Web Browser Grand Prix 5: Opera 11.50, Firefox 5, And Chrome 12

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[citation][nom]moricon[/nom]On memory usage, Opera has a Tab recycle bin, after closing a tab, it is held in memory, so you may open closed tabs from the recycle bin, it is a Feature well used amongst Opera Fans, but if you had clicked empty Tabs Recycle bins the memory usage after closing 40 tabs and second 5 min wait would have been very very different!Overall, Opera gives the very best Stable browsing experience along with FireFox, the rest are simply buggy as hell![/citation]
We tried emptying the bin in WBGP3 (or 4?), it had no effect whatsoever. But I'll try again tomorrow before I wipe the test HDD.
 
[citation][nom]adamovera[/nom]We tried emptying the bin in WBGP3 (or 4?), it had no effect whatsoever. But I'll try again tomorrow before I wipe the test HDD.[/citation]
Firefox also has the recycle bin feature (crtl+shift+T or recycle bin icon). There is an option to clean it in the context menu brought up by right clicking on any tab bar.
 
@ adamovera:

1.can you do a short benchmark comparing palemoon vs firefox?
2. whats the advantage of 32 bit vs 64 bit web browser when even a 32bit FF5 could use 3.3GB+ ram ?
 
the acid 3 test wasn't really a great choice since both microsoft and mozilla have made clear they will never support the full test
http://limi.net/articles/firefox-acid3
(don't know the link to ms' article anymore)

also for pageloading, google's sites don't really say anything about other sites as far as chrome is considered due to their spdy technique
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/13/strangeloop_does_google_spdy/

still, you've done a great test!
really enjoyed reading :)
 
I'm about to read this article... but something I notice.

Firefox4 copied the Opera 10~11 interface style - just compare the screen shots and layout. Then IE9 copies FF4 style... but with a bigger incomplete circle back button.

Firefox, even today still has its same bugs since version 1.0... ugh. Chrome 12 looks and functions exactly like Chrome 1.0. Its stupid. And having FF jump from 4.0 > 5.0 in a matter of weeks?

Meanwhile, Opera goes through more drastic changes from 11.0 > 11.11 > 11.50. If they followed Chrome's way... Opera would jump be version 30 by now. Needless to say, Opera at 11.11 was fine, the tab look is slightly improved... but otherwise, its 11.xx Chrome should be 2.x, at the most... and still a bit of a pain-in-the-ass browser to use.
 
for those after security that firefox inside a linux monster is the most secure. However Chrome is the most secure out of all the usual ones that don't require GB's of space. It's also the fastest and easiest to use IMO and rarely suffers from problems with crashes/page load fails that can't be solved with F5.
 
At the html5test.com benchmark
The firefox bar is not correct!

On my MSI GX740 laptop:
Core i5 460m
Radeon 5870m

I get 286 points! With 9 bonus points.
 
Opera came out lower-middle of the pack? But with features that are rare on the Internet... oh well. it is somewhat good to include those benchmarks in this test.

With Opera and memory... keep in mind that Opera retains closed browsers. There is a trashcan to bring back a tab and its history. When you close down Opera and bring it back with all those tabs - those back buttons STILL work.

There should be a review for proper display and feature and functions. IE9 still turns into an ugly browser once a few add-on tool bars find their way.
 
I thought Lion came with Safari 5.1, or at least that's what I've seen in developer previews.
 
I learned one thing from this article. Safari sucks. Who the hell uses safari. On a mac, I'm using Chrome or Firefox. Love them both. IE would be third on my list.
 
based on my daily usage

chrome12 : fast, with 100tabs+ eat 4GB of memory + when it use pagefile it will lag whole system, broken flash sandbox (since chrome10) that won't let user use IME (asian language)

firefox5 : slower than chrome, better memory management (for 100tabs+), have better function set (like image info, background image view etc.)

IE9: ever since installed RTM that have memory leak issue with sidebars widget, i rollback to IE8, main use for ActiveX sites
 
The scoring methodology could be improved. Assigning 1,2,3,4,5 points based on the encog silverlight timings which range between 6.359522 seconds and 6.4928713 is ridiculous. Just showing that much precision is ridiculous. Any timings which are within 1% of another should be considered a tie.
 
[citation][nom]adamovera[/nom]Would love to, but that is difficult to do. No security benchmarks exist. If one was created, I'm sure all the vendors would make their product pass. The idea of adding pwn2own data was floated, but the versions wouldn't match the rest of the WBGP - except once a year.[/citation]

Find a website with questionable content and try to go there with all the different browsers. Just last week my sister's email was cracked and everybody in her address book got an email directing them to a dangerous site. My antivirus seemed to stop me from going there but I can't be 100% sure, and it didn't stop my wife from going there. Surely the internet community could provide you with plenty of sites to use for testing.
 
Just installed Chrome and it is running much slower than my tried and true Firefox 5. Visiting new sites on both. Trying to browse droidforums.net to get the scoop on the Droid 3 phone and it is dragging ass on Chrome.

I am shocked.
 
[citation][nom]dfusco[/nom]If you have not checked out Pale Moon see: http://www.palemoon.org/It's a custom built, optimized version of Firefox.[/citation]
[citation][nom]quirky[/nom]@ adamovera:1.can you do a short benchmark comparing palemoon vs firefox?2. whats the advantage of 32 bit vs 64 bit web browser when even a 32bit FF5 could use 3.3GB+ ram ?[/citation]
If we go beyond the top 5, it will be in a single article showcasing all the minor Web browsers together, not in the immediate cards though, maybe WBGP8+.
 
[citation][nom]aardmaat[/nom]the acid 3 test wasn't really a great choice since both microsoft and mozilla have made clear they will never support the full testhttp://limi.net/articles/firefox-acid3(don't know the link to ms' article anymore)also for pageloading, google's sites don't really say anything about other sites as far as chrome is considered due to their spdy techniquehttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/ [...] ogle_spdy/still, you've done a great test!really enjoyed reading[/citation]
With the new standards composite grade, the missing 3-5 points on Acid3 is now really downplayed. When a good replacement shows up, Acid3 will be replaced. I hope to re-work the page load times for WBGP6 or 7. I want to go the composite route and add more sites, maybe a lot more eventually.
 
1. Firefox has the best add-ons;

2. The best reliability - proper page loads;

3. The best battery efficiency (the laptop market is huge)

4. They are the best at Java;

5. The best at HTML Hardware Acceleration;

6. The best at HTML 5



How can IE be second place if it scores 3 times as weak, versus 1 time for Firexfox ?

And how relative to the other scores are the wins for Startup Time and Page Load Time if your browser can't display pages properly ? Chrome doesn't even score a "strong" result, only "acceptable".


The conclusion is wrong in my opinion. I use IE9, Opera and Firefox, and Firefox is by all acounts the best browser there is. IE doesn't load pages properly many times, and you have to toggle between compatibility view, and sometimes not even that works. Opera also doesn't work with many pages, to the extent you can't use many well known sites to enter data in forms. It's pathetic. IE9's interface also looks unfinished. What is that empty space at the top ? No use for that ? But if I want the menu bar (to restore the last browsing session, for example), it will occupy an extra line instead of going there. Pathetic.


Edit:

More: As to Chrome winning, see my arguments above; as to the rest, both Chrome and Firefox score exactly the same number of wins, the same number of strong results, the same number of acceptable results, and the same number of weak results. So, the deciding factor is everyday usability. Firefox wins.
 
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