Web Browser Grand Prix 9: Chrome 17, Firefox 10, And Ubuntu

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If you're copy of Firefox is leaking memory it's more likely that it's the add-ons that you have installed and not Firefox itself. Disable all the add-ons that you have installed and you'll be impressed with how it performs.

http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2012/02/16/mcafee-is-killing-us/
 
[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]Most people can only handle 1 or 2 tabs. While doing tests with 40~60 tabs is fine and all, its just a performance test. Not something that is used much in real life.[/citation]

Those people also don't care about WBGP and a couple of milliseconds here and there in some abstract browser benchmark.


[citation][nom]Spud44[/nom]If you're copy of Firefox is leaking memory it's more likely that it's the add-ons that you have installed and not Firefox itself. Disable all the add-ons that you have installed and you'll be impressed with how it performs.http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercot [...] illing-us/[/citation]

Ah, yes, the same old excuse. Firstly, no, it's not the addons, and secondly, even if they were, there is no point in Firefox without them.
 
[citation][nom]cryio[/nom]When Opera 12 will be released....browsers, beware! Something wicked this way comes![/citation]
Opera 11 is still the best Browser overall. The thing missing from this article series is any information in regards to the operation of the browser.

I wonder how may ff 4.x users know their modern ff interface is a direct copy from Opera 10? And that IE9 is a cheap copy of the ff4.x interface with bad space management (by default). Many of the features and functions seen in ff/IE and even Chrome were done on Opera, FIRST.
 
Until Linux/Unbuntu can outperform Windows on the internet it will stay in the "other" category of mainstream OSes. I cant wait until Unbuntu can equal the big guys but lets not forget Ubuntu's does not have the resources compared to Apple, MS, and Google so it is amazing what they have done to this point.
 
We see these browsers, but the optimized versions seem to get no attention. For Firefox, it would be nice to also have a look into Waterfox and Palemoon. It would also be nice to see the TOR version of Firefox, but that's undoubtedly a lot slower.

There's probably even more Firefox derivatives. On Ubuntu there's Minefield and many more.

I use Comodo Dragon instead of Chrome and woulds like to see those two compared too. I'm not sure about it being faster, but it claims to be even more secure and it gives me somewhat more control over the browser. Importantly, it still works with Chrome apps :)

I don't know of a modified Opera or safari, but there's probably many browsers similar to IE. The only one I remember is MiniBrowser, but there are more.

Otherwise, it's a great article, except for the several typos. There were just too many! I stopped counting after three. Understandably, this is a large article so it has more chances for a typo to slip by proof-reading, but some of them were very inconveniently placed and I had to infer what they were supposed to be.
 
I'm assuming these benchmarks are done straight out of the box with no add-ons or other tweaks. I used to use Firefox, then went to Chrome for a while, which I do think is an amazing browser. I then decided to try Waterfox, which was outstanding, which has led me to my current browser...Firefox Nightly (64-bit). While I agree with the benchmarks that show Chrome as one of the highest performing, I will counter that simply doing the about:config tweaks to Firefox, or using an add-on like Fasterfox, makes a noticeable difference. Nightly 13 is extremely fast for me, and stable, counter to why people are afraid to use it. I'm just happy there is browser competition because we all get to enjoy. Chrome or Firefox is what I'll stick with for some time. I'll be interested to see how Opera's 64-bit browser makes out when it is ready for release.
 
Regardless, Opera FEELS the fastest to use, and has by far the most features and smallest footprint, which is why it's my browser of choice.
 
Why would one select an AMD/ATI GPU for a competition featuring web browser based hardware acceleration on Ubuntu?
Also, I am able to view any of the webgl demos on the Chrome experiments page with ease (50+fps) using Chrome 17 on Linux Mint 12. How is it that webgl is listed as not being supported by Chrome in Linux?
 
I challenge anyone to use the same browser to compare Ubuntu & Win. on the same hardware and see which feels faster by orders of magnitude.
 
[citation][nom]txsouthpaw[/nom]I challenge anyone to use the same browser to compare Ubuntu & Win. on the same hardware and see which feels faster by orders of magnitude.[/citation]

I've compared Firefox in XP and Mint 11 and found it to be about the same, maybe a bit faster in XP.
 
Only thing perhaps missing is how they handle a lot of big picture sites, Firefox does eat a tooons of memory (for like 30-60 big picture) while others seem to use only for those on screen.
Beside that great review.
 
[citation][nom]Chetou[/nom]I've compared Firefox in XP and Mint 11 and found it to be about the same, maybe a bit faster in XP.[/citation]

I think it was Windows 7 that should be compared to Linux because XP is over ten years old and current versions of Linux are not.

Linux also has much faster distributions than Ubuntu and Mint. Has anyone here ever tried something like Tinycore? Firefox on Tinycore was a LOT faster than Firefox on Windows XP on my older desktop, I haven't tried it again on my newer machines yet.

Although, Tinycore does have a learning curve and takes more work to get many things done. However, putting on Firefox is not one of those hard to do things and is very easy, even easier than installing Firefox on Windows and that's already easy.

When an old P4 system has pages loading almost instantly on Tinycore when compared to Windows XP, then there is definitely something to Linux.
 
That was close! If it wasn`t for the strong finishes, Chrome 17 would have swept the board! I hardly saw Firefox at all in the winning column for windows 7.
And, need I say this: MAZE SOLVER?! Firefox was awful at that! Im not using something that could be awful at some features.....

Well, I might be with the minority, but it is Chrome 17 for me, I will never leave Chrome. I may download Firefox as a backup (so that if Chrome fails, I do not need to use IE) but thats all it gets for me.
Firefox, youre awful!!!!!
 
@016ive: I totally agree!! Chrome is the king of web browsers, in both Windows and ubuntu! Someone must have worked things out wrong, since Firefix won virtually nothing in Win7, yet it takes victory?!

Funny stuff... I`m starting to just use my own tests rather than Toms Hardware graphs. Chrome is king.
 
@spotify95

Chrome had some points where Firefox completely killed it. Firefox won because it is overall slightly better right now, not because of some screw-up accident made by Tom's staff. You ignore the problems with your favorite browser and you ignore the good qualities of the competition, that's practically the definition of a fanboy.

Besides that, do you use a lot of tabs? I ask because I often use my older laptop that has 2GB of memory and Chrome uses a helluva lot more memory than Firefox. I can have hundreds of tabs open at once in Firefox and yes I do use them all, Chrome simply can't compete there right now.

Chrome is better than Firefox in some things, Firefox is better in others. Overall, they are pretty close most of the time and some of the things shown here are just to close even if its a 50% or 100% difference. I don't care if Chrome or Firefox can do a task a few milliseconds or even several dozen milliseconds faster than the other and several of the things shown here are just that.

I use Comodo Dragon (modified Chromium) and Palemoon (speed-optimized Firefox, it's even faster) most of the time. Chrome/Dragon work well with moderate numbers of tabs whilst Firefox/Palemoon fly around Chrome/Dragon in high tab counts. Firefox and Palemoon's interfaces are also much more suitable for high numbers of tabs.
 


Firefox is still on par with or ahead of IE in almost every way. If it's slow then maybe there's a different problem. You could try Palemoon, it's Firefox except faster. You can also try some of the performance enhancing add-ons such as fasterfox, but at that point I can see Firefox not being worth the hassle. Still, you could give Palemoon a try and see if it seems faster. If it doesn't then there might be something wrong with your computer or maybe Firefox doesn't work well with some of the sites you are visiting. I've only noticed Firefox being slow when I have more tab than memory.

IE is also less secure than pretty much any other common browser.
 
To be honest Im not saying anything about Toms staff. They do what they are supposed to do.
And, in response, I use less than 10 tabs all of the time - and Chrome is speedy-quick all of the time. It does use memory, but releases it straightaway after Chrome is closed.

And yes, I love my Chrome, but (if I can be persuaded enough) I may use Firefox as well - have tried it before and its better than IE.

 
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