IE8 vs Firefox 3.5: The browser wars continue

Infoworld.com ^ | April 29, 2009 | J. Peter Bruzzese

[CedarDave]

Features in Internet Explorer and Firefox run neck and neck. Will a victor emerge? It may come down to convenience.

Every day I sit at my computer and open two browsers: Firefox and Internet Explorer (first 6, then 7 and, as of late, 8). ... Firefox opens my Yahoo and Gmail mail accounts. Internet Explorer is aimed at my banking and stock trading accounts. ...

... I made up my mind to drop Firefox altogether. [Then] Yesterday morning, I found out that Firefox released the 3.5 beta (4), and many features are the same as in IE8.

IE8 has a feature called InPrivate Browsing, which prevents IE from storing data about your browsing sessions, including cookies, temporary Internet files, history, and other data. ... Firefox 3 has Private Browsing, which provides the same functionality and does not retain visited pages, form and search bar entries, passwords, cookies, temporary or cached Internet files, and so forth.

They both offer at least one superscary privacy-invasion tool. In the case of IE8, it is called Suggested Sites, where your browsing history is sent to Microsoft to compare to related Web sites ... This feature is something that many (most) people are not pleased about. Microsoft said it will not store this information, but at the same time, Windows Help and Support information says that even items deleted from your browsing History "will be retained by Microsoft for a period of time to help improve our products and services." In Firefox, there is Location Aware Browsing (aka geolocation), where Firefox takes your IP address, information about nearby wireless access points, and a temporary cookie-like identifier and passes that off to Google ... so that searching in Google retrieves results that relate to your current location. ... That's something else I opt out of.

[AustinBill]

if (browser supports Adblock Plus)
...consider trying it
else
...ignore

[AFreeBird]

My system reports FF using 199m. I have two browser windows open, and a total of about 30 tabs. But no change in memory usage on it’s own. Now I have noticed that when I open up other windows and then close them down, they do not return memory, but no creep on its own as mentioned. Now that might be the difference between running in windows vs Linux. I’m running in the latter.

[JackOfVA]

I ran an experiment ...

Close FF and reopen at 3:38 PM. Memory 89 MB.

I left FF untouched, and on a page that is static without automatic updates.

Here’s what I found:

Time Memory
3:38 89 MB
3:47 105 MB
4:08 166 MB
4:50 223 MB
5:25 271 MB

During this entire time, Firefox was on the same page, one tab open, no new pages launched, no changes on the page being viewed, etc. For most of the time, the computer was idle. I would think that the memory usage should not have changed during this time, let alone triple.

Jack

[newfreep]

Forgetting about the biased MS bashing, what browser is best in terms of speed & stability on an XP platform? Safari?

[CedarDave]

Pick your poison:

browser speed comparison

Mozilla Delivers Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 with Major Speed Boost

[usmcobra]

I love my Firefox especially the new personas that can customize the basic browser with images to match your mood.

[ken21]

off topic, exucse me.

i have firefox updated.

tonight i went into yahoo.com to drudge.com

and i got this in my top address bar:

>http://raycleveland.org/<

i copied it and inserted it into a new window and drudge comes up.

what is this?

thanks,
ken

[CedarDave]

Have no idea, but sounds like a redirection but why don’t know.

[Swordmaker]

The correct pronunciation of IE is......

AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!

[newfreep]

Well, after several update notices from MS, I downloaded IE8 last night. No problems and IE8 is noticeably faster than IE7. Screens appear more clear and easier to read.

I noticed FR has solid bars between postings - do y'all have same format?

[FreedomPoster]

You are correct, it is almost certainly a memory leak in an add-on.

Tear’em all out, add them back one by one.

[FreedomPoster]

Very odd. I would be very suspicious of anything at that link. While it looks like Drudge, it does not resolve to the same Internet IP address as Drudge. So you have no idea what you are getting.

C:\>ping raycleveland.org

Pinging raycleveland.org [70.84.139.162] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 70.84.139.162: bytes=32 time=56ms TTL=49
Reply from 70.84.139.162: bytes=32 time=56ms TTL=49
Reply from 70.84.139.162: bytes=32 time=54ms TTL=49
Reply from 70.84.139.162: bytes=32 time=55ms TTL=49

Ping statistics for 70.84.139.162:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 54ms, Maximum = 56ms, Average = 55ms

C:\>ping www.drudgereport.com

Pinging drudgereport.com [66.28.209.219] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 66.28.209.219: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=48
Reply from 66.28.209.219: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=48
Reply from 66.28.209.219: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=48
Reply from 66.28.209.219: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for 66.28.209.219:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 97ms, Maximum = 98ms, Average = 97ms

C:\>

The domain appears to be registered to one Ray Cleveland in St. Paul.

[zeugma]

I’m confused. Was it a link at yahoo that claimed to be a link to drudge, or does your browser take you to that site when you put “www.drudgereport.com” in your address bar?

If the former, I’d say someone has subverted the yahoo page you were on in some way, if the latter, then you might want to scan for viruses.

[ken21]

i typed “dru” into the yahoo search engine; the yahoo engine completed it to “drudge report”. i clicked.

and it took me into the drudge web site.

but i happened to notice at the top of the address bar the “raycleveland.org” address.

i copied this address into a new window, and it took me back to the drudge report.

apparently it’s a redirector.

thank you for you reply.

[CedarDave]

A horizontal line like this:

---

Remove the space to create: < hr>

[JackOfVA]

WinAmp toolbar seems to be the problem. The other toolbars have stable memory usage. Enabling Winamp Toolbar starts the memory climb even when Firefox is idle.

Jack

[zeugma]

Lots of fun stuff you can do with "HR"

 

---

<hr>

---

<hr align="center" width="50%">

---

<hr align="center" size="5">

---

<hr align="center" width="30%" size="10">

---

<hr width="30%" size="20">

[Swordmaker]

Lots of fun stuff you can do with "HR"

If you want your horizontal rule to be shaded you have to add the switch "noshade" to the argument. Why "noshade" to get it shaded? I haven't got a clue.

The "align" argument is unnecessary on FR. It defaults to centered.

<hr width="50%" size="10" noshade>

---

<hr width="75%" size="30" noshade>

---

Or you can set both criteria for the arguments in pixels:

<hr width="150" size="150" noshade>

---

<hr width="10" size="150" noshade>

---

[Swordmaker]

See the previous post on more HR fun...

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I have been battling for cycles on a quad...decided javascript stuff was the culprit...so NoScript helps.