Slashdot Mirror
Web Browser Grand Prix
An anonymous reader writes "After seeing Opera's claim to 'Fastest Browser on Earth' after their most recent release, Tom's Hardware put Apple Safari 4.04, Google Chrome 4.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox 3.6, and Opera 10.50 through a gauntlet of speed tests and time trials to find out which Web browser is truly the fastest. How does your favorite land in the rankings?"
A lot of these speed tests always compare javascript performance, which I have to say matters less for me on a day to day usage than other things.
At the end of the article (10 pages later), they do break it out into categories. The winner of the 'page load' category is: Firefox.
I care about other things as well, startup times for example (won by Opera), but if I had to pick one most important category for me, it's page load times. YMMV, obviously.
Shortcut to summary: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/firefox-chrome-opera,2558-10.html
Firefox may not be the fastest, but with its builtin function plus rich array of addons, it's the most useful.
...block all ads with Privoxy and shut off Javacrap.
And then browse with blazing speed ... the 3 web sites that remain partially functional without Javastuff, that is.
Check out my novel.
The other day, I turned JavaScript off on my browser (I had a reason...maybe testing or annoyed by ads on a page...I don't remember exactly), but forgot to turn it back on after I was done with whatever it was that I was doing. A little later, I opened FF again, and wondered why so much of the content I expected to see in my browser was missing.
As you said, YMMV, but I would say that JavaScript execution time is pretty much every bit as important as page load unless you have limited your web browsing to pages created back in the '90s.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
It isn't bloat if they are features you want. It is only bloat when they are features somebody else wanted.
Rod Taylor