Oh god of browsers, I pray to thee...

I guess I'm fortunate in that my Firefox is very fast. Some of those wonderful extensions block tons of elements that would otherwise load on a page. It's every bit as fast as Chrome on my setup. So I have the best of both worlds already personally.

Though it wasn't nearly as snappy back when I used a real-time AV. Perhaps they hinder FF more than Chrome for some reason? Though I wouldn't know why.

 

As with pretty much all testing, they hardly ever accurately portray real world situations when taking every variable into consideration. I know by actually using both browsers that the page load times are pretty much identical on my setup. Some numbers some test spits out at me can't convince me to ignore what I see with my own 2 eyes.

 

People like to point to browsers because they're objective, and browser vendors typically agree on them. But nothing will ever replace your specific experience - that's all that will ever matter.

 

Put page load timers on each, then let me know. Statistically, I have never seen FF outperform Chromium. Real-Testing with page timers, I have never, ever, seen FF load ANY page faster than Chromium. I have yet to run into a benchmark, ANY benchmark that has FF outperforming Chromium and given the 10-15% performance boost you will see in v26 over v24, which was already improved 20% over v23, I don't see that happening. Google seems to take Chromium speed very very seriously.

Opera seems to be getting the message that speed is crucial, and 12.13 has a speed increase over 12.12 for many heavy pages. This is good news, Opera has a huge amount of good things I love about it. The API is crap, but I use Admuncher anyway, so as long as they keep tweaking speed it will be viable. 12.12 was a huge disappointment, hopefully we are past that.

 

I agree to that but some thinks that only their experience matters while dismissing or making fun of others' choice. You can see this aplenty on browser war threads...

 

I don't have a test machine, and don't feel like taking the time/effort to put Chrome on my box and them remove all it's traces afterward. But I really, really wish I could just to throw that comment in your face because I guarantee you FF would be just as fast, and probably faster.

I don't think you really understand just how barebones I have things. There's not a single service, process, element on a page, etc.. that isn't completely necessary for essential functionality on my box. Not only via tweaks in about:config and extensions like NS/ABP/RP, but I use the Element Hiding Helper to hide any elements on my frequent sites that again aren't absolutely vital for me to navigate the site. I guarantee you the page I'm looking at right now looks a lot different from the one you're viewing. I'll see if I can't get you a screeny.

Out of the box Chrome is undoubtedly quicker, but the way I have my FF set up... it would have to be psychic to be any quicker. I click on a link and almost immediately, it's there. And it's ALL there... not a few elements lagging behind that pop up a moment later or whatnot.

I seriously doubt that when people perform these benchmark tests that they're as thorough in stripping down FF as I am.

 

I'm a minimalist... wait for it (files too big the first attempt):

 

Which is why it's almost pointless to even have these discussions. Page timers, benchmarks, what all does it matter if a user sees and feels an experience that goes against those tests? If I load up Firefox right this moment and surf to a website with a lot of content and it loads for me faster than it does in Chrome, guess what, I give zero craps about which one did better on Sunspider, Kraken or Octane because I'll experience Firefox being faster on my machine.

@HungryMan:

 

IE 10 for Windows 7 will be final! And it's nearly here:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025786/report-ie10-for-windows-7-nears-final-release.html

"Citing sources enrolled in an invitation-only IE10 test group, Microsoft-watcher and ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley said that the Redmond, Wash.-based developer has told those testers that the more recent build will be the last before the browser is released to the public."

Despite some personal preference issues I have with it, I'll 95% likely be heading back to it. Especially since this is happening, https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewt...sid=007cec4fb98155185a4e29c30ce6c3a5&start=15.

 

zactly. The proof is in the pudding as they say.

I will concede though that out of the box Chrome beats FF like a red headed stepchild. But with a makeover I can turn it into the prettiest dame at the ball.

Also I believe Chrome's advantage shines more on the newer OS's. Both in terms of speed, and due to it's sandbox. But on XP nothin runs quite like a finely tuned FF. Not on my box anyway. If it did, believe me, I'd use it, because I'm all about footprint.

 

I'll probably upgrade to IE 10 (or is it really 9.5 in Win 7? ) but I doubt I will really use it. I didn't think that IE 9 was a bad browser though. It was certainly a vast improvement over IE 8 & light years ahead of the dismal IE 7!

 

Don't you use Admuncher? IE's have always had adblocking if you use Admuncher, which is one of the awesome advantages to the product. True Port80 ad blocking.

 

Nah, I've had my fill of investigating why filters work one day and then not the next. Just about every site that got "cleaned" is now dirty again, and I'm just done with the whole thing. I used ABP and DoNotTrack(Me) for years and did just fine, I'll do just fine again. I'm keeping Cyberfox around too because that guy seems on the ball, unlike Waterfox/Palemoon.

 

Admuncher doesn't require any observation or tweaking, install it and forget it, and the vast majority of ads are gone. (99.9%) I think you fundamentally didn't understand how it works, or what it is supposed to remove. Because a lot of what I saw you complain about were actually links, not social buttons. ABP doesn't remove nearly as much, can break pages, and doesn't speed up browsing as much as Admuncher because AM does it at the port level.

 

I'll give you that some buttons were links (which even you and several others reported here in this very thread)...however, I'm fairly sure I know how the program does its job, I'm slightly smarter than that. What ABP does in comparison to AM doesn't make me one bit of difference if I don't have to worry about whether the list is working or not. AM has never sped up my browsing, if anything it slowed it down. Ads themselves reappear, not just social links/buttons. Even Jeff said something was interfering with AM based on my reports to him and in talking in IRC. So, I've not only disabled everything to give AM a fair shot, I even reloaded my OS as a last resort (after all, I paid for the damn thing). The program simply is not working for me right now. If v5 comes out before my year is up, I'll give it another shot. But I don't have time nor patience to keep screwing around with it, and I'm not dropping perfectly fine security programs so they'll stay out of Admuncher's way. So yes, I know how it works, and no, I don't need marketing its "set it and forget it" qualities when I've done everything in my power and Jeff has done everything in his to set it so I can forget it.