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Browser Comparison - Firefox 2 b1, IE7 b3, Opera 9
mikemuch writes "The browser wars have heated up again, with Microsoft putting Beta 3 of Internet Explorer 7 out for all to download (not just developers anymore), Firefox coming out with the first beta of its version 2, and Opera releasing version 9. ExtremeTech has a shoot-out of the three browsers, with feature comparisons and tests of resource usage, startup time, and Acid2 standards compliance. Standout features are Opera's built-in BitTorrent support, Firefox's spellchecker for forms, and IE's Quick Tabs view. Firefox is still ahead in extensions, while Opera has some slick UI conveniences."
Entire report on one page.
Submitter did a nice summary. BTW, another table shows memory usage, and looks like Firefox Beta 2 comes in a bit heavier (compared to 1.5.04) at least for startup and an initial load of six tabs - unknown if the memory leaks that cause this to skyrocket when viewing dynamic sites (such as this) are fixed.
Also talks about the anti-phishing protection, but says they were unable to have this engage, so maybe it's not functional yet? That seems to be an area where more inovation could be done.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Not really, if you're only comparing announced features. You probably shouldn't complain about problems that are clearly bugs though, and this article does just that several times.
It's unfair to compare Beta versions with a completed version (Opera), besides IE has been out in Beta for ages compared to a few weeks on Firefox's side. And Firefox 2 doesn't pass Acid 2 because no work has been done on Gecko (it still uses 1.8, the same as Deer Park) Firefox 3 (which will use Gecko 1.9) will pass the Acid 2 Test.
http://sohilsblog.blogspot.com
The "Features at a Glance" table is very inaccurate with respect to Opera. For one, Opera has very good theme support.
And the author mixes up kb and mb on another page.
I couldn't disagree more. One of the things that kept me with the original Mozilla suite for so long, rather than switching to Firefox was the ability to trigger a search from the address bar. Now that Firefox can do the same (and not waste screen real estate with an unneccesary extra box), I've switched. What do you possibly gain by having a separate search box? I just don't get it.
Now if only they could fix Gecko's inability to render display: inline-block properly, it might become a halfway usable browser. Quite why it's taken so long is beyond me. It's was originally logged as a bug 7 years ago (it's bug 9458, if you want to vote for it). So, Mozilla Organisation, *please* stop adding more and more features that I really don't want, and fix your fscking layout engine. Wasn't that meant to be one of the original goals of Mozilla? To have a browser with a rendering engine that didn't suck? What happened to that concept?
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
How can Firefox's spelling checker be a "standout feature" when Opera, Safari and Konqueror already have it built in? It's more of a "catch-up feature" than a "standout feature".
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
I've been impressed with what I've heard about IE 7, it really seems like they are making some good moves with it finally. Being a Linux user I'll probably never see it but it seems that I wouldn't be that annoyed using it these days. IE will never be as good as Firefox because of the extensions, there just aren't that many good programmers who would be willing to give up their time to MS for free; so Firefox still has the edge.
I wish they would all get their act together and pass the ACID2 test though.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I'm with you here. I'd use Opera much more if it actually looked like the desktop environment it runs under.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Are you also aware that Opera has been free for some time? That is, Opera on the Desktop, their mobile versions still cost money.
Not exactly rocket science to add one (Right-click > Customize > Drag the new tab button > Done) but I wonder why it's not there by default.
--- Hell hath no fury like a Heron in a boob-tube ---
One example of not doing this is in the feature comparison table where it says that Firefox can't remember open tabs for the next session. My copy of Firefox not only does that when I want it to, it also has crash recovery so when I restart I can choose to reopen all of the tabs or not.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
I am a firefox user but have all three installed. I like the firefox spellcheck since I am a lousy speller and the Opera torrent downloading since there are times legal downloads are only available in torrent and I do not want the full install. For some reason, msie just seems cleaner. Forget netscape.
The only problem I am having with any of the three is with the firefox beta 2.0 crashing with Vista. The last alpha version did not.
Its going to be an interesting battle.
very understood the "pay for a web browser" bit
I guess you meant "never". And FYI, it's been a free download for a very long time. IIRC Ubuntu has it even in the package manager
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I think one major feature that is lacking in Firefox is good printing support.
Will Internet Explorer 7 run on Windows 95/98/ME/NT4? If not, then MSIE7 won't be "95% of web users"... And with Nintendo going with Opera for both the Nintendo DS and the Wii, Opera's marketshare might soon explode beyond 1-2%.
Just keep that in mind before jumping into the "MSIE7 has nice proprietary features" train.
Opera's UI is extremely customizable. Skinnable interface and lots of flexibility with toolbar and button placement, on the output side. On the input side, you can set up your own keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures if you don't like the default ones.
Opera Mini - a-less-than-100Kb Java ME application that makes web surfing on a bog standard phone a joy.
Free, of course.
it's in my head
ActiveX empowers webdevelopers. FF extensions empowers users. ActiveX can be used by bad people to exploit your system because it allows remote sites to do stuff on your system. FF extensions are run only on your own system, most of them have nothing to do with the webpages you load. And the ones that do just filter out ads. Some are more complex, such as greasemonkey, but you only run those only on sites you trust.
Also extensions aren't installed by default, so there isn't any danger of a feature you never use compromising your system.
MSIE: Yes
Firefox: No
Opera: No
wtf is a "Favorites button" button? Is it like a bookmark button?
Not really unique. In Opera, just hover over the tab for a second or two...you get a thumbnail of the page.
Constitutionally Correct
It's ridiculous that they defend IE by claiming "no pages seem horribly messed up." Clearly the author is not a web developer. If he were, he would know that the reason the pages display correctly in IE is javascript hacks, css workarounds, web developer headaches, Dean's IE7 javascript library, a separate stylesheet for IE, etc... It's not that IE is inherently displaying the sites correctly, it's that the site developers were forced to make them play nice with IE.
FF extensions enhance the capabilities of the browser, and only the browser. ActiveX controls can affect your entire computer (hurrah for integrating the browser with the OS!.) Also, the "authentication" of an AX control is being "signed" by something as trustworthy as Verisign, an agency I wouldn't trust to make me a peanut butter sandwich without somehow setting my kitchen on fire and charging me thousands of dollars for the bread before feeding it to some random kid on the street.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Three points: First, which generates more revenue - fairness or page hits?
Second, by the time some products are released, everybody who cares has been using it routinly for months or (in a few cases) even years anyway.
Third, in a lot of cases, it's hard to tell the difference between beta and released software anyway. Let's have a quick show of hands of all the people who believe that IE 7 will have been officially released for an entire month before a major security hole is found. Hmm...I'm not seeing any hands...and I don't think the fact that I can't see any of you really makes much difference in that.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
Tools > Appearance > Skin > Windows Native
As was stated above, they are comparing the features that the different browsers have. Betas are supposed to be feature complete, thus the comparison is fair. As long as they are not comparing render speed, memory usage, &c., there is no reason to cry foul.
Rhapsody in Numbers
The facts that exceptions don't install under the hood without telling you helps a lot, I guess.
The fact that it takes you 2 clics to list your extensions and 2 more to delete an offending one also helps.
The final reason is that Firefox' extensions are actually extremely useful and add wonderful flexibility to the browser thanks to XUL. They also allow the Firefox dev team to see what the users want (they just have to check the most popular extensions and find out why they're popular in the first place).
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
The application should be clean and intuitive out of the box. It's good interface design.
Being extremely customizable is not always a good thing. Most people would never bother and some will probably be scared by excessively complicated customization.
I used to go out of my way to customize everything I can, and in some cases I still do so. I went as far as creating new visual themes for my Sony Ericsson phone. But more often than not it's a waste of time. Additionally, the vast majority of skins available for every application are unprofessional and sloppy.
Apple interfaces are successful not because of customization. In fact, you're usually stuck with what they give you. However, they clearly put a lot of thought into usability. Those interfaces work because they're clean. I don't necessarily like the visual style, but I appreciate the simplicity.
Well the last war MS won but failed to keep their browser up to date. Thus failed in their primary goal of compleatly controling web standards. With IE 7 it is more of a step forward to following the standards and a step back because they realized they didn't get what they compleatly wanted. Many of the features in IE 4,5,6 which I warned were stupid because of security ended up being bad for security. [Cough] Active X [Cough] But now with .NET making Web Apps more standards Based, things like AJAX being standard, CSS and Javascript there are more robust metods of doing things now and latly IE has been the thorn to web devleopers.
I am somewhat optimistic about IE 7, Vista... Microsoft sience IE 6 and XP has been getting a lot of heat and their stock shows it. Even a company Microsofts size can only make so many mistakes until bulk amounts people start switching. The Aditude has changed a lot sience then too. Before around Windows 95 and 98 Microsoft was (wrongly) considered the Technical Leader and their products were considered to be the best available. Now it is more of a deffeetest aditude of well I am stuck and I don't want to switch and it is not bad enough to switch yet but I am keeping my eyes open. I am not dumb though IE 7 and Vista will not be as great as the PR people make it out to be but it will be better then what they curently have. Much like Windows 2003 Server I havent seen any major problems with it nor do I see people wanting to switch to in in droves.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
As a person who has done some personal testing on the same matter except for Opera I have some comments. It is nice to see the results on a more formal article but I am afraid the depth isn't there. Firefox 2.0 beta is not the same kind of release that IE 7 is. Where as FFox2.0 has been in the works for 6 months. They have been working on IE 7 for what 2 years now. So in that way not really a fair comparison. A better comparison would be to look at the nightly builds and ahead to version 3.0 which will arrive much sooner than any updates to IE7 will.
But I digress. My testing is as follows. Please note that I am currently using Firefox and Flock.
IE 7
-------
Pros:
Much better improvement over IE 6
Tabbed browsing is done very well and better than firefox IMO
Security remains to be seen but hopefully better
RSS integration and better search integration
Cons:
CSS is still broken - IE6 was horrible, IE 7 is just bad
Supports Active X - this continues to be the main reason for their flaws and I don't see how this will change things
Similar load times to IE 6 (isn't this supposed to be better)
Tabs take up more memory
Not liking the New UI (personal)
FF 2.0
-------
Pros:
Like the article says incremental improvements - better search ui, better buttons, rss glow
Better Security until IE 7 is tested
worse -> bad memory management
Cons:
Firefox was at 1.x releases forever and now they decide to do huge jumps
Memory Management is still bad
All Firefox browsers are still part of the same process so when one dies everything dies
XUL, XUL, XUL
So overall IE seems to have fired a good shot but falls short in some aspects especially more complex site rendering. Firefox is good as always and the changes are incremental and good.
So I don't expect too many sweeping changes. IE may get to keep some people who were sick of IE 6 and considering a move but it is not likely to attract the Firefox crows. This could stop some of Firefox's market share gains that it has been enjoying but we will have to see what Firefox 3 does.
Software Defined RFID - The Rifidi Emulator
IE 7 is cool. I think I'll switch to it for my Windows computers (despite having used Firefox since its first beta). What I like about beta 3: tooltips that show keyboard shortcuts, in fact an entire list of keyboard shortcuts is available from the option menu on newly opened tab. Also I like the option on shutdown to open up with the current tabs next time.
"But there are extensions for all that!"—In fact that gets me to what I hate most about Firefox. Extension hell. Every time I install Firefox on a new system I have to hunt down a list of extensions for it or my user experience is going to change radically. And all those extensions take up memory and processor time, and often have bugs or security flaws of their own.
Another thing I like about IE 7 is its sandbox mode on Vista. That should, I think, provide several security advantages over competing browsers. (In fact, IE 6 with ActiveX turned off was already reasonably secure.)
DOM Inspector is horribly broken to the point of almost being completely useless in Firefox 2 beta 1. At least it was for me.
It also will crash Firefox very easily.
The IE7 developers have really improved their printing options. This is an area the Firefox team should focus on.
e.g. In Firefox the scaling to fit the page just squeezes the content between wider margins rather than actually scaling the pages.
Just yesterday a work colleague was trying to print off a page that was split horizontally into two frames. The top one had a company logo, and the lower one the table of figures she actually wanted. Printing normally just output the first bit of the lower frame. I had to view that frame only to get the full table in the frame to print.
--- Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6
Comparing bleeding-edge betas to bleeding-edge betas IS fair.
Comparing, say, Firefox 2.0 (beta) to MSIE 6.0 isn't a very fair comparison.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Hell... Ffx 1.5.x to MSIE 6.0 isn't a very fair comparison.
--Valthan
Their memory usage charts cannot possibly be right:
Memory Usage Loading Six Tabs
Firefox 2 Beta 1: 73K
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3: 70K
Opera 9.0: 52K
IE 6.0: 155K
Firefox 1.5.0.4: 56K
A single image on one of those pages could require more RAM than what the entire program is consuming. That's way, way off. What's even more amazing is, going by their charts, Opera actually consumes LESS ram with 6 pages loaded than when it first starts up! 53k -> 52k
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Close but not quite. Yes, the interface should be arranged in a logical way that's obvious to most users, but it should still be customizable. To put it another way: customization should be accounted for but remain optional, while common usability should be possible out of the box with little to no effort on the part of the end user. The notion that imitation with only minor improvement is the key to success is the mentality that results in real-dog new versions of popular software. Much as I'm sick to death of hearing about Opera, they brought cool features like tabs to market...only hardly anybody used Opera. Others started to copy a feature that the average web user neither expected or would know how to use out of the box, and now its standard in the major browsers. That's pretty damned unexpected, wouldn't you say so?
I can't recommend Opera Mini enough, especially if you have MIDP 2 compatible phone. I can even read Slashdot with my Siemens CX75, something that is practically impossible with the phone's built-in browser.
I like Opera. I use Opera. I read the comparison, and Opera looks to come out favorably. Then I read the comments. Firefox compared to IE, again and again. Reasons why Firefox is better. Reasons why IE is better. Reasons why more people use IE. But there are fewer comments on Opera. I can't understand why. It has lots of things that Firefox needs extenstions for built right in (and without significant differences in resources), and some things, like bittorrent support, that aren't available in any extension. It has better standards compliance than the other two. It has Widgets (like extensions) if you want to expand it more. But yet, a 3-way comparison is treated as a 2-way comparison. I thought this would be more of an eye opener, "Wow, I didn't know Opera did all that and did it better than the other browsers!" But instead, the comments read like the posters glanced at the IE and Firefox pages of the article (if they read it at all) and hopped right back on the IE vs Firefox war. I find it sad that a competitive browser receives to little consideration, especially from a group that is supposedly early adopters.
Learn to love Alaska
why is that PNG IE7 still won't support PNG transparency? Besides of GIF(propietary) there is no other option for transparency in web development...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Apple interfaces are successful not because of customization. In fact, you're usually stuck with what they give you. However, they clearly put a lot of thought into usability. Those interfaces work because they're clean. I don't necessarily like the visual style, but I appreciate the simplicity.
Yeah, Apple's UI is wonderful, isn't it?
So intuitive. So clean and simple.
Let's be honest with ourselves here. Apple's UI sucks. It just sucks less than anybody else's; like democracy, it's the least worst idea anyone's come up with. But that doesn't make it perfect.
I don't really care about features (except tabbed browsing, a must-have, but they all have that). I care about standards compliance. Apparently Opera is in the lead here, with the rest nowhere.