The More Popular the Browser, the Slower It Is

demishade writes "Peacekeeper, the browser benchmark from the makers of 3DMark, comes out of beta and shows an interesting (though perhaps not surprising) tidbit — the more popular a browser, the worse its performance. While it should not be surprising to anyone that IE slugs at the last place, the gap between Firefox and Chrome, is. Once IE's market share goes the way of the Dodo will web developers start cursing Firefox? How long until Google comes out with a JavaScript intensive application that will practically require Chrome to function?"

Comments

Firefox performance boost

[tha_toadman]

Try this, Firefox users.

Here's a way to speed up your Firefox and make it MUCH MUCH faster.

1. Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter.

2. In the filter field, find and alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

Enjoy!

Re:Firefox performance boost

[Qubit]

Here's a way to speed up your Firefox and make it MUCH MUCH faster.

Then why isn't it turned on by default?

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

The page you linked to has this to say about that entry:
"Note: Pipelining is not well-supported by some servers and proxies. Things may break -- use with caution."

So it might work, or it might break your interactive banking session online. I'd be wary of giving this to anyone who didn't already know how to poke at about:config.

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

From the docs:
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests (Integer)
Determines the maximum number of HTTP requests in the pipeline (sent sequentially without waiting for a response). Values greater than 8 are assumed to be 8; values less than 1 are assumed to be 1. Default value is 4.

It looks like you'll get 8 requests, maximum, not 30.

Re:Not cause and effect

[MoonBuggy]

Interesting idea, but the Acid3 test seems to disagree. In order of fastest to slowest browser (taken from TFA), the test results are (according to Wikipedia):

Safari 4 Beta: ------ 100/100
Chrome 1.0: --------- 79/100
Opera 9.64: --------- 85/100
Firefox 3.0.10: ----- 71/100
IE 8: --------------- 20/100

I do, however, agree with another poster who pointed out that it's odd that Safari was the only beta included. If they'd included Opera and Chrome's preview releases they'd have scored 100 on the Acid3, and potentially higher on the speed tests too.

Re:No surprise

[nobodylocalhost]

You can use this if you want your privacy:
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php

Personally, i use firefox for its plugins. adblock+, linkification, noscript, firebug, tamper data are the reason why i stick with firefox. If they were to be available in srware iron, i'd switch over in a heartbeat.

Re:No surprise

[fprintf]

I thought the same way about NoScript until I read here on Slashdot about changing the settings to "allow for top level domains". Now 90% of the web works the way that it should and I am still somewhat protected against cross-linked scripts.

I must say I keep skipping the updates to NoScript since the dust-up with AdBlockPlus began. I'll stay on the old version that doesn't attempt to hijack my ABP settings, thankyouverymuch!

Re:No surprise

[Kozz]

If you want to download a Youtube movie (MP4), create a Firefox bookmark on your toolbar with the following URL:

javascript:if(document.location.href.match(/http:\/\/[a-zA-Z\.]*youtube\.com\/watch/)){document.location.href='http://www.youtube.com/get_video?fmt='+(isHDAvailable?'22':'18')+'&video_id='+swfArgs['video_id']+'&t='+swfArgs['t']}

When you're on a Youtube page, click that bookmark button and voila! You don't need a flash downloader plugin. (Not until Youtube changes this ability, I suppose)

Re:No surprise

[More_Cowbell]

I must say I keep skipping the updates to NoScript since the dust-up with AdBlockPlus began. I'll stay on the old version that doesn't attempt to hijack my ABP settings, thankyouverymuch!

They reverted that change almost immediately (with the next update). There was even a note of apology from the developer... you are safe to update.