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

First

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we are on the Slashdot plains in Africa, looking for that most elusive of species, the First Post...

No surprise

[tedgyz]

Chrome was designed with JavaScript performance as a top goal. So why are we surprised it performs well?

Re:No surprise

[Philip K Dickhead]

My Firefox does 11 times more work than Chrome. The plugins I run are worth the minor tradeoffs in performance - because it's still speedy.

The value of NOT opening my robe to Google? Priceless!

Re:No surprise

[Spazztastic]

The value of NOT opening my robe to Google? Priceless!

I think I speak for us all when I say nobody wants you to open your robe to them.

Re:No surprise

[sapphire wyvern]

I installed SRWare Iron the other day. According to the publishers, it's basically a Chrome de-Googlified with a few other downstream tweaks (eg using a slightly newer version of WebKit). It seems to run all right, but I'm still typing this on Firefox because Adblock trumps Chrome/Iron's performance & user interface design advantages.

I *like* Chrome/Iron, and when it gets a decent extensibility model I think it'll tear a huge hole in Firefox's market share - but until then, it's going to be not much more than a cool tech demo.

Re:No surprise

[ionix5891]

I'm feeling lucky

Re:No surprise

[rackserverdeals]

Only thing slow today seems to be google. Is there some sort of Level 3 outage or something? I know Google News was down earlier in the Northeast but now it seems google video, youtube and search are affected as well.

Anyway... can we stop saying stupid crap like "Once IE's market share goes the way of the Dodo"?

Just because something is declining now that there is a serious competitor in the market place doesn't mean that the decline will go on at the same rate or indefinitely. Look at webserver trends.

Every time I hear stuff like that I just picture those little dogs that bark at big dogs.

Re:No surprise

[Ghostworks]

Sadly, half of the firefox plug-ins I now consider indispensable are the ones that disable functionality or return the user interface to an older style and functionality. Firefox was destined for bloat once they committed to building-in features that would have been more useful as pre-bundled, official extensions (like the anti-phishing technology).

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I put on my robe and wizard hat...

Re:No surprise

[AKAImBatman]

Anyway... can we stop saying stupid crap like "Once IE's market share goes the way of the Dodo"?

Like it or not, IE is going the way of the Dodo. It's not market trends that are determining that, it's the fact that IE is an absolutely craptastic browser that the market has taken a dim view on. If anything, it has held up fairly well in the trends despite a growing disdain for its existence.

When every analyst in the market (short of those on the Microsoft payroll) is allied against you, you're not going to maintain a leading spot forever.

My personal expectation is that IE market share decline will accelerate over the next year rather than slow. i.e. The hockey stick effect tends to work both ways.

Re:No surprise

[commodore64_love]

Don't use plug-ins unless absolutely necessary. I just uninstalled a bunch of bloatware. One of those was NoScript because I felt it created more hassle than the advertising it blocked. Yes popups are annoying, but not as annoying as NoScript constantly disabling websites and me being forced to select "trusted site". It got to the point I was spending more time futzing-around with Noscript than with actually browsing the net.

Also I suspected NoScript of slowing down my computer as it gobbled more-and-more memory. Now the only plugins I use are a flash downloader for Youtube, and ImageZoom so I can see pics on Ebay more easily. That's it. And my broswer runs much better.

As for the article:

The conclusion is ridiculous because the sample size is too small. It's also ridiculous because those of use who remember the early 90s recall that Mosaic and Netscape Navigator were not only #1, but also extremely fast. QED the conclusion that a number one browser is slow.... is false.

Re:No surprise

[Qubit]

My Firefox does 11 times more work than Chrome.

Oh, I see. And most browsers go up to ten?

Exactly.

Does that mean it's better? Is it any better?

Well, it's one better, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be browsing along at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your browser. And it's like the SPAM is just pouring in from everywhere around and there's no way out. Where can you go from there? Where?

I don't know.

Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra boost of browser power, you know what we do?

Put it up to eleven.

Eleven. Exactly. One step better.

Re:No surprise

[rackserverdeals]

I basically only use IE as a preview tool when I'm developing websites so I'm not biased towards IE.

Dodos are extinct, as long as IE is installed by default in Windows, IE will not be extinct for a long time. Want to see what extinction of a web browser looks like?

When every analyst in the market (short of those on the Microsoft payroll) is allied against you, you're not going to maintain a leading spot forever.

Analysts don't determine what browser people use, they just try and predict it. If analysts are controlling the browser market it is through FUD and self fulfilling prophecy.

My personal expectation is that IE market share decline will accelerate over the next year rather than slow. i.e. The hockey stick effect tends to work both ways.

That's my point. There is no guarantee what is going to happen. It could get worse it could get better it could stay the same. Saying it with certainty just makes people look stupid.

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

[AKAImBatman]

Dodos are extinct, as long as IE is installed by default in Windows, IE will not be extinct for a long time.

Netscape 4 was pre-installed on computers long after people stopped using it. Just because it's available doesn't mean it isn't effectively extinct. There's also the question of whether Microsoft will conceded defeat if their market share drops too low. It's perfectly possible that Triton will stop shipping with Windows. At least as an end-user browser. (It may be maintained as a legacy ActiveX control.)

Analysts don't determine what browser people use, they just try and predict it. If analysts are controlling the browser market it is through FUD and self fulfilling prophecy.

What is the purpose of prediction if it doesn't create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Analysts direct companies toward the solutions that make the most sense in the future market. Companies pay quite a bit of money to have an analyst tell them these things so they can be as competitive as possible. Most of it is absolute B.S. IMHO, and often gets companies into a lot of trouble. But that does not negate the very real effects these analyses have.

That's my point. There is no guarantee what is going to happen. It could get worse it could get better it could stay the same.

Everything is a probability. I can say with a high degree of confidence that I will be going to work tomorrow. Yet in reality, I could get a cold. Or a family emergency could develop. Or there could be a snow day in May tomorrow.

That last one has about the same probability as any of the current versions of Internet Explorer recovering market share.

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.

Re:No surprise

[SonicRED]

and ImageZoom so I can see pics on Ebay more easily.

Liar.

Re:No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway... can we stop saying stupid crap like "Once IE's market share goes the way of the Dodo"?

So what would you prefer we say? "This browser is dead!"? "This is an ex-browser!"? "It's gone on to meet his maker!"? "It's joined the choir invisible!"? "If they hadn't nailed it to the OS, it'd be pushing up the daisies!"?

Re:No surprise

[Kugrian]

I open your robe and wheeze at that.

Re:No surprise

[truthsearch]

I keep thinking that we need a forum to discuss slashdot, but I've never seen one.

When I created Seen on Slash a few years ago I thought the forum might become a place for slashdotters to discuss slashdot. We get some decent traffic to the rest of the site, but the forums never caught on.

Mosaic

[Evelas]

So does this mean that Mosaic is the most efficient one out there?

Re:Mosaic

[bishiraver]

No - Lynx is!

Re:Mosaic

[Tikkun]

I prefer elinks. There is a slight tradeoff in performance from lynx, but it is much more usable.

Re:Mosaic

[eln]

You're missing the point. The moral of the story is that if you make a browser that takes an average of 3 days to render a page and locks up the entire computer while doing it, it will be the most popular browser around!

Re:Mosaic

[geekoid]

Nope.

Sitting in front of my computer imagining webpages is even faster.

And probably better then using lynx

Re:Mosaic

[James Skarzinskas]

Telnet's here, boys. What say you now?

chrome experiments

[darkvad0r]

How long until Google comes out with a JavaScript intensive application that will practically require Chrome to function? It already exists, in the form of http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Not so surprising

[AKAImBatman]

Once IE's market share goes the way of the Dodo will web developers start cursing Firefox?

Do the words "TraceMonkey" mean anything to the authors? It's the core Javascript engine of the upcoming revision of Firefox. And it is fast. Some benchmarks suggest that it is highly competitive with V8 (Chrome) and SquirrelFish (Safari).

(Speaking of which, isn't it a bit disingenous to compare Safari 4 BETA to the current version of Firefox? Why not compare the Firefox beta then? Smells of yeller-bellied journalism to me.)

Javascript is currently a hugely competitive area. Every browser revision is trying to boost performance. (Including Microsoft.) It only makes sense that the older and cruftier engines would have a harder time competing with the newer and more nimble engines created by these upstart competitors. However, with the exception of Microsoft who's stuck updating JScript (haha, bundle FAIL!), all the other competitors can and are swapping out engines for faster and faster performance.

Re:Not so surprising

[AKAImBatman]

Whachoo talkn'bout Willis?

They compared Safari 4 Beta. Why is asking for them to test Firefox 3.5 beta such a stretch?

Re:Not so surprising

[AKAImBatman]

Since when does 3.0.10 == 3.5 Beta?

FTFA:

Table: Browser performance and popularity in Peacekeeper (beta)

Browser Version Peacekeeper Score* Visitors to Futuremark
Safari 4.0 Beta 1222 0.8%
Chrome 1.0.154.49 874 3.7%
Opera 9.64 463 6.3%
Firefox 3.0.10 397 31.5%
Internet Explorer 8.0 280 57.3%

Re:Not so surprising

[jellomizer]

Well here are some simple reasons for this trend.

1. The more popular the browser the more well established the code is trend. Meaning Popular Browsers are older thus have an older code base. And because it is popular you are more careful not to break anything.

2. Popular Browsers have more safeguards and checks. IE runs a ton of Broken Code, hence why it loads up so much junk and renders it OK. Firefox does a middle ground at this. The less popular browsers the more it follows the stricter standard creating it to load faster as it has less checks.

3.Popular Browsers have more features which can slow it down
 

Are you serious?

[TheRealMindChild]

If you look at it from a popular/performance perspective, you are going to find that, generally, the newer software is better performing, because that is a selling point above the competition. It will also be the least popular because it is newer.

Re:Are you serious?

[sapphire wyvern]

Newer software is better performing? If only that were generally true. Newer software is almost always *more capable*, but better performance from any given upgrade is far from guaranteed, even in the world of FOSS.

Features Create Popularity...

[TibbonZero]

Features create popularity, and popularity pushes for more features as users cry that the next browser over has something it doesn't. This create bloat.
Then again, over time, isn't this what happens with almost all software? They get more and more features as time goes by, and get bigger and consume more resources. Look at the size/requirements of any linux distro with a graphical system over the past 10 years.
No one wants to lose features, and users complain too much, so the only way to get a faster thing with less features is to fork it, or start anew (which is what the lesser popular browsers have often done).

Re:Features Create Popularity...

[nine-times]

Also, popularity tends to impede progress. The more people are using a software or hardware product, the more you have to lose by breaking compatibility with old version or doing something zany. Meanwhile, more obscure products have a greater need to do something a little zany in order to carve out their niche.

In other words...

[JanneM]

Either:

1) up and coming browser makers see speed as an easy differentiating factor and target their browser for it; or

2) Newer products tend to be faster since they have the older ones to compare to. And newer products also are "up and coming" and thus have lower uptake than "old and entrenched" ones. or;

3) the public puts very little value on browser speed. Those spending their resources optimizing for it rather than other features get few users as a result.

Of Course, the Google Web Toolkit

[eldavojohn]

You know when you try to use Google Reader and Google Mail and Google Anything on your browser with a poor Javascript engine (even the good ones occasionally fail), it sometimes blows up?

Yeah, the Google Web Toolkit (which I believe they are all using for a front end) basically produces code that produces one metric ton of Javascript and HTML that gets dumped on the client's browser. It's not just an application, it's a whole library of Java APIs that produces a ton of Javascript that could become the de facto standard one day. I'm betting it won't but I've asked why more sites aren't using it on Slashdot before.

At least Google eats their own dog food on a large scale.

NoScript and Adblock, Again

[Colonel Korn]

Javascript performance still doesn't matter for most users, and power users largely have Javascript disabled or blocked. Maybe Google needs to release a killer app that relies on Javascript and has borderline performance on anything slower than Chrome.

When we're just talking about loading web pages, no one is yet within shouting distance of FF with a good Adblock filter list.

JS benchmarks seem somewhat pointless for now. 99% of what we do on the web happens instantly (if you have a low latency connection) on all browsers if we stop the ads from loading.

What a fascinating correlation

[BlitzTech]

It's so unfortunate that researchers these days don't realize that correlation can easily be a coincidence, and not a real relationship between two variables. It is especially unsuited in this case given the tiny number of data points and, oh, the convolution of these results with other factors like OS bundling (Windows/IE) and time on market (All 3, most significantly Chrome).

A more interesting (and likely actually related) set of data would be browser performance vs. market growth rate. Where are those numbers?

Also, web developers don't curse IE because it's slow. In fact, many pages are still static and don't feature nifty DHTML tricks, so the slowness of IE has no effect on the page at all. We web developers curse IE because it's not standards compliant and because making both the CSS and those nifty DHTML tricks WORK in IE is like eating barbed wire. Firefox has acceptable Javascript performance and is mostly standards compliant, and the existence of the Firebug plugin makes it invaluable as a web developer's test browser. I don't think web developers will curse a browser like Firefox for slow Javascript performance like we curse IE for violating all the standards.

The more popular

[Propaganda13]

These guys are idiots.

It's obvious that the last letter in the name being a vowel has more to do with performance than popularity.

from low to high performance - a,e,i,o,u

How long until Google comes out with a JavaScript.

[AbbeyRoad]

"How long until Google comes out with a JavaScript intensive application that will practically require Chrome to function?"

Ans: never

because 80-90% of the market will choose not to
bother with that application because they don't
know how to DAU-EN-LODE and install a different
browser.

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

[tha_toadman]

Why not just read this: http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries

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.

Firefox wins by association

[0xdeadbeef]

Unable to run Peacekeeper
Your browser either does support JavaScript or it has been disabled. Peacekeeper requires a JavaScript enabled browser with cookies enabled.

Apparently, NoScript is the fastest browser available.

Interesting Tell

[TheNinjaroach]

This just in: People don't choose their browser based on Javascript performance alone.

Re:Not cause and effect

[Mad Merlin]

Sucky non-standards-compliant browsers...

You just described IE.

...aren't popular

But you lost me here.

Javascript performance

[Twillerror]

I've heard a lot of talk about Javascript performance as intensive Dynamic HTML applications become mainstream.

Most of the apps I seen really don't have that much Javascript when you compare it to the amount of code that is in your typical desktop app or server side application. And ultimately many of the functions are small.

What I've noticed is instead their is a difference in the rendering engine itself. Javascript might be a single line to change the CSS of an element or change the visibility attribute, but then the browser takes forever to collapse the item...or the CPU spikes when some huge element of a big page disappears and the whole page has to move over/up/down.

Are we really talking about how fast the DHTML engine responds or is Javascript really that stinky slow that changing the element underlying take a while. I'm not sure I care if calculating primes in JS could made faster. Isn't most of Javascript just mapping down to a C++ library below it?

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:Not cause and effect

[marcosdumay]

"Sucky non-standards-compliant browsers aren't popular"

No, those are the ones that are popular. What people don't like are browsers that adhere strictly to the standard when the web is full of pages that don't.

Javascript

[WillKemp]

How long until Google comes out with a JavaScript intensive application that will practically require Chrome to function?

Like slashdot, you mean???

If I needed speed

[Ukab the Great]

I'd use a desktop application.

For the 1000 time, Srware Iron HAS adblock!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to run all right, but I'm still typing this on Firefox because Adblock trumps Chrome/Iron's performance & user interface design advantages.

Look closer next time. Adblock is part of Iron. Take 15 seconds to download and install the ad block list from their News page:

News

12.03.2009: New Iron-Release: 2.0.168.0

Today we release a new Iron based on Chromium 2.0.168.0. There were updates to Webkit and the Javascript Engine V8, so the new Iron version should be significant faster. Additionally we improved the the adblocker.

14.12.2008: New Iron-Release: 1.0.155.0

After Chrome 1.0 is released, you can surely download a new Iron, too. We have also updated the adbock.ini is,which you can get here. Further we have improved the Portable Version, it now accepts parameters such as -- incognito, to start Iron immediately to the "anonymous mode".

Re:portable Chrome

[Tacvek]

I'm really surprised at the number of people who use noscript. Adblock is not surprising, since sites often fail to follow the common sense rules of advertising. But what is up with noscript? I've pretty much never had javascript freeze the page or anything of the sort. (On the other hand I don't use dialup). The security implications of letting javascript run are actually pretty minimal.

Now, as for flash adverts, I've never had an issue with the download size, although sound is an issue.

As for advertisements, if they fellow the following rules I don't mind them.

Rule 1: The advertisment must be on the relevant page.
Rule 2: The advertisement must remain entirely within a rectangle on the page that does not overlap the page content.
Rule 3: The advertisements must be reasonably sized.
Rule 4: While animation is permissible, rapid flickering of any sort is not permissible, nor is automatically playing video. Playing video as a result of clicking on the advertisement is acceptable, as is a limited amount of automatic pre-buffering.
Rule 5: Sound is not permissible.
Rule 6: If a user chooses to interact with the advertisement by clicking on it. (Simply moving the mouse over it is not sufficient), the advertisement may do any of the above.
Rule 7: Automatic video playing and audio are permissible despite rules 4 and 5 if the advertisements are part of video playback.

Rule 1 explanation: It must not be a popup or pop-under.
Rule 2 explanation: None of those flash adds that project an appendage over the page, that can only be closed after the animation is finished, and usually by explicitly clicking on some part of the advertisement. Further, no pseudo-popups (utiling CSS to create what looks like a popup, but is actually part of the page), unless they do not cover the page content.
Rule 3 explanation: Non of those double height horizontal advertisements.
Rule 4 explanation: Those flicking adverts are obnoxious. Actual video can be processor intensive. However reasonable vector based animation is fine.
Rule 5 explanation: Obvious.
Rule 6 explanation: Once a user clicks on the advertisement, it may play video, play audio, overlap the page, etc.
Rule 7 explanation: That is to say, that advertisements like Hulu's and ABC.com's Full episode player are permissible.

However, there are all too many advertisements that violate those rules, which is why I do run adblock.