Broadband speed with different browsers!

[rnoldh]

Hi, For those of you more technical than I.

I just started tonight to use Mozilla Firefox as my Browser. My ISP is the same as always. Time Warner Roadrunner (here in Houston) on a laptop through a router.

I was really surprised that I seem to be able to surf much faster than I have been with IE Explorer. I recently downloaded and upgraded to IE 7 from IE 6, but I didn't notice any difference between IE 6 and 7 other than 7 has tabbed browsing. The speed was/is the same for IE 6 and 7.

But I definitely note a difference in speed between IE 7 and Firefox. And it's an apples to apple comparison (I'm on an HP laptop BTW), since the ISP is the same and everything else is equal.

Does anyone know why Firefox would be faster and why this would be so? Also, has anyone else noted this?

Thanks!

 

[fatty]

Firefox has always been faster at browsing than IE, IE7 didn't do much to improve the loading rate and it has some serious security holes. I'm not sure why this is so, but it could be related to the fact that Firefox uses a lot more ram and IE has a lot of security problems and viruses

 

[DNW]

I don't have the science to back this up, but I firefox feels faster. Also, just because of the layout and plugins you can get, it makes browsing much faster. I rarely go back to IE now, especially when there's a plugin available that allows IE to open in a firefox tab.

 

[Stax]

Firefox seems faster to me also and version 2.0's on-the-fly spell check is the best thing since beer.

 

[acidboy]

Originally Posted by Stax

Firefox seems faster to me also and version 2.0's on-the-fly spell check is the best thing since beer.

Sir,

Nothing is better than beer.

 

[DNW]

Originally Posted by acidicboy

Sir,

Nothing is better than beer.

*****! Lots of it.

 

[tiecollector]

According to this, they are pretty even:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#winspeed

I'm guessing FF is faster because of the way that IE tries to deal with dynamic content (css, javascript, etc). Many of these internet pages use so much dynamic content these days that they are all like little programs themselves. The dynamic content engine is what is lagging.

FF also has a better caching engine too. You can actually change the caching settings I think if in firefox if you type in about:config in the URL field. Enabling http pipelining in FF is supposed to make it even faster.

FF is probably also smarter about how it loads pages. As an example, don't know if it is the true reason or not, let's say a site has a bunch of ads. Many of these ads need to be computed on a server and created on the fly to be sent to you. If the ad server is lagging, then ie7 may wait longer for it to finish than ff does before moving on.

I haven't really used IE7 but I have noticed that creating blank tabs in it takes twice as long as FF, even it is only a split second. I use Safari on OS X mostly.

Originally Posted by rnoldh

Hi, For those of you more technical than I.

I just started tonight to use Mozilla Firefox as my Browser. My ISP is the same as always. Time Warner Roadrunner (here in Houston) on a laptop through a router.

I was really surprised that I seem to be able to surf much faster than I have been with IE Explorer. I recently downloaded and upgraded to IE 7 from IE 6, but I didn't notice any difference between IE 6 and 7 other than 7 has tabbed browsing. The speed was/is the same for IE 6 and 7.

But I definitely note a difference in speed between IE 7 and Firefox. And it's an apples to apple comparison (I'm on an HP laptop BTW), since the ISP is the same and everything else is equal.

Does anyone know why Firefox would be faster and why this would be so? Also, has anyone else noted this?

Thanks!

 

[mikeber]

It might not be the browser itself, but the security functions configured in it. These may slow browsing to the point of non usability. I don't think that you will feel much of a difference browsing text oriented websites if both browsers are equally configured.

 

[savage]

Try Opera.. that **** is MAd fast too!! If I go to to MySpace, I use Opera, cause everythgin else is really slow. I'm not sure why one browser feel 'faster' than the others.. probably securtiy features, time of release, codes, DRM, Spyware, and other factors.

 

[tiecollector]

Does Opera still have ads at the top unless you buy it? quite annoying. I could never get into opera. I think out of all the browsers I like Safari or Konqueror the best in terms of feel. In terms of functionality, firefox has to take the cake with a pretty impressive inventory of addons.

 

[whodini]

On OSX, I prefer Firefox to Opera, IE, and Safari for a wide variety of reasons ranging from speed to features.

 

[tiecollector]

Haven't messed with ff 2.0 much in os x, but it runs much faster than previous versions, which were highly prone to memory leaks. Safari is still the fastest on my G4 powerbook though.

 

[whodini]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

Haven't messed with ff 2.0 much in os x, but it runs much faster than previous versions, which were highly prone to memory leaks. Safari is still the fastest on my G4 powerbook though.
I just find Safari's features limited at times, not to mention some websites won't play nice with it. FF 2.0 is much better than 1.5 although my major complaint is that you have to individually close each tab on the tab itself instead of having the ability to close them one-by-one on the top right of the window.

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by whodini

I just find Safari's features limited at times, not to mention some websites won't play nice with it. FF 2.0 is much better than 1.5 although my major complaint is that you have to individually close each tab on the tab itself instead of having the ability to close them one-by-one on the top right of the window.

I actually hated having to go the far right to close tabs. Safari does it this way also. Would be cool I guess if you could apple+click the tab to hilite them and then close them all at once, or bookmark them, or whatever action you want.

 

[briancl]

If you are really ambitious about the speed of your web browser, google "tete009" and use some of his highly optimized firefox builds/dll's.