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Firefox 3 vs IE 7 vs Safari 3.1


section: common, for your questions: KezNews forum, 24.5.2008

A few short years ago the browser war seemed dead and buried. After Microsoft’s Internet Explorer usurped Netscape’s Navigator in the late 1990s, it’s domination of the Internet seemed complete, over 95 percent of us using a version of IE.




Those days are gone. The guts of Navigator were reborn in 2004 as Firefox, a browser that has been drinking more and more of IE’s milkshake ever since. Firefox now owns at least 18 percent of the market, with some estimates giving it more than a quarter. More recently, Apple has threatened to start a three-way fight, using the software updater included with iTunes to slip its Safari browser onto PCs. While its market share is miniscule – less than one per cent among PC users and around three per cent overall –Safari offers a PC users a credible third choice.

Meanwhile, IE 7 is groaning under the weight of bad press, criticised for its instability and sluggish performance. Apple is trumpeting Safari 3.1 as the world’s fastest browser, while Firefox 3 – which is now out of beta and into the Release Candidate stage – is claimed to be over twice as speedy as its predecessor.

PERFORMANCE

To get a perspective on how the browsers perform in the real world, we stepped away from our highly-specced Vista desktop and ran all our tests on a more typical office machine, a laptop running Windows XP on a 1.73GHz Pentium M chip with 1GB of RAM.

We then put each browser through its paces, asking them to load and reload five websites: our own gadgetzone.com.au homepage, smh.com.au, afl.com.au, au.yahoo.com and an international news site in the shape of nytimes.com. We repeated all our speed tests three times, clearing the cache when necessary, to produce an average result.

source: loader.gadgetzone.com.au

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Comments(12)

what the

By interested on 25.05.2008 - 00:05
so where are the results?

results

By resultsman on 25.05.2008 - 01:05
against the clock, safari was the clear speed demon, especially when it came to reloading pages it already visited and cached. firefox was second, with ie pulling up the rear.






the stopwatch doesn’t tell the full story, however. while firefox took a while to finish loading the page completely, all the elements that matter to the reader – the text and pictures – were loaded first. the remaining data loads in the background.



what this means in practise is that safari and firefox feel almost equally zippy, while ie 7 feels even slower than its load times suggest. in a head-to-head race to load each page so it looked complete to the naked eye, firefox 3 and safari 3.1 could not be separated on three of our five test sites. safari consistently had the edge on the other two, while ie 7 was a visible third every time.



verdict


benchmarking browsers by their load time is a useful but slightly misleading exercise, as our tests reflect. while ie 7 only slightly lags firefox 3 on the stopwatch, in real-world terms it comes in a very distant third. ie 8 has just entered beta and microsoft will need to do more than add new features to arrest the steady migration of users to not only firefox but also safari.



apple’s software is the browser of choice for mac users and it’s proving to be the speed king on windows pcs. the streamlined interface is easier to use than ie 7’s reinventing-the-wheel layout and if apple’s ipod halo effect shines a light on safari 3.1, many pc users will be pleasantly surprised by what they find.



in real world situations, however, firefox 3 hardly lags safari in the speed stakes, and offers more than just extra pep. version 3.0 is a big improvement to a browser that’s already the connoisseurs choice, and the new location bar alone will change your online life.



start typing in the revamped address bar and firefox starts sifting through your history, bookmarks and any blog-like tags you’ve attached to them to guess what page you’re looking for and bring those you visit most often to the top.



it’s enough to earn firefox 3 our recommendation as the browser to beat.

ratings



internet explorer 7.0 - 3/5

safari 3.1 - 4/5

firefox 3.0 rc1 - 5/5



IE FTW

By Super6mix on 25.05.2008 - 02:05
c'mon... ie sux, safari sux too....
i'll stick wit firefox...
firefox is da best!!!!!!

anit-apple.com (check it)

not real

Opera

By Will on 25.05.2008 - 08:05
opera is the fastest internet browser and ie is second when bundled with google accelerator.

Opera

By Will on 25.05.2008 - 08:05
opera is the fastest internet browser and ie is second when bundled with google accelerator. safari and firefox is meh. skip safari for windows cause it sux and firefox cause i just dont like it.

Dejan Matic

By stinger01 on 25.05.2008 - 10:05
softwer yur 10 top************super_helo frend_stinger01

Firefox rules forever

By sober man on 25.05.2008 - 12:05
firefox is the best browser. ie always so slow with malware container activex and safari comes from stinky rotten apple.
should ms replace ie with firefox as default browser in windows os. next windows 7, ey?
windows users, choose firefox as your salvation!

opera

By revx on 26.05.2008 - 01:05
i dont see google web accelerator in opera

The road less traveled makes all the difference

By mebabyme on 27.05.2008 - 08:05
opera is the fastest html browser on earth.
safari is faster in javascript.
ie and firepox are left in the dust, even the ff3 betas.

out of the box opera has the best defaults and power on windows, and is a tweakers delight; you don't need a plug-ins sillyness like ff to get it to do what you want.

it's been my main browser years for that reason.

to all firefox haters

By Godey on 29.05.2008 - 12:05
to mebabyme, will and all firefox haters... fyi firefox is the best thing that can happen to you on the web. fuck off with the lame ass opera and kiss firefox hello. it is just super.... come get ma d*/k if you don't fall in love with firefox.

Let ppl use wat they like.....I prefer Safari

By Bounty Hunter on 29.05.2008 - 16:05
i felt better using safari nd no one can change my good impression over it.....if some1 argues a lot then y don't he made his own internet browser..

Only Safari

By Casaannonce on 28.06.2008 - 01:06
safari is the best of the best

check this website
http://toshibalaptop.info


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