I also turned off Chrome when I found out Google basically pay hackers to tell them of any security issues/holes in Chrome. The proviso; You don't get paid if you tell anyone else. Fine product, shiftier and shiftier company.
This is common, and I assume you are referring to events like Pwn2Own? Pwn2Own is multi platform, multi browser, multi device.
As for Google paying hackers to come forward with potential security issues, I see that as a great motivator. Why would anyone BUT Google offer bounties to hackers to improve GOOGLE products? Google does this not only with Chrome, but all Google services/sites. If you find bugs in GMail or any of the apps, you can also be eligible for a bounty. Why wouldn't they dangle a financial carrot in front of hackers with the money they have at hand? It gives them a more solid product offering in the end.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226895/Google_Raises_Bug_Bounties_to_20_000Sure beats Microsoft and Apple outright ignoring reported issues, which there are many cases of.
Firefox for the most part has been entirely unusable due to the memory issues for a very long time, imho. I've been using Chrome solely on this new PC I built here about 5-6 months ago and it's not crashed a single time yet.
IE 9 is a big step up from previous versions, but I still see no valid reason to use it unless corporate situations require it.
Opera is an enigmatic beast, just like it always was. Rumors are now that Facebook may be interested in buying Opera out, likely for the Opera Mini mobile caching technology (which is wholly insecure).
