


The makers of 3DMark take on the web













Comments     Threshold


Why is browser speed a concern?
By ashtonmartin on 8/10/2009 2:18:14 PM , Rating: 3
I run a C2D E4300 with 6 gigs of ram and I've never had a problem with speed. Why do people care about browser speed? it's not like a video game or photoshop that's computational intensive. if anything, your bandwidth is the limiting factor in most cases.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Spivonious on 8/10/2009 2:22:40 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly. And since most websites are chock-full of server-side logic, the CPU in your machine means next to nothing. The only thing that you local CPU would provide a noticeable performance increase in would be Javascript/VBscript.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Spivonious on 8/10/2009 2:30:05 PM , Rating: 2
I ran through the benchmark and the tests are 90% javascript. We all know IE's Javascript engine isn't that fast.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By MrBungle123 on 8/10/09, Rating: 0
RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By halcyon on 8/10/2009 2:41:01 PM , Rating: 5
Most people today are running sub-2GHz single core computers more than 3 years old.

Yes, Anandtech and general heat-seeking web-using young male readers may be using what you describe and part of the business crowd, but that's about it.

And yes, browser speed does matter to some of us, even if you are not one of them.

Don't mistake everybody else to have the same needs as you.

As more and more apps are moving to the browser and the cloud, it makes sense to test the browser speed, esp. complex HTML 5.0 / CSS and EcmaScript speeds.

In a few years we'll all be happy that somebody pushed the browser vendors to shape up their rendering / compilation speeds.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By tastyratz on 8/10/2009 3:18:13 PM , Rating: 5
Plus: its measuring browser speed- not the capabilities of your computer and how much the browser will load you down. There are latencies and inefficiencies in certain operations that can cause something such as a web browser to display a page slower even when its not limited by computational power. An example would be some pages that just take an extra second or 2 to come up even though its not a web slowdown and it might only be using 10% cpu.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By B3an on 8/11/2009 1:32:00 AM , Rating: 3
I'd like to add that even on my 4.2GHz i7 with 12GB DDR3 RAM i can easily notice that Chrome is faster than FF3.5, and especially IE8 at loading pages.

So the argument about computers being so fast now that browser speed does not matter is pure cr*p. If i was to have a 10GHz i7 i'm positive i'd still notice Chrome being faster, because it's not down to CPU/hardware speed.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By B3an on 8/11/2009 1:33:34 AM , Rating: 2
Not all down to CPU/hardware speed i meant.

By Mojo the Monkey on 8/11/2009 1:35:31 PM , Rating: 3
Dang, and here I was with my lowly 4.1ghz i7 and 11GB DDR3 RAM, not noticing any difference at all. I have to get my hands on that last .1 gzh and gig of ram.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By rs1 on 8/10/2009 5:49:11 PM , Rating: 2
I mostly agree, except for the part about it making sense to test HTML 5. Virtually nothing actually uses HTML 5 right now (apart from a handful of interesting but mostly useless tech demos), despite its popularity in the press. While HTML 5 benchmarks will likely be important in the future, they are of little use right now, and because most browsers are just rolling out the initial iteration(s) of their HTML 5 engines I think any benchmark results would be misleading at best (especially if trying to draw conclusions about which browser is "fastest"). The performance of all the different HTML 5 engines is likely to change significantly once people start using it to implement real applications and the browser developers get a sense of how people are going to use HTML 5 in real life.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By headbox on 8/10/2009 6:24:22 PM , Rating: 5
Thanks for your comment. The first few sound like people who say "the speed limit is 55, why would I want a Corvette?"

My kids play free games online. Sites like Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc. all have some heavy browser-based games. Performance is important and noticeable. It's also noticeable on media-heavy sites, like those made by music groups or animators. Not everyone is on a Core i7 while looking at craigslist.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By erple2 on 8/11/2009 1:41:49 PM , Rating: 2
In that case, you're talking about flash performance. And I don't think that there's an appreciable difference between browsers and platforms for flash.

By JoshuaBuss on 8/12/2009 10:40:23 AM , Rating: 3
you're crazy. try IE8 on youtube then try chrome..

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Keeir on 8/10/2009 7:21:24 PM , Rating: 2
I would add to this that 1-2 seconds difference may not mean anything for one page loading, but when dealing with mobile applications, 1-2 seconds several times a minute really add up to more productivity per battery life.

Also, loading 100-200 pages a day. 1 second a page is more than a minute a day, and several hours over the course of a year... and this holds true for almost all level of time savings... switchings from IE8 to Firefox to Safari means hours a year for pretty much any user.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Etern205 on 8/10/09, Rating: -1
RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Alexstarfire on 8/10/2009 5:12:08 PM , Rating: 2
A broken browser does not equal a slow browser, just FYI.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Etern205 on 8/10/2009 6:44:18 PM , Rating: 2
FYI, I know the difference between a busted browser and a slow broswer...

IE busted: IE does not load any webpage, but browser works fine.
IE slow: Takes longer than any other browser to load a page.

It does not matter how it goes, on a clean OS install XP w/SP3 or Vista w/SP2 and all updates, certain sites under IE8 takes a long time. But I've found out if you click on the compatiblity view mode, the webpage loads right away.

There is a compatiblity list pack for IE8 and hopefully that will speed up the loading of a webpage.

By Etern205 on 8/10/2009 6:46:14 PM , Rating: 2
missing word: but other browser works fine. :)

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By MRwizard on 8/10/2009 8:00:50 PM , Rating: 1
you've bever heard of the internet black hole have you?

By MrPoletski on 8/11/2009 7:17:12 AM , Rating: 2
Once you go black you never go back...

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By stubeck on 8/10/2009 8:30:16 PM , Rating: 2
No they aren't. Just because the people you know do, doesn't mean everyone else does. Up to a few weeks ago I had a 2 year old 2 GHz system, and even that is faster than most people have.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Fox5 on 8/10/2009 3:27:20 PM , Rating: 4
Javascript, along with flash, is about the only stressful web content available.

But I'll say, Firefox 3.5 is noticeably faster for me than most other browsers, and Chome is the only browser that provides me with a smooth browsing experience with dozens of open tabs.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Omega215D on 8/10/2009 3:35:55 PM , Rating: 2
I currently like to use Firefox 3.5 and a not so well known browser called Sleipnir. Chrome is good but there are times when clicking on a tab it gets pulled out and forms a new window even though I released the mouse button.

By Omega215D on 8/10/2009 3:39:51 PM , Rating: 2
I want to mention that Safari is the most used on my MacBook because the scrolling and overall web experience is smoother than Firefox 3.5 for Mac but there are some sites that don't display properly in Safari...

By dragonbif on 8/10/2009 8:03:54 PM , Rating: 2
I just did the tests with IE8 and Firefox and ya Firefox is faster but I did something diffrent with the 2nd round of tests. I turned off the backward complatibility in IE8 for 7 and 6 and found that with it turned off it goes faster. At work we use IE8 because of the backward compatibility so we will not be turning it off there and I use Firefox mostly at home.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By thornburg on 8/10/2009 2:30:09 PM , Rating: 3

You've left off Flash, the bane of speedy web-browsers everywhere.

Also, when was the last time you visited a site that wasn't absolutely loaded with Flash and/or Javascript?

If you've never browsed the web with Noscript blocking *everything*, you should try it. It's a Firefox plugin, if that wasn't obvious.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Spivonious on 8/10/2009 2:59:07 PM , Rating: 2
I try to avoid Flash-based sites (the only one I visit somewhat regularly is Youtube) and the sites I visit that use Javascript are using it for very trivial things that even a 486 could run through in a blink of an eye.

I left off Flash because this benchmark doesn't use it (and I agree wholeheartedly that it shouldn't, since the browser maker has no control over the speed of an Adobe plugin.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By rocket86 on 8/10/2009 4:40:15 PM , Rating: 2
If you are a Firefox user I suggest you to try out Flashblock plugin. That way every website you visit (which you haven't whitelisted in Flashblock configuration) has its flash-based content blocked so that it won't clog up the CPU cycles. Instead of flash content is shown a white box of equal size with flash icon – one can enable the actual flash content by clicking it.

By Spivonious on 8/10/2009 4:48:34 PM , Rating: 2
I just run 64-bit IE8. Since no Flash plugin exists for it, I don't have flash things popping up. If I'm on a page where I need Flash (which is a poorly designed page, imo), I just open up 32-bit IE8 and paste in the link.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By GeorgeH on 8/10/2009 2:35:08 PM , Rating: 5
Thank you. I've never understood the "Fastest Browser" nonsense; it's like benchmarking a word processing program. Once a certain level is reached, it really doesn't matter.

Features, stability, compatibility, usability, security - these are the types of things DO matter. The ability to load a standard benchmark page 0.3s faster and get 459483439 more points on some random score sheet? Not so much, unless you're a "reviewer" that can't actually review something.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Motley on 8/10/2009 9:09:11 PM , Rating: 2
Perhaps, but we definitely haven't reached that certain level yet. As a web developer, I have had to rework pages because the average browser wasn't capable of giving a decent user experience because of javascript performance issues. Often when dealing with CRUD type applications where you are caching a moderate sized dataset client side and building a grid/form type UI so that it's responsive during mass changes.

Unfortunately with the browser performance in the past, that would only be feasible for minuscule sized datasets. We are getting better, but each improvement in javascript allows more client side interactivity, and increases responsiveness.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By TomZ on 8/10/2009 3:10:42 PM , Rating: 1
I disagree. Each time I have upgraded my computer in the past, one of the things I first notice is that my web experience improves. Pages render faster, despite being the same browser and version and of course with an unchanged Internet connection speed. Browser rendering speed does matter to the overall browsing experience.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By poohbear on 8/10/2009 3:35:58 PM , Rating: 2
really? i find that hard to believe. i've never noticed a diff in internet browser speeds ever since the single core Athlon XP days.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By TomZ on 8/10/2009 4:20:28 PM , Rating: 2
Then you're not paying attention too closely.

Try this - find an old (slow) machine and a new (fast) machine. Load the same OS and browser, and run them side-by-side. You'll notice that the faster machine lets you browse quite a bit faster. Pages load and render faster.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Alexstarfire on 8/10/2009 5:01:17 PM , Rating: 2
The difference between my netbook with an Atom CPU and my E8500 OCed to 3.0Ghz there is very little difference, the browser itself loads a bit faster, but that's likely due to the slower HDD it has in it. If you'd like me to go back further I could go check out the P3 CPU I have just sitting in my basement. Though considering it'll have to run XP or Win 7 with a low amount of RAM it might just be slow in general.

Any live-CD version of Linux that wouldn't slow it down?

By boldingd on 8/10/2009 5:55:05 PM , Rating: 2
Hmm. Not an Ubuntu spin. But, find something using BlackBox as a WM. That should run pretty well. ;)

Maybe ?

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By omnicronx on 8/10/2009 6:01:43 PM , Rating: 2
Well then there must be something wrong with your system. I have my X2 3800 setup next to my X2 2.7GHZ setup on separate monitors and my new computer definitely loads pages much faster. Same amount ram, same OS but different, clockspeed and rendering times. There is no way you cannot tell the difference between an Atom and a C2D 3GHZ.. Its night and day, even with basic HTML, add in javascript and the difference can be two fold.

By Alexstarfire on 8/10/2009 8:18:52 PM , Rating: 2
I would argue that something must be wrong with yours because both load at nearly identical speeds for me.

By reredrum on 8/11/2009 5:21:59 AM , Rating: 2
not true...

for people with slower computers, like me, browser speed does make a HUGE difference. firefox 3.5 is the fastest for me. I notice a very large increase in speed when using it. in particular java script and flash load noticeably faster in FF3.5. i also have one of the fastest internet connections in the country..... - not that it matters considering internet speed isn't based on u're provider.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By lebe0024 on 8/10/2009 2:40:00 PM , Rating: 1
It is HUGE when developing a content heavy and/or JavaScript heavy web application. I'm currently writing such a web-app. Downloading the content is not the bottleneck for me, it's rendering and JavaScript. I've optimized my JavaScript as much as I can, and the difference between IE and non-IE is very noticeable. Some pages take 1 second for chrome to render vs 45 seconds for IE.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Hakuryu on 8/10/2009 2:56:36 PM , Rating: 2
Are you sure your times (1 second versus 45) is accurate?

I've been to many sites with with alot of content and heavy JavaScript, and have never noticed a webpage taking more than 10-15 seconds with IE (and that is with probable network traffic issues- ie (no pun intended) the whole page took a while to download).

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Cobra Commander on 8/10/2009 2:56:40 PM , Rating: 5
Couldn't agree more.
Browser speed has not been a concern of mine in years.

#1 Concern: Security
#2 Concern: Functionality
#3 Concern: Compatibility

But speed? That's so 90's...

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By sebmel on 8/10/2009 3:09:04 PM , Rating: 2
I tend to agree with you there... unless someone's stuck with an old PC it isn't going to make much difference.

Unfortunately, IE is going so great with regard to standards either. It lags well behind the others in the Acid 3 test.:

Are Microsoft going to play the embrace and extend game again, to fracture the internet in a standards war, or are they just being slow to catch up?

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By sebmel on 8/10/2009 3:11:34 PM , Rating: 2
Error, I meant: IE isn't going so great on standards

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By wallijonn on 8/10/2009 6:02:50 PM , Rating: 1
Why do people care about browser speed?

On my LAN IE8 takes about 8 seconds to open a page, while Chrome takes 2 and Opera 10 beta takes one second. Now imagine that you were working with a wireless or modem connection which are typically much slower. It could be that IE8 will take 16 seconds to open while Opera 10b may only take 2 seconds. Which do you think you'll end up using?

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By Motley on 8/10/2009 9:11:53 PM , Rating: 4
In your example, IE might be 16 (8+8), but then Opera would be at 9 (1+8). Modem/wireless adds time, it doesn't multiply the browser speed.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By BZDTemp on 8/10/2009 7:59:52 PM , Rating: 2
Great that you never had a speed problem but it is not like you represent every user in the world. A fast efficient browser can make a nice difference when visiting very advanced sites and/or using slow hardware.

For example it is not like the many netbooks out there are blessed with the fastest hardware and then there is the online-apps Google-apps.

Whatever you think why let your computer run with slow apps if there a fast apps which on the same time offer superior options as well. Fx. with Firefox and a couple of plugins you will never have to see another ad again nor have to use bandwidth for downloading the ads. That makes a speed difference :-)

By 2bdetermine on 8/10/2009 9:48:39 PM , Rating: 2
Peacekeeper doesn't mean diddlysquat. It only a testing tool in a control environment. What count is performance in a real world.

By Griswold on 8/11/2009 2:34:08 AM , Rating: 2
Its important to all those weaklings who think browsing the web and e-mailing is the highest art of computing. They too need to benchmark their machines for e-peen confidence, you know...

Next up will be a e-mail benchmark that benchmarks how fast you can send and receive spam.

RE: Why is browser speed a concern?
By DOSGuy on 8/11/2009 5:26:26 PM , Rating: 2
This is a Java example, so it shouldn't differ from browser to browser, but I can nevertheless give you an example of a computationally intensive application that you run in your browser. Here are 160+ DOS games that you can play in your browser:

The site uses a Java PC emulator called JPC. JPC claims to run at 20% native speed, which I think is an exaggeration. It can play DOOM and Strife, for instance, but slowly.

Once again, since Sun makes the JVM, this isn't a browser-specific example. Still, there's a NES emulator that you can run in a broswer (vNES) and now an x86 emulator. Google's upcoming Chrome OS is designed to let a netbook surf the web and nothing else. Google is counting on you using web-based office suites so that you won't miss Microsoft Office. In fact, Google wants you to do everything online. Cloud computing is coming, and cheap netbooks without hard drives (just an SD card reader) may usher in an era where even your data is online.

Some of this ambitious online future will be based on HTML 5 and JavaScript, so your choice of browser could make a big difference in the near future. To those who think that browsers render pages and run script fast enough, I say: just wait!

I don't care so much...
By MrBlastman on 8/10/2009 2:14:53 PM , Rating: 5
As to how fast a browser is versus how accurately it renders a page, how stable it is and how accessible and functional it is.

As far as stability is concerned, Safari is a stale turd. What a POS. While speed is great for some things, browsing is the last to come to mind.

RE: I don't care so much...
By sebmel on 8/10/2009 3:00:27 PM , Rating: 2
Is that Safari on Windows or Mac?

I have had it crash on me perhaps 3 times in the last three years on a Mac, so I can't corroborate your experience.

Having said that, I have heard another opinion that the Beta for Windows was not usable day to day... but nothing since. Anyone else out there tried out the Windows version?

XP, Vista, 7... opinions would be interesting.

RE: I don't care so much...
By MrBlastman on 8/10/2009 3:16:12 PM , Rating: 2
On a Mac. The darned thing crashes all the time on my Wife's Macbook... and it has all the latest updates.

RE: I don't care so much...
By sebmel on 8/10/2009 3:47:58 PM , Rating: 1
OK, well you've got an issue on that computer then. I have seen this once before on MacBook Pro. A corrupted copy of Safari kept freezing.

Throw away the app preferences and see if this solves the issue.

If that doesn't cure the problem then you need to:

1. Download the app from Apple:
2. Export your bookmarks to the desktop
3. Delete the old app, it's prefs and any Safari folder in your home library and in home library/app support (such as Safari AdBlock).
4. Move contents of Internet Plug-Ins in the main Library to a folder on the desktop.
5. Install again from your downloaded version
6. Import bookmarks
7. Check it works
8. Add your plugins again, one at a time and check to see if any one is causing instability.

There's no way you need to accept instability from Safari. It's rock solid in a clean install.

RE: I don't care so much...
By 67STANG on 8/10/2009 4:07:00 PM , Rating: 5
Alternatively, you can:

1) Download FireFox

RE: I don't care so much...
By Chocobollz on 8/13/2009 4:07:45 AM , Rating: 2
Or better yet, Opera :-)

RE: I don't care so much...
By Griswold on 8/11/2009 2:37:11 AM , Rating: 3
I heard macs just work. They got no issues like that... was that a false claim? :p

RE: I don't care so much...
By TSS on 8/12/2009 1:43:37 AM , Rating: 2
Actually i've never seen an corrupted IE install either. talking 6,0 here.

Don't think i've even seen IE crash.... It's about as secure as a hoover dam made out of swiss cheese, but it doesn't crash that often.

Actually i've only seen firefox having a habbit of crashing, and that was alot of versions ago.

RE: I don't care so much...
By Chocobollz on 8/13/2009 4:35:03 AM , Rating: 2
LOL, no crash? Really? I can reproduce a lot of IE crashes right now by opening an MHT file with some Chinese characters on it, or if there was a "!" char on it. For example, "file!.mht". IE would hung and you'll need to "end task"-ing it. Not that it's matter, I'm just giving you an example :P

By MrDiSante on 8/10/2009 2:49:03 PM , Rating: 5
Why are there no Linux/Mac/Other lists of the top scores? Currently, our system scan technology only works on Windows PCs. Without knowing the hardware details of a system, the performance score alone is not enough to create a list of top scores.


Now let's see if I have this right: you don't know the hardware specs of the machines running the tests, but you go ahead and claim Macs are faster anyhow? Yeah, Windows tends to run on Atom processors among other things and yeah an Atom is gonna be a lot slower than C2D/Q. Alternatively, if you're testing on the same Mac then it's still hardly any wonder - the Windows drivers for Macs are notoriously shoddy.

RE: Self-Contradiction
By johnsonx on 8/10/09, Rating: -1
RE: Self-Contradiction
And then we get into the numbers game.




RE: Self-Contradiction

RE: Self-Contradiction

RE: Self-Contradiction
By sebmel on 8/10/2009 3:28:42 PM , Rating: 2
I believe that the Peacekeeper FAQ you are referring to is talking about their online test, which I can confirm doesn't work on a Mac, online.

I suspect one will find that they did not initially test their own software online.

I understand your point but I doubt that guys with the intelligence to write the browser test code are so unintelligent that they don't understand that processors of different speed will produce different results. They've used a hackintosh or a dual booting Mac.

RE: Self-Contradiction
By MrDiSante on 8/10/2009 6:25:53 PM , Rating: 2
I very much doubt that they would have used a hackintosh since that would mean entering a legal quagmire that no one wants to get into. As for a dual-booting Mac, I did address that in my previous post: "the Windows drivers for Macs are notoriously shoddy".

Chrome has more ads??
By DominionSeraph on 8/10/2009 3:20:31 PM , Rating: 2
Ok, after seeing this article, I downloaded Chrome. I tried my favorite sites and found that Chrome did seem to get to a 'stable' load-state quite a bit faster than IE8. (On content-heavy sites, IE8 pauses for a few seconds before I can start to scroll, then stutters for another before things smooth out. Chromes settles down faster.)

HOWEVER, I noticed that Chrome doesn't smooth-scroll, so I did a search for "Google Chrome scrolling" to see if there was a setting I was missing. The first site that comes up is which I noticed seemed to be having font issues. So I opened the page in IE8 to see if that was due to Chrome (it isn't), and noticed that Chrome has Google ads that IE8 doesn't! And I mean BIG, in-article ads of the "Sponsered search results" type.

UPDATE: Ok, after doing a little searching, it's a part of Google's AdSense. I actually had to click on the "Ads by Google" ad to find that out, though. You can opt-out, although the permanent method (by plugin) doesn't yet work in Chrome. (and you have to jump through hoops to find out their workaround is to disable all third-party cookies)

Google, f*ck you for opting me in.

RE: Chrome has more ads??

RE: Chrome has more ads??
Bye-bye Chrome.

Google: Keep your data-mining off my porn machine.

RE: Chrome has more ads??



RE: Chrome has more ads??



RE: Chrome has more ads??

RE: Chrome has more ads??
By harmaton on 8/10/2009 2:14:34 PM , Rating: 5
microsoft is awesome and apple sucks.

Did I get it right?

RE: but
By Bender 123 on 8/10/2009 3:20:46 PM , Rating: 3
No, you forgot Linux FTW!!!!!11!!!! 1337 Haxors

But seriously, OS2 Warp all the way.

By MrBungle123 on 8/10/2009 2:18:27 PM , Rating: 2

IE8 may be slow and bloated but with a relatively fast processor and a decent amount of RAM is there any noticable real world difference in speed? I think I'm just going to stick with IE out of sheer lazyness.

RE: Meh
By Uncle on 8/10/2009 2:31:13 PM , Rating: 2
As long as people allow MS to log where they are going by checking your page on their servers for your protection,so you don't get any malware, each place you go to in IE8 will be a bit slower.If you shut off all the protection, its abit snappier.The amount of malware progs that get into the addons can really take a toll also.

RE: Meh
By metaltoiletry on 8/10/2009 2:40:51 PM , Rating: 2
I can't wait to benchmark all my browsers on my computer at home with a 4ghz C2D. I'm at work now and only have a Celeron 440...

Mac vs PC vs Linux
By jondbond007 on 8/10/2009 3:41:21 PM , Rating: 2
If the Mac is faster than Windows, imagine how slow Linux is. I'm a recent convert from Mac to Ubuntu, and there's definitely a problem here: browser performance on Linux sucks. (esp. with Flash, but that's not Linux's fault, and I run flashblock)

Clearly Linux is not the ideal desktop os, though I like it for very different reasons.

RE: Mac vs PC vs Linux
By sprockkets on 8/10/2009 5:26:32 PM , Rating: 2
Of course, then again, Safari is based off of WebKit, which started from KHTML, which was a KDE app primarily used in Linux...

But yes, speed wise, FF was always better in Windows.

RE: Mac vs PC vs Linux
By PhoenixKnight on 8/11/2009 10:51:04 AM , Rating: 2
Try using the Links browser in Linux. It loads pages fast and Flash is a complete non-issue.

Opera Rocks!
By Belard on 8/10/2009 4:19:37 PM , Rating: 2
Its not quite the fastest...

But yeah, Opera is an excellent browser to use. Haven't used IE as a main browser for over a year.

No reason to.

RE: Opera Rocks!
By amandahugnkiss on 8/11/2009 1:21:53 AM , Rating: 2
I tried to use Opera just for testing and found it didn't support NTLM, Kerberos, DEP, ASLR and ECC, that makes it pretty useless in an enterprise environment.

RE: Opera Rocks!
By amandahugnkiss on 8/11/2009 1:27:02 AM , Rating: 2
A quick look online shows that they now support DEP and ASLR but the other ommissions are still too much.

Instead of screaming at each other....
By damianrobertjones on 8/11/2009 4:04:54 AM , Rating: 2
How about actually POSTING links to these pages that take ages?

Step 1: Open your browser of choice
Step 2: Clear the cache
Step 3: Open, from favourites, your page of choice and post the seconds before the page is ready to go. Of course, I don't expect people to count the same as each other as that would be impossible.
ie8 = 10 seconds (with various plugins, all updates)
ie8 = 8 seconds (no plugins, all updates)
ff = 9 seconds (3.5.2, straight install)
Chrome = 10 seconds (straight install

Core 2 2Ghz, 3gb ram, 7200rpm hd, Vista, all updates

Let's all be honest here, most guys just surf for tech stuff, pron and or music. Heck, if it takes longer then work flies past..

By damianrobertjones on 8/11/2009 4:17:05 AM , Rating: 2
P.s. I swear, apple must be throwing around their money as they really are appearing EVERYWHERE these days

By DominionSeraph on 8/11/2009 6:17:38 PM , Rating: 2

ie8 = 3 seconds
ie8 (no addons) = 2 seconds
ff + adblock = 4 seconds

ie8 = 6 seconds (2 seconds + another 4 for right-hand ad)
ie8 (no addons) = 5 seconds (2 seconds + 3 for ad)
ff + adblock = 1 second (blocks ad)

Athlon 64 3200+ 2GB XP SP3.

Apple Faster?
By MozeeToby on 8/10/2009 2:16:01 PM , Rating: 2
But, for the same specs, an Apple computer will run at least $200 more than a PC. I would think that performance per dollar would be more important than a measure of performance based on hardware, since that is what would inform consumers trying to make a choice.

RE: Apple Faster?
By Inkjammer on 8/10/2009 2:27:55 PM , Rating: 2
And when the average page takes 1 to 2 seconds to load a savings of 5-10% is so insignificant nobody will ever really notice in day to day use (unless they're loading up bloated webpages).

My observations
By corduroygt on 8/10/2009 2:26:00 PM , Rating: 2
I have a dual core PC and a macbook, and my personal observations confirm this. Safari 4 renders pages much faster than IE8, as long as there is no flash. When flash is involved, for example on when the article has a video you can click to play, Apple chokes and I see the spinning beach ball for a good 20 seconds before I can scroll the page again. This is WITHOUT actually clicking on the video.

RE: My observations
By sebmel on 8/10/2009 3:57:43 PM , Rating: 2
Adobe Flash for Mac is terrible... a real CPU hog.

Any tiny little bit of flash gets the CPU heated up and the fan running. I'm not sure there's much will at Adobe to do anything about it, since they haven't optimised Photoshop in years either.

By thekdub on 8/10/2009 8:49:31 PM , Rating: 2
I can't even begin to comprehend how slow IE8 must be if it is slower than Firefox 3.5. I actually forced myself to give up Adblock Plus and NoScript and completely stopped using Firefox because it was so incredibly slow compared to Chrome. My dad has a Macbook Pro and he even commented on how slow Firefox has gotten; he has also switched, but he's using Safari.

If FF is so slow that I'm willing to put up with ads and scripts, IE8 must be a one-legged horse. No wonder the EU doesn't want it to be the only option when users install Windows 7.

RE: Yikes
By TomZ on 8/10/2009 10:10:20 PM , Rating: 2
IE8 isn't slow. Test it for yourself instead of listening to the morons who are saying it is slow.

View the Benchmarks?
By metaltoiletry on 8/10/2009 2:16:25 PM , Rating: 1
Is there a link to view Futuremark's results among all the browsers/OS versions? Or did I miss it in the article?

RE: View the Benchmarks?
By metaltoiletry on 8/10/2009 2:18:09 PM , Rating: 2
Nevermind, it's under the "Free New Application" link.

AMD and Chrome?

By drwheel on 8/10/2009 3:30:48 PM , Rating: 2
It amazes me that these guys are still in business. 3Dmark has been bashed repeated over the years for many reasons including the validity of synthethic benchmarks, the weight and value of their various scoring criteria, and the inevitable 'cheating' by graphics companies tweaking driver releases to attain higher scores.

Synthetic benchmarks is fun, but I really hope everyone takes these results with a grain of salt. Real-world performance, after all, is all that matters.

Not conclusive
By adiposity on 8/10/2009 4:12:47 PM , Rating: 2
Mozilla, Apple, Google, Opera, and Microsoft all claim the same thing -- that their browser is the fastest. So who is telling the truth? Until recently, that was a tough question to answer.

But now that "a benchmarking company" has made a suite of tests, that question has been answered, right?

This is ridiculous. I'm not really questioning the results, but every benchmarking suite has its biases (towards specific types of tests, that is). All this tells us is, which browser is fastest at this benchmarking suite.

Other issues:

I noticed clipping in particle collisions tests, but the test jumps ahead by several frames. It does not appear to lose any speed, just drops frames. Is this taken into account?

The plugins for each browser are written by Futuremark. How do we know each plugin is equally efficient and interfacing with its browser?

The benchmark identifies my CPU as a "core duo mobile" despite the fact that I have a core i7


What a stupid product name!
By BZDTemp on 8/10/2009 8:05:30 PM , Rating: 2
It says nothing on what product it is and at best it is just confusing. At worst it is trying to benefit from the respect and admiration the world has for real peace keepers.

Not saying I don't agree...
By stubeck on 8/10/2009 8:28:37 PM , Rating: 2
but I don't agree. I own a new MBP at home and with Win 7 Firefox is much faster than OS X. Using the latest version of firefox on both.

IE8 5 times slower?
By jvillaro on 8/10/2009 11:35:05 PM , Rating: 2
But Internet Explorer 8.0 is 5 times slower than Chrome and Safari

Ok I'm not going to (dare) say IE8 is faster, but I'm quite sure that in my experience day to day websurfing has not been that it is 5 times slower.

Just for the sake of personal tests and just to have options, I installed IE8 (my default browser), Chrome, and Firefox (I won't even touch that POS Safari for windows).
Once I opened all the browsers (firefox and chrome were slow as hell in my opinion), I tried the most common pages I visit and repeated many times and on consecutive days. Maybe IE8 was a bit slower in some pages but not all of them. And I'm certain that it's not 5 times slower. That would mean that a page that takes 2 seconds to load on firefox, would load 10 seconds in IE8. I'm no profesional tester or what not, but I don't believe in these sinthetic tests to base real life performance. Besides there are other things that matter to, firefox was starting to hog all the memory on my system... yes even more than IE8.
Chrome I kinda liked, but still for some reason I prefer IE for personal and profesional use.

Well at least thats my unprofesional 2 cents.

By Woobagong on 8/11/2009 7:57:04 AM , Rating: 2
I could imagine that this is interesting for server farm providers, who need to save expenses on resources. But since security and functionality have a higher priority, those graphs are just a nice to have. For single user fat clients with mac/windwos it's irrelevant.

Just in case you don't know this one:

It's not the same scenario, but it's partially comparable. The scaling of the histograms suggests that the gaps are big. I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't reflect the subjective impression. The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself.

sleipnir (only today as I seen in previous comments)

and I end up avoiding chrome and safari the most.



By PrinceGaz on 8/11/2009 9:59:23 AM , Rating: 2

I've tried running this on my iPod touch 2nd gen running OS 3.0 and it hangs after about two minutes. The second time I tried running it (with the same result, it hanging) was after shutting down and starting the device so as to free up as much memory as possible, and only having the one Safari window open.

It might be compatible with the new iPhone 3GS perhaps as it has a faster CPU and (probably more importantly) double the RAM meaning a lot more is available for running apps once the OS overhead is considered, but if it doesn't run on an iPod touch 2nd gen, I doubt it runs on an original iPhone or iPhone 3G.

firefox is better on windows
By glennc on 8/11/2009 10:37:41 PM , Rating: 2
firefox runs like a dream on windows but the scrolling is not as fluid on my MBP (safari is). unfortunately safari just annoys me with the 'load in new window' rubbish all the time. why even bother with tabs if you are not going to use them. Not interested in IE, they did their dash years ago, doesn't even deserve my attention. chrome - not needed, just google being MS and wanting to control everything.

By chick0n on 8/13/2009 11:31:49 AM , Rating: 1
Cuz they're nothing but full of crap.

it takes me less than 2 seconds to load my FireFox with all the plugins I installed. and last I checked my friend's newest Mac Pro took like 5 seconds to load.

I know its just a few seconds difference and its not even a big deal but, saying Mac is faster than PC is just utter bullshit. if you're comparing a low end 499 PC to a 2000 dollar Mac yea I understand, but at around the same price, sorry, PC wins hands down

so yeah, thats why your company is dying, Futuremark !

