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Firefox 4 RC Vs. IE9 RC: the First Duel
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."
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'
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.
"which is expected to be the final version of Firefox as well."
What the hell is with the summaries lately?
You didn't get the quarterly /. memo? We're Google Chrome fanboys and girls now -- Mozilla is right out.
The last time somebody tested these browsers using Microsoft's Fishtank, Firefox 4 Beta won. I wonder who wins the Fishtank test this time.
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.
For 100 points, does your browser run on the huge installed base of WindowsXP?
Dang, we'll be limited to IE8 features until at least 2013...
The Flash text benchmark is highly suspicious. IE9 posts by far the worst score for that benchmark on one machine, then beats FF on the same test on another machine. Without any description of testing methodology, I can only assume the benchmarking procedure is totally broken (e.g. maybe they only ran each one once) and so the results are best taken with a pinch of salt, even if they're not entirely useless.
That is possibly a reference to this.
Poster misunderstood the changing Firefox release strategy
The expectation is an increased number of Firefox releases after version 4, but the changes between any two releases may not be as dramatic as the current approach.
Microsoft always cares about being number 1 in everything. Sometimes they stick their noses where it doesn't belong. They can't accept to lose in something. Yet if they really cared they would put more thought into their products before they released them and focus more on fixes rather than trying to constantly come out with a product to trump someone else.
I don't know how IE has an HTML5 advantage since they have to do a WebGL conversion to DirectX which causes all renders to take 3X as long. You can hear it talked about in this demo from Fractallab(http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/07/tom-subblue-reddard.html#comments) an online fractal generator built in HTML5 using WebGL.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
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
Sunspider is a redundant test -- as are Kraken, V8, and the rest of them. Synthetic benchmarks are inherently flawed and we should all pay far less attention to them, but they happen to be easy to convey and chart (much like flawed compliance "tests" like Acid3 and html5test).
That said, there was almost certainly no cheating. That was a valid optimization. What was identified was a boundary condition in the JIT, which took two syntactically identical statements, which were not lexically identical, and showed that only one was optimized out. People who don't have any idea how to make an optimizing compiler decided that the only way this could happen was cheating, leaving out mistakes or intentional heuristics.
The problem with that theory is that it would be more difficult to develop a cheating optimizing compiler with the characteristics it had, for that situation, than to actually come up with an optimization, so it's outright absurd. The guy who discovered the discrepancy never called it cheating.
The RC scores the same in those tests now. I bet it was something simple like doing a quick one-line dead code elimination pass before the full dead code elimination heuristics decided whether to bother trying.
My conclusion is "FINALLY".
IE till lags Firefox and Chrome in some of the larger "real world" benchmarks, but compared with prior iterations of IE, the improvements to V9 are nothing short of stunning. Similarly Firefox 4 Beta 12 cooks over 3.6.15 -- but even 3.6.15 has improved dramatically over prior 3.6 versions. The big stunner for me is how close all of the browsers are becoming in performance, while taking slightly different directions in browser tabs, menus, etc. -- but that most of the "nasty trick tests" I know for XHTML and CSS through what we sorta call "2.1" don't fail in any of the new browsers. (I've been stuck in VB land for the last year, so I can't claim enough knowledge to test either HTML5 or the CSS 3.X stuff at this point).
Anyway, what that means for me as a professional coder is that now I can concentrate on cross-PLATFORM applications, instead of cross-BROWSER. Which is nothing short of the best news I've had this year in terms of IT work.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
"which is expected to be the final version of Firefox as well."
What the hell is with the summaries lately?
Maybe it's been edited since you saw it, but right now it says "which is expected to be the final version of Firefox 4 as well." I agree that it's pretty poorly worded, but it should be obvious enough that it means that the release candidate will become the 4.0 release (i.e. they aren't planning another release candidate).
...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.
QUOTE: "Ever wondered why Firefox is only just approaching version 4 after more than 6 years, when Chrome is up to version 9 in just over 2 years?"
No because I don't give a fuck about things that don't matter.
The new policy is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. Chrome and Firefox will be up to version 40-something by the end of the decade. IMHO it's more logical to avoid such large numbers by using decimal points. Release 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 this year, not 5, 6, 7.
Looks like marketers have taken over. "Bigger numbers seller better! Let's release Firefox 15 as soon as possible!"
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
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.
I am using the Firefox 4 RC 1 and my native screen resolution is 1920x1080 (DPI adjusted to 150%). Firefox still ignores my DPI setting (Windows 7 OS). Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari are already aware of DPI settings. Why not Firefox?
Good grief, give the drama a rest, will ya. It is only going to be an epic battle in the minds of those who count up page hits as a measure of self-importance.
It's about open standards. The reason we root for firefox is because Mozilla's goal is not to dominate the web, but to push open standards that can be used by everybody (including Microsoft).
Microsoft's goal, obviously, is purely to dominate. The only reason we see them adopting web standards now is because IE's market share has dropped like a rock over the past 5 years. They have no choice, and we can thank Firefox for that.
IMHO it's more logical to avoid such large numbers by using decimal points. Release 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 this year, not 5, 6, 7.
That's only a clear win if there's some notion of compatibility (either programmatic or user experience) that you're maintaining among the 4.x releases, and even then it may not be. E.g. I find the progression of Linux kernel versions to be increasingly ridiculous; I'd rather see "the current stable release is 37.2 and the current unstable release is 38-rc7" than "the current stable release is 2.6.37.2 and the current unstable is 2.6.38-rc7".
If you stick to the point releases when there's no discernible big jump in features or whatever in a new release, as is what Linux is doing and what Mozilla wants to do, you've just turned "Chrome and Firefox will be up to version 40-something" to "Chrome and Firefox will be up to version 4.40-something", because if there are no stand-out updates, when do you bump the major revision number?
Is it suddenly slashdots job to sell you on IE and Win7?
Paraphrased somewhat with an additional comment.
Both browsers are fast JavaScript browsers and the differences are unlikely to be noticed in average browsing today.
Firefox 4 and IE9 are substantially upgraded browsers when compared to their predecessors and show few weaknesses in any benchmark.
It is obvious that Firefox has a great JavaScript engine.
IE9s hardware acceleration engine is the one to beat.
Firefox's only real competition is Chrome for the standpont of what the author calls and unexplained "unique feature set" which IE9 appears to lack altogether.
So it's a draw on performance. No evaluation was done from the very important security standpoint. The most striking difference not commented upon but highlighted by the results is the poor performance of the Intel graphics chipset in both browsers.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Don't forget the countless people on older Windows software that won't be supported. MS fanboys claim that this because IE9 needs the unique features of late Windows versions, despite Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari having the same features and can run on older OS'es some can even run on Linux.
What does that say about MS? Either they are not as capable as their competitors or not as willing.
Make no mistake. MS has NOT changed its attitude. It will simply do IE9 hoping it can dominate again, then ignore it. MS still hates the open web.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
God, slashdot is so 2008.
Get with the program - 3D HTML6 is the way to roll!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It's the same with Windows "7". Did someone lose count?
Nope. Windows 7 is version 6.1 anyway:
When I test IE9 under Kraken it goes bottom up and crashes the page. Maybe that is just the 64bit version. They aren't 'very close' a all. On some scores they are similar on others IE9 is over X10 slower. Do your own testing and don't believe anyone.