Web Browser Grand Prix 7: Firefox 7, Chrome 14, Opera 11.51

[dizafrabadoo]

This review is great, but... I'm still staying with Chrome and very happy to stay with it. Show me something extremely ground breaking and I might switch, but I'm extremely pleased with Chrome and I'm sure it'll make it's way to the top. There's no point in switching from one browser to another. I'd still be a FireFox user right now if it hadn't sucked and slowed down for me a year ago... but it did, and now I'm converted and am happy where I am.

 

[killik]

"if it hadn't sucked and slowed down for me a year ago"

give a try to FF7 or even FF 10 64-BIT.you will be surprised by its speed and performance.

 

[hessesian]

The one main thing that no-one considered here.

To be able to use Firefox, you have to download whole load of addons and extensions for simplest things (like vertical tabs, IRC, content blocking, flash blocking, speed dial, mouse gestures... and on and on..). This causes: slower start up, slower page loading, decreased stability and other various bugs that come with it.

Opera on the other hand, has everything important in itself. That combined with superior stability and customization comes as a winner, because speed is currently un-noticable difference between browsers, its stability and usability that matters, and opera wins every time...

 

[Guest]

Yet another test on the inter-webs that doesn't show or mean anything. I would gladly challenge your composite results and overall conclusions, because essentially all you've done was to take the easy way out of such testing.

Those browser, or anything for that matter, would be properly tested in a scenario that involves first of all both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the browser on the native OS kernels. Second you should test all browsers (if available) on all systems:
winXP, winVista, win7 32 bit and 64 bit
MacOS X Lion again with 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the browsers
Linux - 2.4, 2.6, 3.0 32 bit and 64 bit. Again on 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the OS, not a multilib-ed Linux. And here you should probably stick to some Linux OS that has the stability in mind, lets say RHEL and Ubuntu-LTS or Debian Stable
Also you should run the tests on all BSD variants and on Solaris or OpenIndiana or whatever rocks your boat.

Perfect scenario would be to have DTrace running on Solaris, MacOS X, Net|FreeBSD while doing the tests once then again do them without debugging. Also throw in SystemTap for Linux also. And the appropriate (if applicable, I don't know MS products well) windows counterpart of Dtrace/SystemTap.

Also all test should be run at least 7 times, with the odd result taken out and the rest of 6 forming a composite number.

Then you should publish all your results in a downloadable form, so everyone can see them and do their own conclusions, might be most of the conclusions are like your, might be not. Either way, that is a proper scientific method. Everything else you've shown here is essentially rectum-stats. Provided you follow such a method, you would actually work for a living, because you would need at least a month or so to complete it properly. After all everybody should work, if you are short handed I hear the people looking for jobs in the States are quite a lot, I bet you could find at least one person happy to join in and do a proper job for you.

 

[davewolfgang]

Blah, Blah, Blah

The you should apply for a job.

They actually do have OTHER things to do besides this.

They have explained time and time again WHY they chose the browsers they do, and the OS they do.

They aren't going to include in the test something on less than 1-2% of machines - they have ALREADY explained that.

Are you the same person that "complains" at the GPU reviews because they don't include the Neflix/Hulu user who doesn't play games in their reviews - when the reviews are specifically FOR gamers on the first page of every single GPU review and if you're not a gamer, this review isn't for you....???

 

[belardo]

ff7 = cheap copy of Opera 11.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]soccerdocks[/nom]Until another browser beats Chrome in the speed/performance benchmarks I'm sticking with it.[/citation]

for me i use 3.
firefox for the sheer massive amount of tabs i use (currently at 250, but usually in the 500 range)
chrome for any multimedia, as it plays anything no problem, but it takes FAR to much resources to be the standard
and opera, for when im in game and dont want to open firefox (500+ tabs takes over 1gb of ram) chrome (as i have to restore it every time i use it, which is about 30-40 tabs, and that is well over 1.5gb, and if i dont restore, i lose all my tabs) but opera... i use it for nothing else but text reading.

 

[mrmaia]

Firefox is indeed a grest browser, but crowning the "best overall" is not adequate. Chrome is as good as, if not better than, FF7 in many aspects.

 

[Guest]

Is this a joke or something or is the author being sarcastic? Firefox has a HUGE memory leak. Let me look right now ---- Ok FF has 948 MB of ram when I look at the activity monitor and I only have 3 tabs open! If chrome wasn't so devoid of features (like not having print preview!!) I woud have switched a long time ago.

 

[soccerdocks]

[citation][nom]jeff5656[/nom] If chrome wasn't so devoid of features (like not having print preview!!) I woud have switched a long time ago.[/citation]

I don't know what you're talking about. Chrome has print preview.

 

[Guest]

The guys at lifehacker have very different results. Opera is the winner there in most tests... http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-firefox-7-chrome-14-internet-explorer-9-and-more

 

[macclearly]

Could not imagine using anything other than Firefox if only for the add-ons. Sure Chrome has some but once you have been doing something for almost eight years...

 

[radha2g]

How about replacing the single tab startup test with something like 3 tabs?
8 tabs might be a lot for some users, but 3-4 tabs may be quite common

 

[abar92]

Yesssssssssssssssss,at last the browser got the crown which desearves that,I was so sorry to see that even crappy E-explorer got the crown but not firefox!!!Now I'm too happy to see Firefox at the top and Firefox should be at top from its birth day

 

[abar92]

Yessssss,Firefox is topper from its birthday and I was sorry to see that ff has been beaten by crapppp internet explorer??????At last it gets what its deserve

 

[tlg]

I just downloaded Firefox to use. Can't stand the bugs of IE9 anymore. Today for some reason I couldn't push the "Submit my comment" button right here to comment on this post. Yesterday I could.

 

[danwat1234]

Mozilla is at Firefox 7, and still will not take advantage of more than 1 CPU or CPU core. Come on! But that is the only gripe I have with Firefox, everything else about it is good imo.

 

[jonathan_rg]

Opera FTW!

 

[ilikeandroid]

how about a comparison of mobile web browsers, including of android,ios and windows phone ?
that would be great . try to first check the html5 and test262 on them .

 

[adiposity]

They didn't modify Kraken...they just use the latest, unreleased version from Mozilla, which fixes some bugs.

 

[Guest]

I see different people look for different items as most important. For me it is less about speed and a lot more about reliability to correctly load a page. Features are nice but not if errors and outright crashes come with them. Rather than crowning a single winner how about a few categories of winners- 1:it works right and crashes less 2:it supports lots of fanciness well 3:it is amazingly fast no matter the errors and crashes 4:whatever else someone deems meritorious. That would really help different users find the right browser. For me it looks like opera after reading this whole article. Firefox become so weird I gave it no chance after 3.xxxx.

 

[Guest]

IE9 with the free IEpro addon makes IE9 the bst browser of any of them.

besides, firefox.. how the f did it "win" .. it didn't do good at all in the tests et it won.... the winner was pre chosen i think.

 

[Guest]

Firefox 7 as the winner of Grand Prix!?!i use Firefox
s

 

[Guest]

StumbleUpon only works with Firefox and IE. i will stay firefox

 

[elitewolverine]

meh ill stick with IE, most stable out of the 3 i tried, chrome and FF

also what tabs did you use for 40tabs?

I usually have 20-30 open on 4 seperate IE....i only have 2GB of ram and my IE footprint rarely if at all hits 1GB, and i am not just at googles homepage.

Also switch from google single tab startup to something that matters...yahoo, msn, etc...