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Comments: 354 +- Technology: Chrome 4.0 Vs. Opera 10 Vs. Firefox 3.5 on Monday September 07, @07:38AM
Posted
by
Soulskill
on Monday September 07, @07:38AM
from the three-enter-but-only-three-leave dept.
from the three-enter-but-only-three-leave dept.
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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.'"
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speed (Score:4, Insightful)
Memory (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Memory (Score:5, Informative)
Of course using Windows Process Monitor to get memory usage for a application like Chrome which has different processes per tab/plugin leads to horrendously incorrect results, which the article acknowledges in an edit, without any attempt to get the correct figures. Shame really, as this functionality is built into Chrome...
Parent
Re:Memory (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing these tests don't take into account is the UI responsiveness, in which Opera really owns the other browsers - everything just seems fast and responsive. Chrome isn't that far, but you can still see how things like opening new tabs takes some time and isn't "instant". Firefox is also behind on UI responsiveness, and I probably dont have to mention IE (3-5 secs to open new tab, seriously?).
This is what MS tried to improve in Win7 too. Even if its not really faster technically but just feels so, it improves usability a lot.
Parent
Re:Memory (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Memory (Score:5, Funny)
everything just seems fast
So true. More benchmarking tests need to include seems per second. I mean, come on, it's the 21st century and all! At least, it seems to me they should. That way their reports will seem much more seemingly accurate to what I want them to seem. ... I think.
Parent
Re:Memory (Score:4, Insightful)
You could measure the average time from clicking a UI element to something happening. Actually I wish people would test things like this rather than how quickly the Javascript implementation can crack brute force crack DES or whatever benchmarks Google are pushing so their prototype stuff can finally be released without people mocking it for being bloatware that is worse than Vista.
It would also let me avoid Java applications - we have some horrible intranet ones at work that feel like your mouse has a dodgy button or something - you click stuff, assume it didn't notice it and click another couple of times before you see an hour glass cursor. If people tested for UI responsiveness at least I could avoid things that don't have it in situations were I have a choice.
And, as a bonus it would encourage people to stop doing things that could potentially take more than a few milliseconds in the UI thread of Windows applications. In a very real sense UIs are a real time system and it is time more people realised the implications of that.
Parent
Re:Memory (Score:5, Insightful)
Please bear in mind they tested on the latest stable version firefox, not the latest alpha 3.6 which has various speed improvements. Yet Chrome they used a development branch. Seems a bit biased in Chromes favour.
Parent
Firefox is unstable. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.)
Parent
Re:Firefox is unstable. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. I'm sick of Firefox's crashing and periodically hanging for 30 seconds while it garbage collects or something.
I'm willing to switch to the first browser that gives me the equivalent of Firefox + CS Lite + NoScript + AdBlock. Personally, I'd have thought that a simple UI for allowing the current site to use cookies and scripts would be a basic feature of any browser, but it seems the browser makers are more interested in not annoying site owners who want to track users and show them ads.
Parent
Re:Firefox is unstable. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlikely.
Firefox addons run in the same process as Firefox, likely in the same thread. Firefox tabs are similar. All it takes is one slow extension to slow down the entire experience.
Chrome, on the other hand, is implementing addons as just privileged webpages. This means that, except for the very small part of an addon that might be interacting with the current page, the addon won't block the browser -- it's mostly going to be running in a separate process. And even the content script that's running on the current page, well, there's one of those running per tab, so an extension being slow in one tab won't block another tab.
Not to mention, if you're going to implement a nice, cross-platform Firefox addon, you're doing it in Javascript/XUL. Chrome addons are Javascript/HTML. Thus, Chrome's faster Javascript engine does count here.
Parent
Electrolysis (Score:4, Informative)
Mozilla's Electrolysis [mozilla.org] 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. "
Parent
Re:speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. How many more stories about browser-speed do we need, given how insignificant the discrepancies are? For most end-users, browser lag is completely dwarfed by restricted bandwidth.
In my case, judicious application of AdBlock and NoScript make this a complete non-issue. I'm far more interested in standards compliancy and security.
Parent
Unintuitive graphs (Score:5, Informative)
..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
============
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Choices? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, what you are saying is that if you used XP, you wouldn't be limited by those choices. Windows gives you more choice?
Well, it does, unless you limit your choices by placing preconditions.
Re:speed (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When firefox crashes - everything goes poof. Worse, firefox does NOT let me launch separate firefox processes to workaround that stupidity. It is ironic that I can run separate instances of IE but I can't do that with firefox - an application that should be more "unixy" than IE.
When I tried Google Chrome on Win XP, it did not allow me to launch it as a different user. I prefer to run my browsers using different user
javascript whitelisting ? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's simple : i want javascripty whitelisting. so FF+Noscript : only thing i can use.
Re:javascript whitelisting ? (Score:5, Informative)
Or just use site preferences in Opera....
Parent
Re:javascript whitelisting ? (Score:4, Informative)
Site preferences in Opera is a complete pain to use.
Firstly, there's no toolbar button to bring it up, it's buried under 3 levels of menu selection.
Right click, edit site preferences. Not admittedly that I use it much.
Parent
Re:javascript whitelisting ? (Score:4, Funny)
Well Opera is immune from that sort of thing because only about 10 people use it so no one bothers to hack it.
Err.
I mean "You're totally right! Opera is a security nightmare! Don't ever use it!"
Parent
Versions (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Versions (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Versions (Score:5, Interesting)
So they compare the current, stable release of firefox against dev builds of other browsers?
And as others are saying, the fastest way to render a page that has a ton of scripting is of course firefox + noscript.
Parent
AdBlock (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, the fastest browser is the one that's running AdBlock, with flash, java, and javascript disabled.
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Funny)
Well no shit Sherlock ... how long does it take to render an empty page ?
Parent
Re:AdBlock (Score:5, Funny)
RTFA, dammit, it depends on the browser!
Parent
You are on slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Raw speed is probably a moot point.... (Score:5, 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.
Re:Raw speed is probably a moot point.... (Score:5, Funny)
After all, it's not a multiplayer game where milliseconds seem to count.
You forget you're on Slashdot. The Windozers will race to post XKCD 619 on every Linux-related story, and it gets neck and neck for the karma boost that "+5 Insightful" offers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Centrino Duo Processor" (Score:5, Informative)
Fabulously useful Firefox speedup (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Fabulously useful Firefox speedup (Score:5, Informative)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13878 [mozilla.org]
Available for FF 3.5+. Labelled experimental at the moment, but works just fine. Works magic with the "awesomebar" suggestion speed: fetching suggestions has never has been so snappy.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How incredibly important! (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't care about security. We don't care whether the browser hogs half a gig or more. We don't care whether it can render a page correctly or makes CSS look like a 5 year old had a field day with some sharpies.
We care whether a page renders 0.223 seconds faster.
Sorry if that sounds like flamebait, but do I care about speed in a time when speed difference is measured in fractions of seconds? Even if it's seconds. Does that really matter? I'm not too convinced that the browser speed plays any significant role in the loading speed of a page when you have crappy servers crammed into farms that oversold their capacity hundredfold and ISPs doing the same.
Re:How incredibly important! (Score:4, Interesting)
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!
Parent
Poor tests (Score:3, Insightful)
It's obvious Chrome would be faster becuase of its simplicity...
What always bothers me is that these "testers" don't test the browsers after some "normal" or "not quite so normal" use.
People don't just start a fresh install of a browser and open eight tabs, people have lots of bookmarks, passwords, saved forms in browsers and after a time, these affect the speed and performance of a browser.
A good tester should bookmark about 200 sites in various categories, save passwords for about 20-30 sites, have some forms saved, and then he should see how much latency browser has from the moment you start typing an URL in it's address bar and bringing URL's or suggestions from its separate SQLite databases that hold bookmarks and previously accessed websites history (it shouldn't matter but in reality users usually stop from typing when they see something changing on screen and check the url and suggestions and time is lost)
Also, in my case I work with various web apps that basically make me access hundreds of url's like site.com/page.php?id=[number] , so all these are saved in the history and after about a week, I basically have to clear the database because Firefox becomes too slow to load, it takes up to a second from the moment I start typing a website in the address bar and so on, I have to empty the history to make it work properly again...
I use Firefox and it's not perfect and not the fastest, but I still prefer it over Safari or Opera simply because of extensions like Firebug or Live HTTP Headers or even Screengrab, which make my life way easier.
Memory hogs (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox still has lots of problems. (For instance, preventing sleep on the Mac and using excessive CPU for completely idle tabs.) But the first reason I keep using it is memory. It uses less memory than any other browser for the same set of open tabs. Also, it has PROPER built-in crash protection and session restore. Safari doesn't unless you install Saft, and Saft costs money and keeps breaking every time Apple upgrades Safari.
Chrome dev version vs. FF/Opera release versions? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about Opera, but as far as I am aware, FF has preview versions 4.0 already. So if we're going to be testing the not-even-beta version of Chrome, isn't it fair comparison to do the same with the other browsers? I realize that TFA has results for FF 3.5.99 and a beta of Opera, but these are relegated to a less prominent position in the results...in contrast, Chrome's 4.x dev version is highlighted with the 2.x version is being downplayed in the results, and no mention is made of the (perhaps more relevant) Chrome 3.x beta. Not that I really care, it just seems like a bit of favouritism is playing into the presentation of this analysis...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you read the article you'd see safari is in most of the tests.
Re:Safari (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re:Safari (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty much.
Although at least you can disable some of the more annoying aspects of it via Tools - Options in 3.5.x. Basically, I jumped from 2.20.x to 3.5.x after getting frustrated with 3.0.x and deciding to stick with the 2.20.x version for a good long while.
While I don't think we will ever get the proper revert to the 2.x style URL bar that SHOULD happen, as
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can't disable it - thats the debacle. A lot of people don't like it, but the Firefox devs have essentially told us to shut up and live with it.
C'mon, they haven't really said that -- you can actually config it in various ways, e.g., setting "browser.urlbar.matchbehavior" to 3 (using about:config), and using "browser.urlbar.maxrichresults" to control the display. There's also some more configuration being added in newer versions, e.g., see this bug [mozilla.org].
Re:Summary: (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Summary: (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent