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Chrome 4.0 Vs. Opera 10 Vs. Firefox 3.5
Jim Karter writes "In a three-way cage match, LifeHacker threw Chrome 4, Firefox 3.5, and Opera 10 into the ring and let the three browsers duke it out to see which would emerge as the fastest app for surfing the web. Quoting: 'Like all our previous speed tests, this one is unscientific, but thorough. We install the most current versions of each browser being tested — in this case, Opera 10, Chrome's development channel 4.0 version, and the final Firefox 3.5 with security fixes — in a system with a 2.0 GHz Intel Centrino Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, running Windows XP.'"
If you read the article you'd see safari is in most of the tests.
I just can't get all that concerned about the speed of my browser. Extra speed never hurts of course but it's hardly a factor in which one I choose.
It's simple : i want javascripty whitelisting. so FF+Noscript : only thing i can use.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Safari is in the test. It's just that they focused on the three new kids on the block, of which safari 4 is not among.
TFA does list results of Safari and IE, as well as other browsers, for every test in a separate graph.
Google Chrome 4.0? I just one hour ago upgraded to latest Google Chrome beta of coming 3.0 version from Google labs. (3.0.195.10). If 3.0 has not come yet out, how can they test 4.0?
In my experience, the fastest browser is the one that's running AdBlock, with flash, java, and javascript disabled.
I made a bee line to the memory tests and based on my browsing habits, Firefox is the winner.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Having read the article, I found two things particularly interesting:
1. the author did not put any version of MS internet explorer in the Arena. Now that's understandable, all windows system come with IE installed, so the rationale, as I see it , is that there's no point in benchmarking a program that no one has to choose on its own. I only wonder what will happen if Europe goes forward in forcing MS to sell OEM copies of Win7 without IE installed.
2. the whole "speed" thingy is rather moot in my view. I've been using Firefox for some time now, and I DO appreciate the fact that fewer resources are used, even at the expense of a couple of seconds of starting and/or loading time. After all, it's not a multiplayer game where milliseconds seem to count.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Agreed on the extended functionality - I hate the 'Awesome Bar', but no other browser offers keyword searches or the ability to easily add search engines to the search box (save for IE which I dont want to use).
Start Opera. Go to a website not included by default in its search options. Right click on the search field. Choose "Create Search".
Give me something to replace 'wp rabbits' and I will dump Firefox in an instant for Chrome or Safari.
Built into Opera before Firefox had it.
Sorry guys, but Centrino is not a processor. It is a platform, specifying a certain processor, graphics chipset etc..
on Unix, anyway. Exit Firefox, then do:
for i in ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/*.sqlite; do sqlite3 $i "vacuum;" ; done
FF3.x does everything in sqlite. Some of the tables fill with crap 'cos deleted rows are marked "deleted" rather than actually being deleted and compacted. I hope future versions will run a vacuum automatically every now and then.
On this Ubuntu 9.04 box I had to apt-get install sqlite3.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
The results about memory use were nonsense, as now mentioned in a revised version of the article.
Also, Firefox has bugs in its event handling, apparently. If you open a large number of Window and tabs, and keep opening and closing tabs over a period of hours, eventually Firefox will crash. Firefox has had that problem for many years.
Firefox also apparently has problems with its cache handling, apparently. For example, here is a comment to the Lifehacker.com story referenced in the Slashdot summary:
"Firefox 3.5 seems to get slower for me over time. It was really crawling the other day so I got the latest chrome and it seems blazing fast.
"I'll have to try some of the tricks to clean up FF. I'm sad to see it falling behind in speed because I like so many FF features."
If Chrome ever gets the necessary add-ons, such as AdBlock Plus, I'm guessing that people will abandon Firefox. There seems to be no hope that Mozilla Foundation will ever be managed well.
(I like seeing ads, I just don't like flashing, moving ads. "Marketing" people are amazingly ignorant, in my experience; they often don't realize that annoying people is not a good way to get customers.)
I keep hearing a few loud people complaining about the awesome bar, but I can't for the life of me figure out what they don't like about it.
Because people using the same computer will see their porn bookmarks. Embarrassing for a 15 year old when their mothers find the carefully hidden list by typing in something innocent in the address bar.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Let' *again* calculate why your browser "hogs" half a gig of RAM:
How many tabs do you need for that? Well, Let's say your average tab has 4 pages. With 1660x950 pixels (without the window borders & co) in uncompressed (what you need in memory) full color they are coming to 18 MB. Now add the uncompessed source files in the cache, the DOM/parse tree, the JavaScript instance, and the other tab object data, at, let's stay low and say 2-10 MB. And we get to 20-30 MB. Then add Flash (which is leaking all over the place itself) for another couple of MB per tab.
Now we're getting to 25-17 tabs, when leaving out the Flash.
So how many tabs do you have open usually? Does it fit?
What do we learn: Don't expect that because the page, stored on disk, is only a couple of kilobytes, that it won't take up much RAM or CPU. After all it's highly compressed!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Back in the old days we used to eat people who did that so that the knowledge they had gained unnaturally could be shared amongst the whole tribe. Now people have gone soft. Still one day the old ways will return.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Slashdot is a technology website dedicated to of people who take great pride and joy in disabling every new bit of technology in their stack.
Personally, I leave all that stuff on. I used to disable javascript out of the same "spite" most of slashdot commenters seem to have--but that was before Kuro5hin came with their fancy dynamic comments in what, 1999? So far, my CPU's have never melted, my power supplies are still purring, and my mice haven't keeled over and died.
Wonder what rigs these people run? 386DX 40mhz's? Orange screen VT100's hooked up to the local time-share in the university basement? ... remembers when his public library still had those VT100's.
..insignificant the discrepancies are..
Mod parent up.
The Tab loading graph (http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/17/2009/09/500x_eight_tab_load.jpg) seems to suggest Opera takes 4X, and Firefox 2X the time to load tabs than Chrome.. however, the X-axis is drawn from 6.0 to 9.0
If the Graph was rendered from 0-9, it would look like below:
Opera
================
Firefox
==============
Chrome
============
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
Mozilla's Electrolysis project aims to change that. The first bootstrapping step was completed 15-July-2009.
"The Mozilla platform will use separate processes to display the browser UI, web content, and plugins. The working name for this project is Electrolysis. "
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
Now people have gone soft.
Yes. They get softer if you cook them. Very good for digestion.