FireFox 3.1 Leaves IE in the Dust 435
Anonymous writes "Granted, FireFox 3.1 is just a beta and IE 8 is also in beta, but it looks like Microsoft has some ground to make up when it comes to browser performance. Given that Mozilla appears to be on a much faster cycle than Microsoft with this stuff, it's also possible that it could increase the gap even more before IE 8 is GA, no?"
And yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple Really (Score:4, Insightful)
This destroys Microsoft's claim that their intimate knowledge of the OS that runs IE will increase performance.
This proves that Microsoft's intimate knowledge of their OS actually inhibits performance of IE and therefore all other Microsoft products.
Microsoft is a victim of their own feature-rich corporate culture. They are a victim of their customers non-uniform demands.
The issue is similar to the ones that have always plagued Java; you have to load massive libraries to do miniscule tasks and that causes noticeable overhead, when they were sadly intended to save time! Firefox is simply more minimal, and it is through their actively sought after security footprint that they deliver better performance by default.
Firefox loads what you need to surf and also lets you modify the experience -- you are in control.
Add with that experience, superior plugins like NoScript, and you also save bandwidth because Flash files don't load by default and scripts don't tie up resources unless you approve them to do so. NoScript was designed for security, but with the added benefit that you get faster performance with it.
Even when you look at Google Chrome, which is also a valid attempt at increasing performance (they flaunt security as a pillar of their design, but their cheerleading is unwarranted), the fact that you can't control scripts that are allowed to run, limits the user and make the user bound to the control of the webmaster, who typically controlled by a business or corporation that is only in it for the money and will infringe on rights of users without any form of conscience or compassion.
Benchmarks were versus IE7 ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Having said that, the speed improvements are very impressive, in what ChannelWeb says and other reports. And yea, FF3.1 is setting a darn high bar for IE8 - bring it on FF!
Java != Javascript (Score:5, Insightful)
When is the press going to realize that Java != Javascript? (Or Java !== Javascript, even!) Comparing "Java" performance between browsers is meaningless. (And isn't what SunSpider does anyway.) Comparing JavaScript performance has a very real impact on the users.
Does this really matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Poor Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Fair tests? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see that the things they mention are fair or informative tests. Yes, there's some browser infrastructure involved but other components are doing most of the work:
Maybe Firefox 3.1 is much faster than IE 8 but this article doesn't tell me anything new.
Re:Does this really matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about that. I switched to, and am still using, Chrome since it seems much faster. For many people, all they use their computer for is the web browser, so a faster browser could be significant.
Re:Java != Javascript (Score:4, Insightful)
When is the press going to realize that Java != Javascript? (Or Java !== Javascript, even!) Comparing "Java" performance between browsers is meaningless. (And isn't what SunSpider does anyway.) Comparing JavaScript performance has a very real impact on the users.
I was surprised about that too. Mozilla was working on a faster javascript engine, and suddenly it's their Java performance (which comes from the JVM, right?) that blows IE out of the water.
Looks like the summary is as bad as the article it tries to summarise.
Re:Simple Really (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember those anti-trust cases with the Win95/98 and IE bundling? Yeah, around that time.
No, I don't remember performance being mentioned in the anti-trust cases. And why would they? It would highlight an uncompetitive advantage and weaken their position.
Citation needed.
check out MSDN's page on what CSS IE8 will support (Score:3, Insightful)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc351024.aspx [microsoft.com]
If they had simply added to this list: CSS 3 columns, multiple backgrounds, and
border-radius, I think I'd be pretty satisfied with it. *sigh*
Well, that's also not taking into account the abysmal js performance
it's going to have compared to FF3.1, Safari/Chrome & Opera.
At least they got most of CSS 2.1 in there. We can treat it as the
retarded sibling, rather than the quadriplegic sibling that has to be
turned a couple of times a day so it doesn't get bed sores.
I think IE8 will be a great competitor to Firefox.
Firefox v1.5.
Re:Simple Really (Score:4, Insightful)
This destroys Microsoft's claim that their intimate knowledge of the OS that runs IE will increase performance.
To be precise (by pulling numbers out of my ass), if IE had 50% of Firefox's performance to begin with, and embedding into the OS gave it a 50% advantage, it'd still only have 75% of Firefox's performance. But MS's claim could in theory still be true.
Of course, given their all-around incompetence it's probably not true.
As for Google Chrome, it makes perfect sense to bind the user to the webmaster's control. After all, for many important things like e-mail, calendaring, and many more, that webmaster is probably Google. (After all, how many yahoo.com or live.com users would install a Google browser?) And Google loves it when you can't block their cookies or stop them from doing whatever they want to spy on you.
Um (Score:5, Insightful)
IE 8 is a major revision.
FF 3.1 is a minor revision.
Just about any version of Opera is faster than them both.
Learn to compare things.
Re:Simple Really (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, I must have been teleported to some alternate reality where IE actually has more features than Firefox. The way I see it, even the barebones FF install has more than standard IE. One glance at about:config would confirm that.
VERY misleading summary! (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary mentions IE8 more than once, but the article is comparing Firefox 3.1 to IE 7 (yes SEVEN - you know, the OLD one!)
The Javascript engine in IE8 is much faster than the one in IE7, so it's a pretty unfair test in the first place and should never have been posted in the first place.
Many posters above already seem to be confused about the IE7/8 thing.
Re:Does this really matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are people who will use 1 browser because it is "the internet".
there are people who will use 1 browser because it is God's only browser and there is only one.
There are people who will use 1 browser because they cant be bothered to change.
And then there are people who will want to latest, fastest, feature-rich, talked-about browser. And if FF gets "superfast" stickers all over it in the popular press and blogs, people will want to use it. Nobody really wants to be stuck with yesterday's slow old slowness, not in the Internet Age. We've all been conditioned to always go for the upgrade, give us any reason and very many of us will.
Re:Simple Really (Score:1, Insightful)
For God's sake get off the soap box. I don't care how fast Firefox is, and I care even less every time I'm subjected to the same old mantra "Microsoft are evil/money-grabbing/incompetant dude"
Re:Simple Really (Score:5, Insightful)
Even when you look at Google Chrome, [snip] the fact that you can't control scripts that are allowed to run, limits the user and make the user bound to the control of the webmaster, who typically controlled by a business or corporation that is only in it for the money and will infringe on rights of users without any form of conscience or compassion.
Is it surprising that a company that makes it's money from advertising would want to make it difficult for users to block adverts? I think not.
My browsing bottleneck is not performance (Score:3, Insightful)
It's having the entire browser freeze up because some plugin (I'm looking at you acrobat reader) is downloading and rendering. Why can't this be done on another thread and let me continue reading in another tab?
Re:AwfulBar (Score:1, Insightful)
I actually like it now, although I did hate it for a while until I acclimatised. I do agree that it should be switch-off-able in the preferences or via an addon for those who don't like it. Open Source is supposed to be about choice and making the software behave the way you want it to right? That's in part why proprietary software tends to fail; a corporate image with limits on how much you can customize your use of it.
For a while there was no add on to do it, and you had to choose whether it was a deal breaker to upgrade or not. It's been around for a while now though so as far as I'm concerned now the AwesomeBar is a non-issue.
Re:Simple Really (Score:2, Insightful)
Protip: Both parties are equally corrupt. Using made up "us versus them" arguments just makes it easier for them (as a whole) to gain power over us.
They take turns being obviously corrupt and incompetent in order to drive people to the slightly less corrupt/incompetent "other side". For example: to escape the war mongering of Bush, we're going to let Obama socialize everything. Socializing everything is bad, but not quite as bad as war mongering. In the next 4 or 8 years the Democrats will do something outrageous, and it'll be the Republican's turn to have their way with us again. They'll undoubtedly want some new surveilance program or something, but whatever it is it'll be slightly less bad than whatever the Democrats are planning, so we'll vote them into power without a second thought.
That's the great thing about everybody limiting themselves to two parties and voting for the "lesser of two evils". We're fucked either way, it just takes a little longer to get there.
Re:And yet (Score:1, Insightful)
Memory management is a sacrifice with this type of optimization. However, how many people still mainly use a computer with only 64MB of RAM? There are some browsers to fit that niche.
Otherwise, with 2GB sticks being so cheap these days, it's clearly a huge improvement. Time is still tangible, but the extra memory usage - probably not.
Re:And yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Their speeds all suck next to lynx!
Which is left coughing up the gravel "wget -O- URL" kicks up in it's face.
Re:And yet (Score:1, Insightful)
If that's cheating, so was using VBE to get graphics mode in DOS days, or using 2D/3D acceleration these days, or opting to write SSE-optimised code when 16-bit ops will do, etc.
Come on :)
Re:And yet (Score:3, Insightful)
I installed IE8 to see what it was like, and while it has some nice features (although others like its bookmarks organisation are stuck in the 90s, as is its cookie handling it appears), they require code that has yet to gain widespread adoption and so as such isn't overly useful.
The main sticking point though, is the thing is slow as snails. Here are my benchmarks:
* IE 8 - 7.125 seconds
* Opera 0.60 - 2.812 seconds
* Firefox 3.0.3 - 2.795
So despite the lack of evidence in the article, the summary is indeed correct. (While I haven't used Firefox 3.1 in this test by all accounts its even faster then Firefox 3.0.3).
Re:And yet (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder why they compared Firefox 3.1 Beta with IE7, rather than comparing Firefox 3 with IE7 or comparing Firefox 3.1 Beta with IE8 Beta 2.
Doesn't really seem like a reasonable comparison...