, location, and sensitive information. Although, Google introduced Privacy Sandbox in response to improving privacy. But, this feature only limits third-party companies from tracking. Google can still collect data, and it’s not stopping anytime soon.
Also, when I went to the cookies section in Chrome, I found several irrelevant cookies saved, which were at least not from the website I visited. For example, the adnxs cookie was placed on my system, which tracks my online activity and displays targeted ads.
It’s honestly frightening to see ads pop up for things I searched the previous night. Every search, click, and scroll feels like it’s feeding an algorithm that knows more about me than I ever imagined.
That’s why I’ve completely switched to Safari and Firefox. These browsers are much better at preserving privacy by default. Firefox even lets me choose between standard and strict privacy modes, with options to disable social media trackers, cross-site tracking via cookies, and fingerprinting. Safari is similar, with Intelligent Tracking Prevention built-in to stop websites from tracking my internet activity.
2 Performance Issues and High Memory Usage
Undoubtedly, Chrome is among the fastest browsers, but only if you have enough RAM and CPU power to support it. My PC, which has 32GB RAM, can comfortably run it with multiple tabs open. However, the 8GB RAM in my Intel MacBook Air is not enough.
Also, Chrome shoots up the CPU usage and drains the battery. As you can see above, just a YouTube video running uses 40% of a single core in my CPU. And since I live in a place with a hot climate, my laptop heats up really fast, making it impossible to keep on my lap.
Safari is far better optimized for my MacBook Air, putting significantly less strain on the CPU when streaming the same YouTube video. It also uses less RAM and keeps my laptop relatively cool.
If you’re wondering why Chrome is so resource-intensive, it comes down to how it operates underneath. For better stability, Chrome runs each tab and extension as a separate process; this ensures that if one tab crashes, the others stay unaffected, unlike Safari, which shares resources across tabs for efficiency.
Another reason Chrome uses a lot of RAM and CPU is its pre-rendering feature. Pre-rendering speeds up page load times by predicting the site you might visit next and loading it up in advance. While Safari also uses pre-rendering, Apple’s strict optimization makes all the difference; it keeps resource usage in check.
3 Google Chrome Is Bloated
When Chrome was launched in 2008, it was lightweight and designed for simplicity and speed—miles ahead of Internet Explorer or any other browser available then. However, as Chrome evolved, Google added more features, making it more complex and resource-hungry. It’s not all on Google; the internet is a much more complex place compared to more than a decade ago.
All I want is a simple browser for web surfing and reading blogs, and Chrome just doesn’t fit that description anymore. Chrome already uses significant resources. On top of that, there are several features that I don’t need for my everyday browsing, such as screencasts, deep integration of Google Services, Google Translation, and so on.
Chrome extensions are another contributor to bloat. Every installed extension runs as a separate process and consumes resources. Furthermore, I rarely find myself using a recently installed extension within the same week, and as time goes by, the list of unused extensions grows. I remove them and turn them off, but it’s not always easy to remember. The workaround I have found is to only use Chrome when I need to use a particular extension, close the browser, and continue working in Safari or Firefox.
4 Lack of Customizations
I find Chrome very limiting in changing the look and feel of my browser interface. While I could download themes from the Chrome Store, the changes are mostly limited to color schemes and background images. Even with Chrome extensions, there isn’t much there to do. I can’t move the address bar or do any kind of deep customization.
In comparison, Firefox stands out for its customization capabilities, especially with an easy drag-and-drop interface for toolbar customization. I could potentially place my open tabs at the bottom or on the sides. Or, if I wanted to do a quick Wikipedia search, I could easily assign a custom “@wiki” keyword and then use the search bar for direct Wikipedia search.
