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Firefox 4 RC Vs. IE9 RC: the First Duel

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the there-will-be-many-more dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Firefox 4 vs. IE9 is going to be an epic battle in a reigniting browser war in which Microsoft wants its IE to be seen as a capable browser again. Mozilla struggled to keep the pace with Chrome and IE9, but is about to release the first release candidate, which is expected to be the final version of Firefox 4 as well. This first review of JavaScript, Flash and HTML5 tests seems to indicate that both browsers are about even at the bottom line, while Firefox has the JavaScript edge and IE is ahead in HTML5 performance."

9 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Anyone else slightly bored of the browser wars? by Mike+Mentalist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After a while they just become samey and it's like arguing over which word processor is best - the one that loads 13% faster or the one that runs spellchecker 8% faster.

    --
    I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
    1. Re:Anyone else slightly bored of the browser wars? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's a little like that. Right now most of the fighting is between Javascript and rendering speed. Javascript performance is definitely no longer a bottleneck, a lot of work has been done there by a lot of people and all of the current browsers are orders of magnitude faster than browsers 5 years ago. Rendering speed is still an issue though, it doesn't do any good if I can manipulate the entire DOM in milliseconds if it takes the browser several seconds to render what I did.

      But don't worry, even if it's boring for you the end result is better browsers all around.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  2. I don't use Firefox for performance reasons... by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or even compatibility reasons. And I'm definitely not an MS hater. I use it because of the well implemented and widely used plugin system. IE has something similar but it's just not as well done and doesn't have as rich an ecosystem. So I don't really care about a 10% difference here, or an 8.5% difference there that I will never notice anyway.

    1. Re:I don't use Firefox for performance reasons... by Dan667 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      so true with Firefox, i get a huge bump in performance with things like flashblock, no script, and ghostery.

  3. How it is by metrix007 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    IE is ahead in security(say what you like but vulns are at parity, and IE has support for sandboxing and WIC which FF lacks) and resource usage.

    FF wins for flexibility, configurability and extensibility, the things that matter to most people on this site.

    Things like speed and standards compliance are becoming irrelevant, as all 4 modern browsers are more than good enough. It's things like interface and how you can extend and configure the browser. In this Chrome is last, then IE, the Opera with Firefox coming in first, which is why it will be in the lead for a while.

    --
    If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
  4. I don't think it matters by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The people that actually care about this have either made the switch already or have stuck with IE through it all, for whatever reason. Most of the end users I deal with that are on IE either don't have a clear concept of what a browser even is, or basically state they hate change and they've always used IE because "it's good enough" (likely because of all the IE workarounds we web developers have been forced to employ).

    Don't get me wrong - from a web development standpoint I'm ecstatic Microsoft is trying hard to improve IE's standards support and functionality. But I just don't believe IE 9's performance is going to make a significant impact on people's perceptions of it.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  5. Performance is one thing... by FlapHappy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...but as a developer I just hope IE 9 conforms to standards. Firefox will. Javascript/CSS is all happy and fun until you need to account for IE's quirks.

  6. Re:IE9 only support 59% of HTML5 features. by TheCycoONE · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Since you posted twice I know you're trolling, but I'll bite for anyone that doesn't know better. HTML 5 is in a draft state, much of it's functionality is still in flux with some parts being more stable than others. At this point we can't fault a vendor for not wanting to be stuck with an implementation that's broken later because they implemented an earlier draft.

  7. Re:How will this be a market share battle? by geek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it suddenly slashdots job to sell you on IE and Win7?