Browser Performance

wwarnick · Postby **wwarnick** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:25 am

Until now, I've always used IE and never once had a problem with it despite all the criticism I'd received (I'm a CS major, I'm surrounded by Linux followers that passionately oppose IE). However, I am now using Vista (not what we're debating; I'm using it and that's final), and I happened upon the Multi-Meter gadget, which displays processor and ram usage on the sidebar. For some reason, IE 7 hogs my processor, almost maxing out when loading pages. I've recently been working on a website for an upstarting small business (not my thing, but money's always welcome) and I decided to test the website in Firefox, Opera, and Safari. Lo and behold, they hardly touched my processor. All of a sudden, I'm wondering whether I should switch browsers.

The question is "Which browser performs the best?" And if you please, is IE 7 a processor hog or is this a problem unique to my pc?

I only used the four I perceive to be most prominent. If you vote 'Other', please specify (no Lynx, please). And remember, this is about performance. It is not about features, appearance, boycotts, web design, Microsoft loathing, etc. It's about loading-time, resource-usage, and the like.

Thanks,

wwarnick

rus|Mike · Postby **rus|Mike** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:39 am

lol, does our opinion change browsers' perfomance?? :lol:

I personally use Firefox and am absolutelly satisfied with it

wwarnick · Postby **wwarnick** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 8:10 am

You can vote one and prefer another. The poll is about performance only.

wwarnick

Pox · Postby **Pox** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 8:28 am

Out of what you've posted, Safari on a Mac is easily the fastest - I use Mac, Windows and Linux quite often and I find Safari to be incredibly fast both in initial load times and page rendering. On windows, firefox is more efficient than IE, but not much faster in my experience - I'm pretty sure IE is preloaded by Windows to some extent.

My main OS, however, is linux (<3 IV for supporting it), and the fastest GUI browser (I'm counting out lynx and links here) is probably Dillo - however, I personally use Firefox because it's well supported, easy to use and has great plugins and themes.

bert_the_turtle · Postby **bert_the_turtle** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:37 am

I personally use Konqueror most of the time, mostly for convenience; it is not the fastest browser, however, and wouldn't be available for you anyway (well, you can use the mutant Safari). For some layouts, it can even be sluggishly slow. Firefox is only a bit better. Opera easily beats both.

shinygerbil · Postby **shinygerbil** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 2:07 pm

I agree with bert - so do the makers of Opera, although I can't find their (most likely biased) benchmarks. Firefox is a lot slower, to me.

Konqueror is horrible to use :shock:

Darksun · Postby **Darksun** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 3:09 pm

Firefox is a resource hog, always has been

Postby **Icepick** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 3:40 pm

Opera all the way.

Postby **NeoThermic** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 4:31 pm

The problem with Opera is that the stuff I use FF for doesn't exist in Opera land (last time I searched, that is (about 9's release)). I've got the webdev toolbar, headers editor and cookie editor running all the time, and I use them often enough for me to require them. I've not seen anything similar in Opera.

Between that, though, running nightlies of Firefox 3 is fantastic. Uses less memory than 2.0, even though it's a debug version. Fast as well.

NeoThermic

Mas Tnega · Postby **Mas Tnega** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 4:50 pm

IE: Crap. Antiquated crap at that.
FF: Memory leak.
Opera: "Waaaah MSN.com gives us a dodgy stylesheet", "Waaaah sites don't follow standards well enough for us to display it right". Yeah, fucking, right.
Safari: No.
Other: Why bother? None of them beat Firefox (henceforth referred to as "The least shitty browser").

wwarnick · Postby **wwarnick** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:06 pm

jelco the galactaboy wrote:If you want to discuss which browser you prefer, you might as well revive the very first Weekly Poll about webbrowsers.

This poll is only concerned with performance. I remember your poll and it was fine, but I hear the same debate all the time. I decided to take it in a different direction. Toss all other facets of the browsers and only focus on performance. We might get different results this way.

As of yet, I haven't noticed the memory leak in FireFox (I've been using it for about a week). It still baffles me that IE could've hogged my resources so much. I think it must either be a bug or a conflict with my system.

Pox wrote:Out of what you've posted, Safari on a Mac is easily the fastest - I use Mac, Windows and Linux quite often and I find Safari to be incredibly fast both in initial load times and page rendering. On windows, firefox is more efficient than IE, but not much faster in my experience - I'm pretty sure IE is preloaded by Windows to some extent.

Safari is now available for Windows as well.

wwarnick

wwarnick · Postby **wwarnick** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:16 pm

Ah. You weren't talking to me. Gotcha.

wwarnick

prophile · Postby **prophile** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:26 pm

wget, with the Dave2 penis patch.

Failing that, Safari gets my vote.

wwarnick · Postby **wwarnick** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:35 pm

What the hay?

wwarnick

shinygerbil · Postby **shinygerbil** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:54 pm

prophile wrote: the Dave2 penis patch.

link plz.

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