Posted on 06/20/2008 7:57:47 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Two of the four major browsers have undergone some big changes in the past two weeks. Firefox 3 is, of course, the big news of the week, pulling down eight million or so downloads in its first 24 hours in the wild. However, the Opera browser updated to its much-awaited version 9.5 last week. Since both of them have got game but for different reasons, let's take a look at how they match up.
Empirically, the two most-cited complaints about browsers are speed and memory. Now, I'm a big fan of Firefox because it's so easy to customize, so despite concerns I had about placing both browsers on "equal footing," it would be misleading to test Firefox devoid of extensions, so I left in my cadre of add-ons, and ran both with fifteen tabs open--a more or less standard browsing session for me.
Using the SunSpider JavaScript test, Firefox 3 scored around 5500 microseconds to process the tested scripts, with a margin of error at around three percent. Opera 9.5 scored about 7280 microseconds on the same test, with a margin of error around 1.5 percent, making it nearly one and a third times as slow as Firefox 3. This isn't surprising, given how long Opera's been using the same rendering engine. Assuming they get to Opera 10 before Mozilla puts out Firefox 4, it would be interesting to go back and re-compare them.
Firefox used approximately 127 MB RAM with the 15 tabs open, while Opera used around 117 MB. This was a little bit surprising, since Opera is definitely running on the older code. It might be attributable to the various extensions I use in Firefox, but it's more likely that ......
(Excerpt) Read more at download.com ...
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Posted by Seth Rosenblatt 9 comments
Barely two days old, Firefox 3 has already been downloaded more than 12.3 million times at the time of writing. If you haven't downloaded it yet, you can grab it here for Windows, Mac, Linux, and a Portable Windows version.
The price of early adoption, even on a heavily-tested browser like Firefox 3, is early questions. Here are four you're likely to come across, and please add your own in the comments below. I'll do my best to answer them.
Question one: How do you kill the "awesome bar"?
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Question four: How do I get that incredibly cool plug-in from Firefox 2 to work in Firefox 3 if it hasn't been updated?
Answer: With another plug-in, of course.
MR Tech Local Install has adopted a more descriptive name with a version upgrade for Firefox 3 compatibility. Now called MR Tech Toolkit, it's still the power user's all-purpose add-on. It comes with a Toolbar button for restarting Firefox, and can do just about anything--from modifying config behavior, to changing bookmark- and extension-saving locations, to disabling the throbber.
One of the best things it did in Firefox 2 was disable extension compatibility checking, and it continues to do that quite nicely. Be warned that not all your old extensions will work even with the compatibility feature turned off, but it went off without a hitch for TinyURL Creator--which hasn't seen an update since 2007.
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bit more at the CNET Site.
I know very little about Opera...seems to be used heavily by the new mobile devices...so I hear.
I am using it now. Very slick.
I have 4 browsers on my system right now; switching back and forth for whatever reason:
1. Firefox 3.0
2. Opera 9.2
3. K-Meleon
4. Exporer
Love the Opera; the K-Meleon takes a little getting used to but is pretty slick, too. Don’t know about the Firefox, yet. Haven’t used the new version enough.
The main reason I went to Opera and K-Meleon was the feeling that my Firefox was slowing down more and more, even after doing some clean ups.
I like the new ones. Opera and K-Meleon are QUICK!
how likely are either of them to be invaded by spyware, trojans and viruses like IE. Sorry if this is a doofus question.
The simple memory footprint that articles such as this reference is overly simplistic and is not catching something strange going on in virtual memory by the new rendering engine. I have reported a bug.
BTW, FF3 works great on my desktop and I have no complaints at all.
IE has the most exposure because of it's tight interface with Windows,,,Active X etc...
Firefox and Opera ...usually don't suffer that malware problem...
Where you browse and personal habits heavily impacet what other bad things can happen.
BUT the Malware ..virus are always out there trying something new....
I moved to Linux and Firefox and ...so far...have had not problems that I am aware of...
Ok I see it's for Windows....Powered by the same Gecko engine as the Firefox and Mozilla browser
The benchmark mentioned in the article, SunSpider JavaScript test, seems very rigorous, including statisical analysis, but only tests JavaScript
I've looked at iBench, but it needs a huge footprint on your machine apparently (Windows Server 2000, mySQL, and more)
I'm looking for something that loads pages several times over the internet (using my browser on my PC with my internet connection), and makes a statistical summary of the page load times
Kind of like the Numion Stopwatch but with multiple automated tests like the JavaScript test
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Browsers are pretty ho-hum these days. Firefox wins because of its add-ons, particularly Adblock Plus. If a browser doesn’t support real ad-blocking (not just pop-ups) it’s a non-starter.
Nice post, excellent resources, thanks.
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