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Linux: Browser Wars
Anderson Silva writes "LinuxToday has an article doing a pretty basic comparison on some of the major linux browsers. Although a nice article, and with a fair result, I still think Opera is the best browser available for Linux." I prefer knoqueror, although recent builds seem to have random hangs on images.google.com.
Simple is good.
We both like 'knoquers'.
---- http://www.opedog.com/
Telnet in on port 80 and do a manual get.
Anything else is for wussies.
Every browser I use randomly hangs on images.google.com. Even on my Windows machines.
It has nothing to do with Linux, or the browsers.
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
I guess slashcode still doesn't include a spellchecker.
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
since the site is slashdotted and i have no hope of reading the article i'll just post my opinion. I think i have to go with mozilla as the best linux browser, or more exactly, the gecko engine. The reason being that webdesigners will ONLY design for IE and Netscape since running IE is out of the question (yes i'm aware it runs on wine) netscape is the only logical choice. Unless you only read slashdot in which case even lynx is fine.
I admire the work the konqueror people have done, if they can get it to emulate IE exactly then they'll have a browser that's on par. Kinda like what opera did (trying to emulate IE) it just has to be more accurate, opera screws up on many pages, as does konqueror. Mozilla will render 99.99% of pages rightn (those that don't render right were made with netscape 4.x in mind), the others screw up much more often.
Photos.
All the aforementioned browsers run on other OSes, but they are called *Linux* browsers. Sure, makes sense to me.
It's a very dark ride.
From the article: Opera is slick, but it's page rendering is nothing short of horrendous. Galeon performed well in all tests, and, aesthetics aside, it's a good choice.
I haven't noticed this myself...In my experience Opera has (almost always) been very fast in rendering HTML for viewing. Its only problem is that it waits for images to load before it displays anything past the image tag in question. Perhaps this was why it took so long to load the page in the test.
This proves once again, that there still isn't a good browser for Linux. So we have to decide on which one is less crappy, and not which one is better.
I don't understand why this is so. It sickens me that browsing on windows with IE is more stable then anything on the linux platform. Its just not right.
Wow, that's a useful test setup.
knoqueror
:P.
/. and Fark, it gets to be a pain. I've been using Netscape lately, but as everybody knows, it has stability (and bloat) problems.
You must mean konqueror
Anyway, I really like Konqueror as well, except for the fact that it seems to like pulling things out of the cache instead of downloading them as it should. Yes, this speeds things up, but on frequently changing sites such as
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
I think for compatibility reasons, Netscape 4.7x releases are pretty much the best browser in terms of rendering accuracy. At least on the Windows side, Netscape Communicator 4.78 is still a bit better than Netscape 6.1 in terms of rendering most commercial web pages.
I hope that once Mozilla 1.0 is released later this year it will become the basis for the new standard for web browsers running under Linux.
While I do applaud Opera's small system requirement footprint, it has some trouble rendering the more complex commercial web pages.
The author says Opera is clean and simple. In my eyes, Opera is horrible. It's default screen is covered with 500 different widgets. When you load a page, they all start whizzing and moving around. It's very distracting. Opera doesn't look at home on GNOME nor KDE, which just adds to its problems. Opera, with its adverts and grotesque widgets, is a visual insult.
I strictly use only MS Internet Explorer becuase that's the only browser that doens't try to steal my flamberge.
Anyone that knows any browser that is "good" on monochrome displays?
:-)
I tested quite a few, and ended up using Netscape, in spite of it inverting all pictures making them look like negatives.
Slashdot uses a lot of tables on the pages which can take a while to render, so what better test for a browser. Obviously this is a pretty extreme test as most pages are nowhere near as big.
Opera: 127 seconds
Konqueror: 57 seconds
Mozilla: 71 seconds
Galeon: 64 seconds
Skipstone: 57 seconds (Note: Browser crashed on first attempt.)
Netscape: 34 seconds
Winner: Netscape Navigator
These load times are absurd. Is this guy connected to the internet via a 300-baud phone-coupler attached to a telephone line spliced together with paper clips? I'm on a cablemodem, and it takes less than two-seconds to fully load slashdot. I think it took about 9 or 10 when I was on a dialup. Anyone else think these figures look a little inflated?
when salmon are outlawed, only outlaws will have salmon
The Mozilla version shipping with Mandrake 8.0 is 0.8.7. While stability is pretty much unchanged since then, Mozilla has gotten noticably faster during the 0.9.x cycle. 0.9.1 is usable on a 350 Mhz Pentium II... sort of. 0.9.3, while still being slower than Navigator 4.77, isn't bad at all. It's finally fast enough that I can use it as my normal, day-to-day browser (I was using Nav 4.77, because while it was unstable as hell, at least I didn't have to wait 20 seconds for a page to load).
I imagine that simliar situations are true for at least one or two of the other browsers compared. Development on Mozilla, especially, is happening very fast and comparing something current 6 months ago is not, IMHO particularly meaningful.
A German magazine did a similar thing a while ago, only they included MSIE. It won hands on in every discipline from speed to adherence to standards.
A pity that it wasn't at least mentioned.
Censorship on Slashdot
I think it's mandatory for Slashdot editors to prefer Konqueror as their primary browser.
But anyway, I'd have to agree. Mozilla is slow, buggy, and big, although it's improving. Netscape is Mozilla + AOL crap. Konqueror seems to be reasonably fast and stable, and doesn't do a bad job of rendering pages.
The Microsoft bashers may hate me saying this, but I'd love to see Internet Explorer available for Linux. Of course, it will never happen, but it would be nice.
I'm using Galeon to read this right now 0.11.0, and while it's a really nice, clean interface, it does have some problems.
. htm
:)
http://ska.about.com/library/cannabis/blccrolling
This is one of them. One of the two pop ups on this page crash it EVERY time. Without fail. I warn you, do not visit this in Galeon (unless there is some way of turning pop-ups off, which is entirely possible, I've never really delved too deep into it's guts.
But I like it MUCH better than Mozilla and Netscape. It just seems cleaner to me.
And for those of you visiting that web site in non Galeon browers, I did eventually figure out how to roll a joint without its help
Verloc
Why do you call yourself "Number One Dick"?
Textmode browsing, who needs pictures anyways ;)
http://www.hardcorelinux.com/linux-browsers.htm
Page Rendering Times
For this test, I took a 370kb page from Slashdot page. I saved the page out, rather than use it on the site, since comments could be added on the site which would skew the results.
Slashdot uses a lot of tables on the pages which can take a while to render, so what better test for a browser. Obviously this is a pretty extreme test as most pages are nowhere near as big.
Opera: 127 seconds
Konqueror: 57 seconds
Mozilla: 71 seconds
Galeon: 64 seconds
Skipstone: 57 seconds (Note: Browser crashed on first attempt.)
Netscape: 34 seconds
WTF!!! 34 seconds to render /.? iCab on my mac is probably the slowest rendering browser out there right now (on a fat pipe, on a modem it rocks) and it renders the main page almost instantly! Please tell me this is simply a function of the low cost hardware that was used.. If not, I'll stick to OS X.. What am I talking about?, I'll stick to it anyway, but I'll feel bad for all you linux users out there..
From the article: Konqueror: Clean, simple and boring. Perfectly functional, with the bare minimum of fuss. The spinning KDE logo in the corner looks very nice, but of course adds nothing to your browsing experience.
Konqueror, boring? Gimme a break. It's completely themable and it doesn't even need its own themes like Mozilla, you can use general KDE themes. And it works wonderfully as a file manager (and network browser and PDF and manpage viewer), with smooth icon previews of HTML, ps, pdf, images and text files. You can split the view in however many sub-windows you want, you can even have a shell prompt as a subwindow. It has a full screen mode. Right now, I'm browsing with KDE and Konqueror in "Aqua" theme and it looks, well, let's just say you have to buy an Apple if you want something to look cooler than that.
And what's up with testing on a ridiculously outdated machine? P166, no MMX, 32 MB RAM? You've gotta be kidding me. If I wanted a browser that worked fast on this configuration, I'd have stuck with Netscape 3.0...
It should also support the latest plug-in's for Netscape. I tried to go to the www.bttf.com web site as shown on the KDE screenshots pages, but the latest (and most easily available) version of Flash is 5.X. Konqueror only supports up to version 4.X. Sad.
ForgiveR
No one is going to take this review seriously. Not only does the author not give version numbers he also refers to Netscape Navigator as "Netscape". Was he testing the corporation itself?
Personally, I'd be more interested if Navigator 6.1 were compared along side 4.7x and Mozilla.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
"I prefer knoqueror, although recent builds seem to have random hangs on images.google.com."
I have no say in the matter, but I bet more people prefer konqueror than knoqueror...
[o]_O
Looks more like canadacomputes.com to me
I like it a lot, primarily because it seems to use the widgets (radio buttons, form elements, etc) that I've chosen in my Gnome setup, in contrast to some other programs. It's very mac-like in that way.
Although it is not open source, I don't particularly care - because I, like most people, wouldn't know what to do with the source if I had it.
I have IE 5.5 sp2 installed on a Win98 partition and 5.5 sp1 installed on a Win95 box. The Win98 partition copy will crash (kill IE) on the average of 4 to 5 times a day (in a 5-6 hour period). The Win95 one is more stable -- one crash a day, maybe.
Konqueror (2.1.1 or 2.2) doesn't crash, period. I've used it for days straight before logging out with as many as 6 windows open and it doesn't crash.
Start hitting the "stop" button while complex pages are loading and IE 5.5 will start to barf.
Konqueror isn't perfect (nothing is), but it is one of the best -- most stable, decent speed and good compatibility.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I'm sorry, but aren't the versions of the browsers used somehow important to the story? Was it Mozilla 0.9, or 0.9.2? Netscape 4.08 or Netscape 4.7, or Netscape 6? Hard to tell what these tests mean, especially if not the latest versions of each browser are being used.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
why oh why where text only browsers not included ?
is this because their user base is small ?
I personally use it but I find that alot of people dont
because I find lynx the fall back GOD the page doent render in netscape or some fool has FSCK the HTML I just use lynx and away I go
really how much information (I am intrested in )is presented in pictures on the web
not much I am sure
lynx is my fallback king (-;
I use it when I telnet into places to check they can see stuff plus all I need is a telnet app which I can obtain for most OS's
what do you relie on to ALWAYS give you the web ?
(me its a telnet client and lynx)
regards
john jones
I will stick to Konqueror for a while. I have looked at the source code and it is very clean and easy to follow, cleaner and easier than most open source/Free projects out there (definitely cleaner than Mozilla.) When you have source code like that, development goes extremely fast. Features become very easy to code.
Besides, I find that Konqueror is a nice compromise between features and speed. It does not try to sway towards one end and exclude the other. Many other browsers have a tendency to do this sort of thing.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Of course, leave it to Canada to completely screw up an article. Their load time 'benchmarks' are skewed since the browsers were tested on some sort of 386 hooked up with a baud modem to the internet. Thanks for the totally inaccurate article.
Hey, at least I didn't post a lame joke about the obvious misspelling. Get a life, people, willya?
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
about writing a God-damned web browser?
*CmdrTaco loads images.google.com*
*CmdrTaco types in "tux the penguin nude"*
*Penguin loads up in goatse position*
CmdrTaco: hmmmm....
*CmdrTaco types in "RMS nude"*
*Google locks...*
CmdrTaco: ^$%$#@!
Execute? [Y/N] _
I use galeon and konqueror mostly and the occasional skipstone (which is by the same guy that does gkrellm and pronto) mozilla, navigator and opera just seem to be the EMACS of web browsers. it always seems funny to me that in the Unix (one tool per job) world we have so many kitchen sink utils. vi, galeon or konq, enlightenment. I like to keep things simple looking if not simple.
-
And the only one with anti-alias support, I think.
Konqueror 2.2 has an option to use the same process, for launching multiple brower.
So on my computer, its start-up time is about 10 seconde for the first window but only about 3 seconde for the next windows.
Oh and you can also start with a blank page instead of the "help page for konqueror".
The article doesn't say which release of Konqueror he is using though.
And with KDE 2.2.1 , I expect that the problem with the symbol relocation of shared libraries will be finally solved, right now the "solution/hack" is a bit flaky (cause problem with javascript).
I've used Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and even lynx. I like Mozilla since I first used it. I had a small problem with Mozilla viewing text on webpages, but that was fixed when I upgraded X to 4.10. Opera is okay, but the way it renders some webpages is totally wrong. I also used Netscape 4.7 and 6.0 but everytime I would go to a new webpage it would stick then load. So I just stuck with Mozilla, and as for lynx, it's good for when you can't startx which happen to me once.
Sorry, the amount of memory used by XFree86 isn't really all that much. What you're seeing when you see huge memory usage for X in top is because the X process has memory mapped your video card's graphics RAM into its memory space, several times over.
On my 32 meg GeForce2MX card, top shows X taking up 135megs of RAM. On a friend's system with an old school 2 meg VRAM card, X is only shown taking up 4-5 megs of RAM.
X is actually pretty damn memory efficient. Remember it was originally created when a workstation might have had one megabyte of memory, total. If you have a lot of windows open at high color depth, there will be some real RAM taken up to store those bitmaps, depending on whether you have 'save unders' enabled, but that's a function of all of the programs you have running, more than of X's inefficiency, even if the memory is counted against the X server process and not the X programs themselves.
FWIW.
I still think that the browser tests covered here are rather meaningless on a 32 meg machine. These days, browsers will take up close to a full 32 megs of RAM on a UNIX system, especially with the 'cache in RAM' option of Mozilla and Netscape. These days, when you can get 512 megs of PC133 RAM for less than fifty bucks, it just doesn't make sense to worry about 32 megs here or there, anymore.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
...to this article unless you've tried Opera.
Opera puts the rest of the "Linux" browsers to shame.
Yes Konqueror and Mozilla have come far, bravo for their efforts.
But if you want speed, stability and flexibility in a small footprint, get Opera.
Oh, and why don't these developers forget about writing email clients, and file browsers and just write a web browser?
well many people rarely use those environments, a FAIR test would have been 2 benchmarks one without kdeinit running one with. THen again it doesn't really matter becasue this review has so many probs with it it's not usefull at all.
Photos.
Mozilla, Netscape, Opera haven't had that wonderful advantage, which is one of the reasons the Justice Department wanted it separated into two companies. Personally, I think a few bits of source should've had to have been released to these browser companies. Microsoft's upper hand is in knowing the environment to its fullest extent, and indeed tweaking that environment to suit their browser.
THAT is why MS Internet Explorer isn't worth a mention; they cheat.
maybe your looking at too much porn cmdrtaco! =P
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading.
First, although this is really personal taste, I don't think the guy could have been any further from the truth when talking about which browser looks the best. I mean he totally ripped on galeon, then went on to say skipstone was decent looking. Ummm, the last time I tried skipstone it was pretty much the same look as galeon only a less appealing spinner and crappier icons (maybe things have changed but I doubt it).
Well, I shrugged that off thinking maybe he just has weird taste, then I hit the part about the load times on slashdot.
Those numbers he has are insane. I don't know how slashdot could take that long to load. And theres no way, from my experience at least, that netscape navigator 4.x could beat mozilla in load times.
I think the part that pretty much puts the nail in the coffin (or whatever that saying is) for this guy's article is the fact that the load times for the gecko based browsers (mozilla, galeon, skipstone) differed by like 10 seconds each. I think this guy is measuring the speed of slashdot's server at different times more than he's measuring the browsers. He probably should have some how measured how long it took to load a complex page located on a local server or his own computer.
Oh well, one good thing came out of this article, i decided to give opera a try, downloading it right now.
And for anyone who can't use galeon and is wondering what it looks like I made a screenshot of it right here.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
Just something I noticed that didn't seem right Furthermore, when the preferences dialog is loaded, it's not immediately apparent where the option to toggle JS is. It's actually under the Applications section for some reason, under the plugin's tab. Illogical, given JS is not a plugin, but actually built into Opera. then at the end: One final comment: only Netscape actually comes with Java support built in. For all the others you'll need a Java environment to run Java applets. Attention to detail is one of the finer points of a good journalist. Oh well, the article seems poorly thought out anyway. A newer machine and update browsers would have lended more credibility. -Mel
...all such counting of penises starts at one. In comparison, slashdot would clearly assign a penis number as high as 2195069 for a similar purpose, although the effect is of course lost in the struggle.
The Winner [for "The Look"]: Mozilla, hands down. It's terrific that someone decided to take the route away from the greys.
Oh goody. I was tired of all my applications looking the same and behaving the same. I love guessing which color means disabled for each different application. I like having my system wide colors that I've carefully chosen to minimize eye strain thrown out the window.
System wide colors and looks are feature. If you're sick of living in grey land, change it globally. Gnome supports this. KDE supports this. Windows supports this.
Mozilla is a great browser, but their decision to roll their own user interface was a mistake. Fortunately Mozilla is modular, and as the core engine stabilizes I plan on moving to a more system friendly browser using that engine. Probably Galeon or Skipstone.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Unfortunately this outdated-browser analysis is worthless, for several reasons - all of which boil down to the small amout of actual testing done. A faster, more representative machine would have been useful as well. And I don't need an analysis of browsers way back when on a machine from way back when and then some :-).
:-(
But should you doubt me:
First off, I think the one most deciding factor in the choice of a browser if how well it displays pages - whether corrupt, IE5.5 optimized, javascript enabled, CSS2.0 or ancient, my browser first and foremost needs to WORK. This isn't even touched upon here! The stability of the browser, in my opinion a part of usability, needs to be tested.
A browser doesn't need to be all that fast either just "fast enough". And, not only is "fast enough" a subjective measure, it includes things such as responsiveness while loading, total page loading time, time to create a new window, time to "scetch" a first outline onscreen and more. Many pages can be very usable with only 10% loaded. By the time you're done reading the first paragraph the rest can be loaded. In addition, speed will vary depending on processor speed and type, memory availability, and network bandwidth. A fast browser which gains speed with bad incremental display could be worse than a slower version in which you can start reading immediately. Furthermore, the internet extends beyond slashdot... some HTML elements may render in varying speed depending on the browser used.
Speed is a hard thing to measure. This analysis isn't nearly complete enough to be at all useful.
Startup time is effected by things such as program size (if too much else is loaded, a 32meg machine might well be swapping skewing the image drastically), speed ratio between hard drive and processor, and VERY importantly, dependance on shared libraries. Konqueror for instance might seem much faster when running KDE already... and the same goes for the other browsers too though I don't immediately know which libraries they use. Notice how fast those "second instances" pop up...
Finally, this is a pretty lame attempt to harvest slashdot links by using a slashdot page in a linux browser test...
It is great to see that he used a fairly low end system to do his tests. There are so many Pentium 75 - 200 systems around that are still perfectly useful if people would just think a little harder while programming, and it is nice that somebody is realistically putting one to the test with more "modern" software...
Posted from the wireless couch.
Yeah, it's already been pointed out, but a P166? Not quite representative of what's running out there right now.
Then he complains about Konqueror and Galeon being plain. Well duh! They use the KDE or GNOME themes respectively and he's running blackbox. Want to disable popups in Galeon? Settings - Preferences - Advanced - Filtering -- Deselect "Allow popups" will do it. And Galeon's tabbed windows are way too cool a feature to skip over.
How about some version numbers?
It looks like he spent at least an hour researching this. Yawn... :o)
I loaded a recent Slashdot article (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/19/15562 11) over an ISDN connection with the four Windows browsers I have. Instead of timing how long it took between hitting "reload" and the progress bar stopping, I looked at how much of the page each browser displayed while loading the 50 or so comments that are displayed with my threshold:2 and overflow:3.
slashdot in light mode
ie article, no comments
moz article and the comments loaded so far
ns4 article, no comments
opera article, no comments
slashdot in heavy mode
ie nothing except stuff above the article
moz article, no comments
ns4 nothing except stuff above the article
opera nothing except stuff above the article
Conclusion: the fastest way to read Slashdot over a non-broadband connection is to use Mozilla and set Slashdot to light mode.
I didn't test Konqueror because it isn't available for my platform (!?), and I didn't test Gecko embedders because they should behave similarly to Mozilla when rendering pages.
The shareholder is always right.
I had to do a Browser comparison with an application which needed hiding and displaying parts of a web page: depending on what you clicked some different stuff appeared.
This application uses a lot of features a browser can handle: stylesheets (and the nasty "display" attribute), JavaScript, tables, forms and XML.
I tried the following browsers (under Windows, since the people who will use it mainly have Windows):
Netscape 4.x
Netscape 6.1
Internet Explorer 5.x
Opera 5.12
Amaya 5.1
Mozilla 0.9.3
Here are the results:
- IE kicked ass in everything, and even displayed the XML stuff right.
- NS 6.1 kicked ass too, but 6 or 7 times slower. Prettier display, but hideously slow (and no XML, but we didn't care). Same thing for Mozilla (duh).
- NS 4.x sucked. Couldn't handle the "display: none" property properly. No XML.
- Opera faked kicking ass, but in fact had JavaScript problems... just wouldn't show anything whatever you clicked. No XML.
-Amaya didn't even fake. I guess it was a JavaScript problem because the display of the object was weird. But it faked some XML. displayed the source as plain text (ohh it's displaying something!! no, it's the source)
Conclusion: best results on Win: (sniff) IE. Followed by NS6.1 and Mozilla. Then comes Opera.
Gotta try some browsers under Mac and Linux now too, maybe.
E
Hey hasn't anybody checked out mozilla, since netscape and galeon are based on it. Its fast and renders quite nicely. I haven't seen much mention of that here. dt
So what OS should I use? I could re-install Windows I guess -- I'd need to buy a copy from some place. I also don't have much Windows software. Can Windows run Linux software? I can run some Windows stuff in WINE. BeOS runs pretty well on my machine, although their SCSI drivers leave a little to be desired. I could run one of the BSDs too...
What do you think? What is it I should be doing? How can I run an OS that doesn't suck? How can I meet with your approval?
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Opera is too, if you use it with Qt 2.2 or higher (I think), and set QT_XFT=1 in your environment.
I usually use MS Internet Explorer 5 on MacOS 9 or X, and it is really, really good. Really good. And it adheres to the CSS W3C standards so much better than Netscape 4.7x it's obscene. Mozilla and Opera have the same opportunity to make a fast, clean browser for MacOS. Everyone does. But IE rocks.
--hongpong.com
With the latest "tech preview" of Opera, you can use plugins and Java. It was painless to set up the Java plugin, and it works great. I haven't had a single crash or glitch since I installed it.
Konqueror is an excellent browser, too. I use it for testing my pages for compatibility, and for surfing on my other machine. If they're successful in implementing ActiveX support as they are supposedly attempting, Konqueror will literally be the best alternative to Windoze browsers.
I liked this guy's review, except:
1. Galeon looks gorgeous on my pc, with the gtk+ theme I use. At least 10 times more beautiful than Opera. Mozilla looks nice, but I personally think Galeon's interface is a lot more functional than Mozilla's.
2. He failed to mention tabbed browsing. Opera, Skipstone and Galeon support this, and it is an awesome feature. Saves many a mouse drag and click and trouble.
3. Galeon's SmartBookmarks are way better than any similar feature in any other browser, including IE. It is really convenient to be able to search rpmfind.net or Freshmeat, or look up a word in the dictionary straight from the main window without having to waste extra time browsing to the site first.
So I personally think Galeon has a definite edge over Opera (which is not free, and sometimes takes an annoyingly long time to finish loading a page because of some little counter at the bottom). I wouldn't call it that close.
Am I a hipster-doofus?
This guy is crazy, Mozilla wins hands down in just about any aspect. How could he even consider a browser (netscape) that was made redundant 3-4 years ago. Mozilla, now, is a very fast and sleek browser, gecko(the mozilla rendering engine) is by far the fastest in the industry. If the results were actally done on a half-decent computer then may be the results would reflect more of the truth. Apart from mozilla now being fast and stable it contains support for ssl(which i use alot), SVG, Right to left text (for other languages), a html editor, mail/news client, plugins such as Java and Flash, being able to skin it and at the same time being w3c.org standards compliant.
Hi /.-ers,
My primary browser is Galeon, and has been for the last few months. It's a Gecko- and Gnome-based web browser. As such, it is very fast, because it uses a native graphics toolkit (Gtk+) and does very nice rendering. Give it a try - the guys have RPMs for RedHat, Slackware packages, and it's already in Debian sid - just apt-get install galeon. It is significantly faster than Mozilla and offers pretty much the same web browser functionality, if not even better. Stability with Mozilla 0.9.3 and Galeon 0.11.5 is pretty much perfect - I don't recall a single crash with this combo. And it seems like it's becoming the default browser for GNOME - somethind I'd definitely love to see.
Just a note to those using Konqueror - I don't know what the claims that it supports CSS are based on. I haven't yet tried the latest KDE 2.2, but the one in 2.1.1 just doesn't cut it.
Being chained to the horrible outlook at work, i have to say that i think that mozilla's mail tool is really nice. It does everything i want in email cleanly and with out any hassel. I really think that an email tool should be separate from the browser so that you can mix and match, but in this case the mail tool makes mozilla the only choice for me.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
a site that will crash a browser one day will work fine the next in my experience
No kidding. IE crashes on me multiple times daily, but I very rarely find a reproducible set of steps I can take to make it crash. Mozilla crashes on me occasionally, but I can almost always figure out what I need to do to reproduce the crash so I can file a bug.
That doesn't mean it's impossible to measure stability. It just means that being able to find reproducible crashes isn't the same thing as having a stable product. If you wanted to compare the stability of various browsers, you would have to get a group of users to try different browsers for their daily browsing while running your own crash reporting tool, but that's far from impossible to do.
Mozilla comes with a third-party program called Talkback that reports crashes to the developers. mozilla.org uses this data not only to find the most common crash bugs (by comparing the tops of the stack traces), but also to calculate theh "mean time between failure" to determine whether any given milestone (and maybe even nightly builds) is particularly stable. Internet Explorer 6.0 comes with a similar feature. (Both Mozilla and IE6 prompt the user before sending the crash report.)
The shareholder is always right.
I don't often use KDE, but when I do, I find Opera (since it uses Qt, after all) matches it quite nicely. Of course, in GNOME or Enlightenment it looks like crap and doesn't match anything, since it takes on a dark grey that doesn't match my unaltered basic GTK theme or my Enlightenment themes...
Overall it's pretty nice, though I'm fighting to try to get it to recognize TrueType fonts (everything else on the system sees them and is using them, so why can't Opera show me my website rendered in oh-so-pretty Verdana?).
Perhaps it holds CSS better, but I'll be damned if it hasn't perverted website development for years to come.
I must say that although I prefer Konqueror, it's slow start-up speed (and opening new instances) was disappointing.
However, KDE 2.2 has certainly improved things on my machine (AMD K6/2-500). The start-up speed of Konqueror is now on par with Internet Explorer (infact, KDE 2.2 is generally much more responsive in opening up apps).
Opera looks terrible on Linux, and Netscape is trying to be flash but also looks terrible (cliche adolescent futuristic design just doesn't cut it).
Konqueror takes the correct route of uniform design (when used with KDE, of course).
What I like about Galeon is that it has the rendering ability of Mozila, plus it's fast! Konqueror is nice, but there are still too many pages that it renders improperly. One thing I agree with the author is that Mozilla is by far the prettiest bowser out there. I wish Galeon would adopt its toolbar (or at least give the option to use it, similar to the way Mozilla gives a choice between looks.)
Tiny memory footprint!
.Xdefaults file.
Okay, so Java and Javascript are mostly broken (don't care: hate both of them), the SSL is deprecated, the plug-ins are pretty much bust (don't care: plug-ins suck), and there's no PNG support, but it's still a very peppy browser.
The mail client is much more responsive than the utterly porcine Netscape Messenger (version 4.x) and you can turn off BLINK tags in your
Best of all, it still runs on a modern version of Linux (e.g., kernel 2.4.9).
Frankly, if you care, rerun these tests yourself; I don't think the figures quoted are representative.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I actually think the mail client has been the weakest part of Netscape for years. Netscape Messenger 4.x was an absolute pig (3.x at least was functional), and Mozilla 0.9.x still isn't a good mail client.
Exmh is a lightning-fast, highly hackable (read customizable) GUI that runs on top of the powerful mh (the RAND mail handler - actually superceded by nmh). I've been using exmh for years and have over 2000 messages.
Exmh stores messages as individual files, so you don't have memory or performance issues like crummy consumer-grade MUAs. The memory footprint is unbelievably low.
Combined with the procmail utility and a *real* MTA like qmail (with the RTBL patch), this is the ultimate!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There's an IE 5/WINE howto at:
http://www.hardcorelinux.com/wine-howto.htm
which shows you how to run IE 5 in Linux. Someone wrote me recently stating v5.5 doesn't work w/ the command-line parameters i used, but I know personally circa 5.0 does. It works decently too, rendering pages nearly as well as the Windows counterpart.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Mozilla is my browser of choice (it's been ever since ... 0.6 ?). These days, the latest build crashes MUCH less than IE on windows and best of all : it's pretty much compatible to every important standards out there. (still need better XSLT support)
A browser that is standards-compliant is very important because then we can create web sites and ignore those non-compliants browsers. When every web developper does this, everyone will be able to use the browser *they* like on whatever platform *they* like.
I'm up to the point where I use Mozilla most of the time on Windows (mostly at work : we are a *gulp* Microsoft-Devoted shop -- I'm working on that) and Mozilla all the time on Linux. I did try Konq. and I think it's a really nice browser.
As long as they're standards-compliant, any browser will do.
IP Therefore I am.
The one major impression that I get from using Galeon is that it's clearly a browser that the authors wrote with the intention of USING it. The interface is simple and efficient, very configurable, and the bookmark handling has a number of features I haven't seen anywhere else. Their slogan is "The web. Only the web." which pretty much sums up the apparent design philosophy: do one thing, and do it well. It's definately worth a try.
he told us WHEN and WHAT he tested !!!
.. talk about a fair review :)
He didn't even bother telling us what version of each browser he tested it. Is it Mozilla 0.9.1, or 0.9.3 ? Is it Galeon 0.11.1 or 0.11.4 or 0.12preX?
Geez
The preferences option is located under the File menu instead of the Edit menu. This is a bad design choice.
How is this a bad design choice? I personally prefer having a menu bar option like Tools or Options with the preferences menu underneath. I always thought Netscape was silly to have the preferences under Edit. To me the Edit menu means you're editing whatever is currently opened, ie the webpage you're viewing. That's why you find the copy/paste options there, or the View Source option. Your browsing preferences have nothing to do with editing that webpage, so why put it under the Edit menu. And frankly, I can't think of any other apps that let you change your session configuration/preferences by going to the Edit menu. This guy obviously has a Netscape bias.
--
Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
Just wanted to point out that Internet Explorer is just simply much better than any of the browsers mentionned in the article.
It's a real shame, but hopefully Microsoft can port its browser to Linux some day.
Even on the Windows version on a P3 800 with 384MB of ram it has big trouble with large images (http://wendycomic.com) and I really do not like how it won't show any broken image placeholder when images don't loaded. Not to mention the fact that highlighting the mouse over an image doesn't show the tag or the horrible problems on data transfer on some sites like EZBoard(don't laugh, it's free). But I still use it because I am lost without gesturing and the blazing speed, maybe 5.13 will fix these little niggles, whilst keeping the speed.
Obviously commander burrito, or whatever his/her name is, doesn't read the articles before posting them. For a number of reasons pointed out by other readers, this article is crap and doesn't deserve the slashdot-effect that it is receiving.
I think he should have considered Netscape 6.1. :-)
I've been using it almost exclusively in both Linux and Windows since it came out. It looks like the people at AOL/Netscape finally got it 'kinda' right. It haven't crashed yet, the interface is very responsive and it doesn't take forever to load, as was the case with versions 6.0 and 6.01.
Plus, the UI is cool
If only I could fix those horrible fonts in Mandrake 8.0.....
-.
Of course, if you don't like the icons, you can always contribute your own!
This Anonymous Coward is *still* running a P166 "classic" (non-MMX) ... Don't laugh, these things *are* still useable!
Yes, my other computer is an 8088...
ie 5 runs on some unices, solaris and hp-ux. how does it compare to the windows version (in performance), etc...
I found that benchmark really superficial, especially regarding the page loading times, i think it should have tested heavy CSS pages,layers, heavy pages with a lot of nested tables, and so on. Loading time of the browser its not really important, i would rather measure the time to open a new window when the browser is loaded. On linux my choices are mozilla 0.9.3 when i want things to work properly, and konqueror for the occasional browsing (it is faster). Running netscape 4.x these days is just asking for trouble, frequent hangs, and mangled pages.
Actually, Opera can do anti-aliased text too. There is a screenshot floating around somewhere too, but i can't find a link at the moment.
As a sidenote, there's a new "technology preview" version of Opera for Linux out now.
-skip
Lynx is a good browser that works under Linux, and is more stable than IE in my experience.
There is a war over here
Who will volunteer to re-do this study a little more rationally & post the results here?
(And while we wait for a volunteer, add your suggestions to the following list).
1. State the version of each browser used. Make reasonable effort to use up-to-date ones.
2. For startup time, configure all to initially display blank pages.
3. Include text-only browsers as well (lynx, w3, etc).
4. Use reasonably modern (but not high-end) hardware. At least, enough memory to be support all browser's footprints (i.e. no swap).
5. Separately measure & report "rendering speed" (i.e. from cache or file) and "loading speed" (i.e. with cache flushed).
6. For loading speed: State your internet connection type. Choose a lightly loaded server, at a time of day when your ISP performance is good.
7. Report the actual memory footprint.
8. Report the best unique features (e.g. built in ad-blocker, flexible cookie rejection, whatever.)
9. Report any obvious bad features (e.g. advertising, crashes, etc).
10. Try on a browser compliance test site, and report result. (I know they exist, don't know which is good, though).
Any volunteers to try this and post to Slashdot?
I'd volunteer, but I'm still employed (until Tuesday at least), so I don't have time!
Has anyone tried the linux port of Arachne? I used it on an old 486 dos laptop (yes, there is a graphical web browser for dos) and it ran pretty quickly...plus it's only about a 1 meg download.
- wha-choo talkin' 'bout willis?
I'm interested in browsers that embed mozilla since Netscape Navigator IMHO should die, Mozilla itself is nice but no thanks for the interface. I keep updating my copies of both Galeon and SkipStone and I must say that both of those browsers rock, wether interface or browsing. First of all, Galeon looks great, all Gtk+ apps imho look great, and who said you can't change the default grey icons of SkipStone, SkipStone has been themeable for as long as I can remember, visit SkipStone's theme page| to see what I'm talking about. Both browsers also support tabbed browsing which is great.. SkipStone recently introduced a plugin API that you can use to write cool plugins, the source package includes some examples too, Galeon and SkipStone both offer comprable performance imho though on my laptop I solely run SkipStone cause I really dont want to install the requirements for GNOME due to disk requirements. I think everybody with a *nix box should try both, Galeon and SkipStone. SkipStone is currently at 0.7.5 and Galeon at 0.12pre I think.. I wonder what versions he used (including the mozilla version) cause both browsers havent crashed since 0.9.1 at least in my machine (and I do browse SlashDot) I never crashed on a slashdot page using either.
I like the:
-stability
-AA fonts
-speed
-flash/realplayer/java applets
working in Konqueror.
just my vote on the current best browser under Linux.
Yes, IE is a good browser option under windows but it is twice as slow than konqueror.
The most reliable browser I've used in a long time is this one, and I suggest you dump all your fancy crash-prone graphical kluges for it. Porn addicts may disregard my recommendation.
I would have like to see more about compliance to w3 standards. I know Mozilla is mostly compliant (thus all who use its engine as well). Ie is compliant but adds a whole bunch of uncompliant CRAP to it which makes every joe blow write html that doesn't work in any browser but ie. And of course netscape 4.xx is far too old to be compliant but renders most webpages fine. I don't know anything about opera never tried it. Konqueror as far as i've seen is compliant.
Personally I prefer konquor, I get great load times (bout 5 seconds) but with moz I get closer to 20. (Im on a k6-3 450). The one thing I hate about it is the status bar doesn't seem to update properly, so on slow pages I don't know whether its loading the page or not.
A German magazine did a similar thing a while ago, only they included MSIE. It won hands on in every discipline from speed to adherence to standards.
.mau.
Pity that XML support in IE5.x is piecewise (to be fair, Opera has no support, and Netscape is a mess).
I switched for a while to IE5.5 for lack of alternatives: now I am using Mozilla 0.9.3 and I find myself rather comfortable.
ciao,
I like Opera but I find that it crashes.
Konqeror is almost there, impressive.
Nautilus is not bad as well.
-Thing that needs the most attention: plugins.
"Konqueror is my browser of choice." - "Bah, Konqueror crashes within five seconds every time I run it."
"You can't beat Netscape 4.7." - "I'd like to beat the authors with a stick though."
"What about Galeon? That works well." - "No it doesn't, it won't render pictures of white elephants."
"I use IE." - "Piss off."
Slashdot users could use some lessons in making objective, rounded assessments of software, or at least understand that usage patterns affect browser performance as much as the quality of the code per se. If you feel a particular browser is good or bad, you might at least consider how you use it and whether that affects your perception of it. For example, I find Netscape 4.7x extremely stable with JavaScript (& Java) disabled, but certain to crash on long pages with JS enabled. IE works fine for me at work, but again I disable most of the advanced options in favour of speed and less [Ff]lash. On the other hand, I am consistently disappointed by Mozilla releases, each of which is alleged by numerous early adopters to "rock" yet contain serious bugs in some pretty basic and necessary functionality (bookmark management, selective image loading, etc.). But maybe that's just because my web browsing preferences tend towards the minimal/luddite end and I don't have a fast machine.
Browser roundups are easy to knock off, enabling you to fill a page or two of your struggling news site with little effort and usually garnering a Slashdot link into the bargain. But a properly researched review - which, people, requires many weeks of indepth, varied testing and the application of a little science - has yet to be written.
Yours grumpily on a Monday morning,
Ade_
/
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
The article did not review a number of browsers. Here are a some more that you may want to try:
And how the disclaimers: The list above by no means complete. The browers above were listed in j-random order. Some browsers are in early alpha stage, some in Beta and others are in full release. Some of the browsers may suck, some are OK and some are good. Your mileage may vary. Sorry If I left out your favorite browser. IE was left off the list for obvious reasons. Good while supply lasts or until Bill Gates takes over. I'm not a member of the FCIA. Void where cast as (void).
chongo (was here)
Why not test linux vs windows versions, and put in lynx as a reference...
/. main page in ~10s on a 56k connection...
Lynx on the command line kicks ass and takes names, I can load the
My biggest gripe with it now is that when you launch it, it takes 2-3 times longer to come up that Netscape 4.7. I think that load time is due to their having implemented yet another graphics library. While that means that it will look pretty much the same across every platform, it also means that it will not really fit in on any platform. It also means I have to apply yet another theme to get it pretty close to the same look and feel as the rest of my desktop (It's still a damnsight closer than Navagator ever was, though.)
I noticed that this seems to take place at the lowest level, so it seems to me that Gaelon also takes the hit from having to load those extra libraries. I haven't tested galeon lately though, so maybe it's become faster with the recent Mozilla rendering speed improvements.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So only MSIE really counts. Very few people will use linux for internet access until ISPs accept linux. ISPs will not accept linux until linux has MSIE. The reason I don't use linux for my home desktop is that I cannot get $4.95 ATT worldnet on a linux box.
ISPs that do not support linux include: ATT (broadband or worldnet), CompuServ, Earthlink, AOL, MSN, and just about any others.
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Linux) Opera 5.0 [en]
which you might say is "pretending to be IE", as Opera has another common user-agent entry:
Opera/5.11 (Windows 2000; U) [en].
Of the IE hits I listed though, they all claimed to be running on some flavor of Windows, with nothing varying from the standard IE log pattern. Perhaps Opera can also log in this manner, but I seriously doubt that the statistics I gave are off by more than a percent or two.
Face facts, slashdroids love to say they hate windows, but at the end of the day, it's what they use on their desktops.
Maybe I'm a bit extreme, but these tests are in no way representative of my browsing environment. Clearly, if the browser can't render a table or include an image, then it pretty much fails the HTML compliancy test. With regards to a browser being useable, however, it's going to take many more tests.
For example, I rarely, if ever, have only one browser window open; I have seven right now. In this measure, Opera fails instantly. The last time I checked, you could have multiple pages loaded in Opera, but they couldn't be outside the main Opera window. With Mozilla and Netscape, I frequently have multiple pages spanning multiple screen pages and multiple desks. In this regard, Netscape wins above Mozilla, though only slightly, because it can launch a new window onto a different desk. If you try to launch a new Mozilla window, which is a little bit slow to begin with, and try to skip to a new desk before it loads, it will pop you back to a different desk, meaning you have to then move the new window to the desk you want. Of course, let's not get into multi-heading, because Opera would fail even more miserably.
If you measure stability, though, Netscape is going to lose. I think Mozilla has crashed one time, ever. Given that I launch a browser, and then run it for weeks without closing it, and given that it goes through many new windows and many removed windows, Netscape loses. It just leaks too much memory. Every 14 days it would crash (rather, it would fill up ALL of the swap space). Mozilla went down for a really bad URL (poor content design). I don't recall it ever going down for a memory leak.
What am I saying? Netscape, while fast, just can't handle what I do to it; it leaks too much. Opera was fast (in my experience), perhaps the fastest browser I've seen (faster than IE), but if I can't browse 55 different pages in 25 to 55 different places on my desktop, forget it. Mozilla wins for now, because the 0.9.x optimizations have made it fast enough to use, and it doesn't die every week like Netscape. The others I have no experience with.
The tests, while interesting information about `old' machines' capabilities, may not be very representative of today's user base, or of today's optimized code.
Most likely the #1 Unfunny Meta/Moderator on
First, the man should have really pointed the version numbers. Using Mozilla .8.x [ that comes with Mandrake ] is not the same as using the latest .9.x releases.
.9.x got out. So, the tested .8.x doesn't have it. If this isn't enough reason to use the latest versions, maybe the fact that .9.x releases are faster then .8.x ones.
.9.4 is targeted for September 7.
Also, the hardware is a Joke. Should have used something above P200, and something like 64 megs of memory. At the very least. The test should have had 2 machines: a machine with more advanced hardware, and another with crappy hardware ( like the used that was used ). Results would have been more accurate.
The Mozilla fellows SAY that one should have 64 megs to run the damn thing. The same probably goes to Galeon and other Mozilla-based browsers. Why should we test it under an environment that is not ideal ? We shouldn't. I don't, he did.
Also in Mozilla, it's possible to Kill popup-windows. If it's a juicy detail in Konq. why ain't it in Mozilla? Probably because, in my best knowleadge, it is a feature that was only implemented after
I do agree that Mozilla has the nicest interfaces & skins around. I like it more than I like MSIE when it comes do user interface.
Galeon was pointed has having a bad interface, but that interface can be changed trough the usage of other (gtk) Themes. I think this is also possible with Konqueror ( with tq ).
Another thing. Does Konqueror have the same performance outside The K Desktop Environment ( KDE for short ) ?
Another reason for using the latest releases is this: this browsers are projects in alpha/beta stages. They are changed everyweek, and they get faster&better as the development goes on. With small release cycles.
Soon, Mozilla will be at 1.0 and it will be a lot better. In every release they fix the nastiest bugs around. They improved & clean the code. The browser is getting stabler and faster. The next release of Mozilla,
Mozilla WILL get there.
Sure, Mozilla can get slow, but it ain't just a browser. It's a browser, email client, news client, irc client, HTML editor/composer, etc..
Another question worth pointing out: Other alternatives, like Links and Lynx. Sure, Lynx is text based, but sure does a good work when the objective is to browse clean, low on gfx, HTML sites.
Galeon won. It is based on Gecko(Mozilla). It's a good indicator about the quality of Gecko/Mozilla, anyways.
If you (or anyone interested) aproach another one of these tests, please do the following:
best regards,
bmpc(11)@(11)megamail.pt [remove all the (11) in the email]
I find it interesting that there are tests and benchmarks being performed on Mozilla and other Gecko based browsers when Mozilla still contains a large quantity of Debugging code. I'm sure that once a final realse is issued the majority of this will be removed and the browser will perform better.
Linux Today doesn't have an article, they are reporting on a reputable publication that DOES.
1 78 ,00.html?tag=81&sb=79
-ShieldWolf
Here is the link:
http://www.canadacomputes.com/v3/story/1,1017,7
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
anyone using computers more than 3 years old will know how hard to find and expensive the old RAM is. so you're often effectively stuck with the 32 MB of RAM the box came with.
me, i'm using a pentium 166 with about 50 MB RAM. with browsers like opera and konqueror it just hangs in there as far as being usably fast. but for lots of other things, including web programming, it's quite useful, although emacs is a bit of a stretch.
some people can't afford to spend a thousand dollars a year on their computer.
this is especially important for projects seeking to recycle old computers and put linux on them.
Nope, that's just the world of MS. We've got NT here too, and Netscape 4.04 is faster and more stable on it. Nothing ate up but the computer by NT. Oh well.
How I hate these MSIE troll posts. There is fine and stable browsing available under Linux and has been for years. Trolls, get back under the bridge.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This seems like it would be a good topic to mention this in...I finally got my cable modem to work with Mandrake! This may seem like a small feat to the rest of you, but I've been experimenting about 3 days to get this to work. I'm using Konqueror now, but I'm going to install Opera (it's what I even use in Windows)
Now if I could only figure out why the backspace key doesn't delete?!? (I have to highlight and delete, any one know how to change this?)
C'mon! We know that even W2K crashes randomly and screws with other apps.
Zodiac Survey
People need to stop associating the meaning of life with web browsing. Web browsing should be about looking at pages displayed clearly, and FAST. It shouldn't be about messaging, email, news groups, chicken soup and making coffee.
It depends on how you look at it. I love using Mozilla for my browser and my e-mail. After all, it's a little annoying clicking on a "mailto" link and having your non-default mailer pop up. So, I've used Mozilla's one forever. It has almost everything I need in a mailer, and I'd prefer to look at the new e-mail thing at the lower-left, rather than load up a seperate e-mail client and check my mail.
Fortunately for me, I've been using IE, which seems to be more stable then the above. It really helps to be using the hedgemonic browser. I'm not sure how these people got their IE browsers to crash, but I certainly remember Netscape crashing perpetually on Linux, since I had to muck with the X and Gnome/KDE settings to get it to work. I never have to do this with Windows, because It Just Works! And faster at that!
Your comparing Netscape/Linux with IE/Windows, which isn't that fair. (Netscape sucks, hands down.) Even with that comparison, though, Netscape will STILL beat IE in W3C standards. When IE 5 came out, I wanted to rip out Bill Gate's beating heart for releasing browser that was so fast and loose with the HTML/CSS standards that it cost millions of dollars for businesses to "repair the damage".
If a page doesn't look right in Mozilla, it's YOUR fault (as a webmaster), not the browsers. If your page is W3C compliant and it doesn't work on IE, bitch at Microsoft, not W3C, Mozilla, Netscape, or anybody else.
Javascript popup disable feature -- Mandatory, mandatory, mandatory.
I'm watching this Mozilla bug entry closely :)
Image disablement. But let the user choose which ones to disable, such as banner adds.
Already in Mozilla, but I've requested a more powerful version.Speed and simplicity. Stop trying to cram everything into one "browser."
If it's a GNU project, why not? Isn't that what Linux is trying to be: the end-all OS for everybody? World domination through GNU!Zodiac Survey
You know, you don't have to go up to the roof and shout out your preference for konqueror evertime someone mentions browser.
And you are decreasing my flerbage too, because everytime I have to spend my precious avoiding your comment.
Many /. readers are browsing from work, where they mostly likely are stuck using the corporate OS/Browser (i.e IE). So those numbers don't really show what browser Slashdot readers think is best, only what browser they are able to use.
BTW, I'm stuck using IE5.01 right now, but would much rather be using Galeon...
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Check it out.
;)
1. Loading time. Sure, IE comes up in like 5 seconds but so does Konqueror if you're running KDE. In his test he was running Blackbox. Try running Win2K on a P166 with Litestep or something instead of Explorer and see how fast IE loads
2. Appearance. Using default settings, IE is gray. The author hates gray. He probably would have ranked IE right next to Konqueror if not Galeon in terms of appearance.
3. Ease of use. His only two criteria were "how do I turn off images" and "how do I turn off Javascript." IE has a far, far more byzantine approach to this than any of the browsers he reviewed. One is buried in the "custom security settings" dialog on the second tab of the Internet options dialog and is called "active scripting", not Javascript, and the other is buried 2/3 of the way down a scrolled list under the Advanced tab of Internet Options.
4. Page rendering. I'm typing this in Konqueror through a Java VNC client from IE, from a site where I'm doing some pretty intensive stuff targeted to IE, unfortunately, but which looks fine in normal browsers too. Anyway, the stuff I'm doing renders at about the same speed accessed remotely through Konqueror over VNC as it does accessed locally through IE. Konqueror, by the way, is running on a Celeron 400 with 256mb of RAM, IE is running on a dual P4-1GHz with 1.5GB of RAM.
It seems pretty clear that by the article author's criteria, IE would have ended up in the lower middle of the pack with Galeon still on top.
Bzzzt! It's what I have to use all day, thanks to some PHB thought on "standardization". Insecure, unstable, costly and crippled. You don't really think anyone would purchase and then go through all the install and upkeep hastles that crap demands if they knew any better, do you?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It's funny what people have to put up with at work, isn't it? I also wonder what the link was too, any way. The Bill Gates Free Love Site TM?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I know that IE has made some major advances in XML and xsl, and many e-software packages are using these features to integrate their products with the Web. (My current organization is one of them).
However, I get comments from non-IE users who complain that these features bar them from using our services.
What browsers out there can compete with this?
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
"Got Linux?"
What amazes me is that people still keep blaming Mozilla's UI for performance problems in other parts of the program. This goofball reviewer assumes that Galeon (which shares almost nothing other than Gecko with Mozilla and lacks many of Mozilla's features) is slightly faster due to the UI? If that were true, there'd be a bigger speed difference between the embedded sample apps (MFCEmbed, GTKEmbed, etc) and the full browser, since they include almost no UI at all--no throbber, no progress meters, no location bar, no status line, and that adds up to a 15% difference in performance on a fast, low-latency network.
The problem is that nontechnical newbies tend to see the UI as the biggest visible change from Netscape 4.x, so it must be responsible for every other difference in the two apps.
As for this guy's 34 second page loads, that's simply because he used an ancient Pentium 166 with $5 of RAM. That makes even a PowerMac G4+ look fast.
And as for "bloat," I say more power to them. I won't use Opera, Konqueror, or any other browser that doesn't provide the features I use in Mozilla. Why give up things that make my life easier in order to save 100 milliseconds of page load time? I'm not into comparisons of benchmarks and genital sizes--I'll leave that to the kiddies.
I've already been through that one with the Opera support guys - the dynamically-linked versions are just as ugly as the static ones.