Guest HBK Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 HBK's Browser Smackdown! Can a browser really make the Web better? This is Mozilla's question to the conundrum it is choosing the best browser in modern times. After the release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, I've decided to test four different browsers and see how they shape up. These tests include testing loading speeds (quite accurate), Javascript loading, RAM usage, interface, usability, extension compatibility, Acid 2/3 tests, and funcionality. Some of these are beta previews, such as Safari and IE, since I wanted to see how they paired up to the final versions of Firefox and Opera, on a Windows environment (I may test Mac in the near future). This review will try and be as less biased as possible. The browsers I will test are listed below: - Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1 Final - Safari 4 Developer Preview - Opera 9.52 Final - Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 My testing machine specs are as follows: - AMD Athlon 3200+ Single Core Processor - 1 GB RAM DDR - NVIDIA Geforce 5200 FX Ultra 128 MB RAM - Windows Vista Ultimate x86 SP0 - 6 Mbps high speed DSL connection via Ethernet Ok, with that out of the way, let's move on to the first category: - Interface For the sake of this test, I will test this with TDN's home page open on all browsers. All extras are off (yes, even Adblock Plus) and all use the default theme. All browsers use their default settings too. Firefox's (clean and simple, the tabs aren't visible as per default, ads visible): IE's (wow, and what do you DON'T see here: no ads by default! Awesome! Tabs are big and chunky): Opera's (ads visble, chunky but subtle black tabs): Safari's (ads visible, very Mac OS X theme, nice anti-aliasing of text): And the winner of Interface is... Internet Explorer 8! Blocking ads right from the get-go, IE8 has the best interface and is cleaner than ever before. All others failed blocking ads, and Safari is loyal to it's original OS. Firefox: 8/10 IE 8: 9/10 Opera: 7/10 Safari: 8/10 Usability/Functionality: Firefox has the option to be customized with tons of different extensions and themes, some of which are awesome. Opera has similar, but not as good. It still has a lot of good options on the bottom, such as Fit Width, easy to control zoom, and tab preferences. Internet Explorer is starting to implement add-ons, which I like. The new Web Slices feature is not new, Safari has it on Mac, but it's a good addition to IE lovers. Finally, Safari doesn't have a lot of features, which is a shame. It's just a very plain browser on Windows, unfortuntely. One thing I will screenie here is the so called 'Awesome Bar'. Type just two letters (or 1) and the browsers will find the websites you want, based on their name, and not their url. Want a preview? I'll show you. Suppose you don't remember TDN's URL, but you remember it has something to do with 'help'. So you go ahead and type the word 'help' into the address bar, and this is what shows up on: Internet Explorer: As you can see, it shows up with Beta 2, and is a new great addition for people who forget URLs (like me!). Let's see Firefox's: Seriously, it's much more detailed. A favicon (the little tdn icon) is much more appealing than text, and a gold star tells you if you have bookmarked it. Plus, it underlines the word, instead of highlighting it. Opera's works a little differently (but it can search the same as the above). Remember the big bold word 'Unreleased' on the home page of tdn? Well, let's see if it can find it: Amazing, it did! You see, instead of just indexing the name and URL, Opera indexes the name, the URL and the CONTENT of a web page. This is fabulous as you only have to remember one word of a page of 50k words (ok, I'm exaggerating, but it's to show you the power of Opera's awesome bar) and it instantly finds it and locates it (the words that follow it: Kyrii colors...). Very nice. Finally, Safari's: And Safari failed to put in an awesome bar. It's a normal bar that just indexes your URLs. Not very appealing or useful at all. And the winner of Usability/Funcionality is... TIE between Firefox and Opera! Both of them have ups and downs, but Firefox wins in extensions, and Opera's awesome bar makes it the best searcher ever. If you forget URLs a lot, then Opera is the best choice for you since it indexes practically everything in a web page. If you're the customization person, both of these offer great themes, but Firefox has the upper hand. Firefox: 10/10 Opera: 10/10 Internet Explorer: 7/10 Safari: 3/10 Speed: Here comes the most interesting category for many: how fast can the browsers load a specific page? We will be testing the following domains: - thedailyneopets.com - tdnforums.com - cnn.com (to see how they handle a lot of images) - neopets.com - plurk.com (Java) Right, so we'll do this by domains. I used a stopwatch for this, so times are quite accurate. It starts from the moment I press Return to the moment it loads the page entirely. - thedailyneopets.com FF: 14.6 seconds IE: 20.9 seconds Opera: 18.6 seconds Safari: DISQUALIFIED (didn't pass the loading of the header after 2+ minutes) - tdnforums.com FF: 14.6 seconds (again, what a coincidence!) IE: 7.4 seconds Opera: 13.2 seconds Safari: 7.5 seconds And we see that IE suprisingly proved to be the best loading the forums. FF was the slowest of them all, while Safari just lacked 10 milliseconds. Opera considered slow too. - cnn.com FF: 21.7 seconds IE: 14.8 seconds Opera: 33.5 seconds Safari: 25.4 seconds Wow, and IE wins by a clear mile! Opera was the biggest disappointment, with just over half a minute to load CNN, while FF came in second, just passing the 20 sec. mark. - neopets.com FF: 2.5 seconds IE: 7.0 seconds Opera: 10.5 seconds Safari: 5.4 seconds Opera, again slowest. FF is a clear winner here with a record speed of 2.5 seconds! Safari wins 2nd, while IE claims 3rd. And finally, our last domain: - plurk.com (loading of timeline) FF: 11.4 seconds IE: 14.3 seconds Opera: 16.2 seconds Safari: 24.3 seconds FF again, winner of Java loading. Safari slowest for Plurk, while Opera gets 3rd, and IE claims 2nd! Final Results: 1st - Firefox (3 Gold, 1 Silver) 2nd - Internet Explorer (2 Gold, 1 Silver, 2 Bronze) 3rd - Safari (2 Silver, 1 Bronze) 4th - Opera (1 Silver, 2 Bronze) Firefox won the most gold, due to excelling 3 speed tests, but IE wons medals in all tests, which makes it a very fast candidate. It outruns FF in some heavy image pages, such as CNN, but fails to convince on TDN's home page. Still, they're very neck and neck, and it's a great improvement from Beta 1, which was REALLY slow. Opera and Safari did not convince. I expected a lot more from a stable version of Opera, and Apple's claims about Safari being the fastest browser on Earth is not true, at least on Windows. But a browser should deliver cross-platform, like Firefox does on Mac, Windows AND Linux. ACID 2/3 tests Acid2 is a test page published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to identify web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML. It was developed in the spirit of Acid1, a relatively narrow test of compliance with the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) standard. Like Acid1, the way a web browser renders the test is compared to a reference rendering. If the two match, the browser is considered to pass the test. Acid3 is a test page from the Web Standards Project that checks how well a web browser follows certain web standards, especially relating to the DOM and JavaScript. To pass the Acid 3 test, a browser must use its default settings, the animation has to be smooth, the score has to end on 100/100, and the final page has to look exactly, pixel for pixel, like this reference rendering. I will include screenies in Acid 3 tests. ACID 2: FF: PASS IE: PASS Opera: PASS Safari: PASS All browsers passed the basic Acid 2 test. Acid 3 is much more difficult. Let's see: FF: FAIL (71/100) IE: FAIL (21/100) - Notice the FAIL in the top left corner (no, I didn't write this) Opera: FAIL (83/100) Safari: PASS! (100/100) And the clear winner is... Safari! The only one to pass the Acid 3 test, Apple shows that Safari 4 is indeed ready for new Web 2.0 standards, including the ability to lead with Javascript and DOM. Congratulations! The major disappointment is IE, scoring a miserable 21/100 (hey, Beta 1 did 18/100). Definitely NOT ready for the future. Javascript Now I've decided to test the Javascript speed of the four browsers. I'll group the results into a single screenie for convenience. And the winner is... Safari! Yep, fastest loading Javascript once more. FF and Opera don't come a lot behind, but IE separates from the rest of the pack with 2500 ms! As you can see, IE is not able to handle Javascript efficiently and this is a major setback. RAM Usage: One thing that is very important about browsers is the way they manage RAM. Now, RAM is essential so a computer works well, and the more the better. As a browser is something you have open nearly all the time, it's imperative that you make sure it isn't a hog and slows down your system. I'm going to open TDN homepage, TDN Forums, CNN, Neopets and Plurk (the same websites we were testing for speed) and see how much each browser "eats", RAM-wise. And the winner is... TIE between IE and FF! Both of these browsers consumed around 63 MB of RAM with the same 5 tabs open, while Opera used 76 MB and Safari skyrocketed to 83 MB + resorted to using my CPU even when it was finished loading. Very bad, Apple... Customization: Firefox allows a lot of different extensions and themes to be added to it, which is a very good choice. Opera let's loose with some nice add-ons (but not like Firefox). Safari has literally no plugins for Windows, which is a shame. Most of them are paid anyway (yes, AFAIK, you have to PAY for a Safari adblocker). Internet Explorer has some add-ons, but nothing really 'wow'. It blocks ads by default, which it should have done since IE6. FINAL RESULTS Interface - Internet Explorer +10 pts Usability - Firefox and Opera +10 pts Speed - Firefox +10 pts Acid 2/3 tests - IE, FF and Opera +10 pts; Safari +20 pts (due to excelling BOTH tests) Javascript- FF, Opera and Safari - +10 points RAM Usage - FF and IE +10 pts Customization - FF and Opera +10 Total tally: 1st: Firefox - 60 overall points 2nd: Opera - 40 overall points 3rd Safari - 30 overall points 4th: Internet Explorer - 30 overall points Closing Comments: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Internet Explorer Beta 2 marks a good update from Beta 1, which was one of the worst versions ever. It's much more stable, has finally a clean interface, blocks ads by default, has webslices, an satisfactory "awesome bar" and loading speeds have improved. Phishing Filter is quite good, too. However, not all is good. It's the slowest browser loading Javascript and is not ready for future Web standards, which Acid 3 proved. It's not a RAM hog, unlike Beta 1, which is nice, but IE still has a long way to go until it can outrun Firefox. Words of Advice: ALL BETA 1 TESTERS ARE ADVISED TO UPGRADE TO BETA 2 IMMEDIATELY. This has been a Microsoft announcement (yes, I'm beta testing IE8 and that's what they said to us). BETA 1 IS NOW CONSIDERED OBSOLETE. Trust me, you'll like Beta 2. Pros + Improved from Beta 1 + Webslices are cool + Has a decent awesome bar + Not a resource hog + Quite fast to load pages + Clean interface Cons - Slowest Javascript loading speeds - Fails terribly in Acid 3 test - Not prepared for the future yet --------- Opera 9.52 Final Opera is stable, yet not fast as it should be. It's loading speeds disappoint quite a bit, and its interface continues to be the worst of the 4. It ranks second in Acid 3 and it's a moderate RAM hog. Despite this, it's safe, fast at Javascript loading, and can be easily customized. Its awesome bar is the best of the lot, searching through content in web pages, which makes it a breeze to search for a page whose URL and/or name you've forgotten. Second best browser out there currently. Pros + Decent Acid 3 score + Safe + Fast Javascript loading + Easily customized + Best awesome bar out there Cons - Loading speeds disappoint - Worse interface of the 4 - Moderate RAM hog --------- Safari 4 For a browser that came out of a Mac OS X environment, Safari maintains the same look, which is quite fancy. It also retains the same anti-aliasing Apple uses on Macs. It's quite fast to load websites, although it has a problem with TDN's homepage (which got it DQ'ed) for some weird reason. It's a very basic browser, with nearly no options of customization, and not very safe. It has no awesome bar, just indexing URLs, which is very plain and unappealing. However, it's the only one to pass the Acid 3 test, which is amazing, since all the others failed, and it's Javascripts loading speeds impress. A decent browser to have on Windows, although I believe it'd shine more on its native environment, Mac OS. Pros + Nice Mac interface and anti-aliasing + Only one to pass Acid 3 test + Decent loading speeds + Very fast Javascript loading Cons - Problems loading some websites - Very basic browser - No options of customization - Not very safe - No awesome bar -------- Firefox 3.0.1 Final The epitome of browsers and a clear winner of browser smackdown. Firefox 3 is /THE BEST/ browser out there. It's got over 5000 add-ons to customize it with, themes, you name it. It's very fast and it doesn't let down. Its Javascripts speeds are fast (not as fast as Safari, though), and it gets 71 out of 100 in Acid 3, which isn't bad. It's on terms with IE for resource consumption, and it's clean and sleek interface provides all you need to browse efficiently, with no clutter. It's awesome bar is very neat and tidy, but it doesn't compare to Opera's. It didn't block ads by default, but then again, none of them did except for IE. And I believe that Adblock Plus > IE's integrated ad blocker. Pros + Overall fastest browser + Tons of different extensions and themes + Javascript speeds are good + Decent Acid 3 result + Clean and clutterless default interface + Provides all you need for an awesome browsing experience Cons - Doesn't block ads by default (but with Adblock Plus, this is solved) And finally, answering Mozilla's question: Q: Can a browser really make the Web better? A: Yes, Firefox can. ------------------------------------------- This review is © HBK - TDN 2008. It may not be distributed or hosted on another website other than TDN. ------------------------------------------- I hope you liked my review. :) Feel free to comment on it, feedback is greatly appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachiee Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 ^_^ I loved your review of browsers! It was interesting =D So some of these browsers aren't so bad after all...-pokes IE8 even being an IE7 user xD- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antiaircraft Posted August 31, 2008 Share Posted August 31, 2008 Awesome review there HBK! :thumbsup: It's not often that I see somebody taking the time to do the tests and write such a thorough, unbiased review. And of course, I'm happy that Firefox is at the top of the list. *pokes member title* :P By the way, some of you might be interested to know that Opera does have built in Adblocking capabilities, although it doesn't start out with any filters loaded. If you right click on a page and select 'Block Content', it will bring up a (pretty cool) interface that allows you to click on any images/banners/etc. and have it (and any similar content) intuitively blocked. :yes: Alternatively, there's a guide for importing a comprehensive filter list on TDN. /plug XD Once again, great job HBK! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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