Browser War

[Az7]

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Part II ..
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[dw426]

Originally Posted by Az7

Part I ..
Part II ..

Two things, and the first one I'll mention is not meant as an insult to you, the post is appreciated, but:

1. Does anyone SERIOUSLY care anymore about benchmarks? If you honestly choose your browser because it is a few milliseconds faster, I'm sorry, but you're either A: Not very bright. B: Running a system that would make a 486 look like a Quad-Core. For pete sake people, choose functionality and security over speed. If it loads in 5 seconds or less, you're golden.

2. Their memory usage charts, I don't know, I have a WILDLY different experience. IE 8 does NOT use 500Mb of RAM and if it ever did I'd never run it ever again. In fact, on my system, it uses MUCH less than Firefox ever did and it sure as heck uses less than Firefox does now. I've had Firefox hit the 300Mb range just using two tabs and we're not even talking about tabs with a lot of Flash or whatever. If Firefox ever uses less than 150Mb I think I'll marry it.

[Eice]

Originally Posted by dw426

1. Does anyone SERIOUSLY care anymore about benchmarks? If you honestly choose your browser because it is a few milliseconds faster, I'm sorry, but you're either A: Not very bright. B: Running a system that would make a 486 look like a Quad-Core.

If you honestly believe there's only a few milliseconds of difference all the time, option A would describe you.

Most of the time, depending on the connection and page content, loading speed can vary by up to 3-5 seconds, perhaps more for complex pages. The milliseconds of difference myth is merely that - a myth, propagated by the fans of browsers who invariably end up last in these benchmark tests.

[tipstir]

Guys good to see some specs of all the browsers well some still don't get counted though? IE8 seems to be the winner! Load time seems to be a factor always. I know that FF35 takes a while to load. Opera I am not a fan of since it's seems not as stable as FF35.

[1boss1]

500ms extra per pageload, loading a page on average every minute and working online for 8 hours a day results in an added 1.6 hours watching pages load per year.

Seriously though, with more people going mobile on low spec netbooks and the internet becoming more Javascript heavy, interactive and media rich it's important to keep a focus on speed. Google Wave for example contains a boat load of js, and code is moving towards HTML5 so it's important to stay fast in the browser despite hardware advances.

I always compress my JS/CSS and Images, Gzip content etc and even use a CDN on large sites to keep things fast. It creates a far more enjoyable experience for everyone.

[Az7]

Originally Posted by dw426

Two things, and the first one I'll mention is not meant as an insult to you, the post is appreciated, but:

1. Does anyone SERIOUSLY care anymore about benchmarks? If you honestly choose your browser because it is a few milliseconds faster, I'm sorry, but you're either A: Not very bright. B: Running a system that would make a 486 look like a Quad-Core. For pete sake people, choose functionality and security over speed. If it loads in 5 seconds or less, you're golden.

2. Their memory usage charts, I don't know, I have a WILDLY different experience. IE 8 does NOT use 500Mb of RAM and if it ever did I'd never run it ever again. In fact, on my system, it uses MUCH less than Firefox ever did and it sure as heck uses less than Firefox does now. I've had Firefox hit the 300Mb range just using two tabs and we're not even talking about tabs with a lot of Flash or whatever. If Firefox ever uses less than 150Mb I think I'll marry it.

Hey,

I do care about benchmarks of course !, I care about speed and performance, and functionality, and security. and that what they are talking about in their tests.
I do care about resource usage also..

here is a small test I choose six websites from their list (not ten) and I do a measurement immediately (not after 25 mins) :

DailyTech, AnandTech, CNET, CNN, Sports Illustrated, Gamefaqs, Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Facebook (logged in). We then took measurements after 15, 20, and 25 minutes of operation.

here is my system..


See Firefox compared to IE8, IE8 is a resource hog, memory waster, as you can see..
310MB vs 70MB

[Pinga]

This whole notion of a browser 'war' is utterly ridiculous. If you want to see war, go to one. Otherwise, please use the correct terminology - which is benchmarking.

[Keyboard_Commando]

I was having a look at the resources usage of IE and Firefox on my Win 7 RC yesterday.

Bog standard IE8. + 1.2MB flash helper that appears when I run IE.

Latest Firefox. + adblock + NoScript

I don't really go by benchmarks, myself. More how it feels, is what matters for me with browsers ... and they both start up and browse equally, speedwise. I can see IE is screwing me slightly more for resources than Firefox, but it doesn't feel like it.

10 mins after the first IE + Firefox opening, I tried again. The resources were somewhat different. IE = 56.2mb + 6.3mb + 1.2mb Flash helper ... Firefox = 48.7mb.

My conclusion = It's a lovely day today

[Az7]

Originally Posted by Pinga

This whole notion of a browser 'war' is utterly ridiculous. If you want to see war, go to one. Otherwise, please use the correct terminology - which is benchmarking.

It is not my comparative test.

[dw426]

Originally Posted by Eice

If you honestly believe there's only a few milliseconds of difference all the time, option A would describe you.

Most of the time, depending on the connection and page content, loading speed can vary by up to 3-5 seconds, perhaps more for complex pages. The milliseconds of difference myth is merely that - a myth, propagated by the fans of browsers who invariably end up last in these benchmark tests.

Eice, I'm not that stupid. Of course I don't believe there's only a few milliseconds of time of loading every page all the time. I merely was referring to these "benchmarks" being taken 1. As a literal bible of browser performance. 2. Choosing a browser based on these benchmark tests alone...and yes, those kind of people are out there, otherwise these "wars" wouldn't pop up every month.

It's pathetic, there's a new "war" every month it seems like. If they haven't figured out the best performer by now, they never will. Oh, one last thing these "war" articles never bother to add in...results WILL vary depending on the machine and the setup of said machine.

[Fly]

I use IE 7, securely configured.

Time to load a page is generally 0 (!), the only thing that seems to make a difference is security software or possibly IE's phishing filter, which I have disabled.

[Osaban]

Originally Posted by Pinga

This whole notion of a browser 'war' is utterly ridiculous. If you want to see war, go to one. Otherwise, please use the correct terminology - which is benchmarking.

A bit of sense of humor makes life more entertaining, on the other hand it is not an understatement when you think what MS is undergoing for launching Windows 7 in the European Union with IE8 included in the package.

We may choose a particular browser according to our own preferences, but a percentage gain for any browser competing with IE means a lot of money in terms of advertisements.

[TOMxEU]

I can not believe, that topic like this is actually on Wilders. Anyway, I allways recommend Firefox to my friends/newbies, because it is simple and user friendly browser, later they can choose, based on their needs. But now they believe, that FF is the best and consider myself stupid, since I use only that evil IE.

Memory usage, the old excuse, why to change a browser. FF used to have memory leaks for years, but FF users used to say, it is not about memory and now IE is said to be a resource hug, how funny. If you want to find a reason, you will find one, so why bother, just switch, it is your choise, you will have to use it.

According to this table Opera is still the loser

Read more

Chrome is going forward

[swami]

Userwise the Opera percentage can be very good.