Fastest Browser? What do you think?

[1759]

Opera 8.5x, followed by Opera 9, IE6, IE7, FF, and lastly Netscape.

I like FF a lot, but even with speed tweaks, it's sluggish compared to Opera, even in Linux.

[Blazkowicz]

fastest I used was Lynx on a 486SX25, under DOS. ignoring all image, CSS or javascript surely helps.

else which one is faster is a bit pointless, PCs even "outdated" are so fast these days. In general browsing speed is limited by the connection.

[n30w1n]

fastest I used was Lynx on a 486SX25, under DOS. ignoring all image, CSS or javascript surely helps.

else which one is faster is a bit pointless, PCs even "outdated" are so fast these days. In general browsing speed is limited by the connection.

That's not true, in fact the more people get broadband, the more browser speed becomes important. Any browser may render faster than dial-up, but if you're on a 6Mb connection like me, you often download a client-side script a lot faster than your browser takes to process it. There is also the whole element of displaying content as it's downloaded, "streaming" a web page if you will. Different browsers display things on the fly better than others.

[vcv]

No it's not. If you don't use any of those extra features it becomes bloat, a waste of resources and it will start getting in your way: Thus less functional. A fact is that Opera comes with more features than Safari. But apparently you don't understand the difference.

I'm not going to repeat myself.

But the opera features never get in your way. They are simply there to use if you need them and they do NOT waste resources (after all, Opera has great memory usage and is speedy, so what resources are being wasted...)? That's not bloat.

So.. what's your argument again?

[Jexel]

No it's not. If you don't use any of those extra features it becomes bloat, a waste of resources and it will start getting in your way: Thus less functional. A fact is that Opera comes with more features than Safari. But apparently you don't understand the difference.

Bloat is another one of those words people throw around carelessly trying to undermine the program. Can you care to define what a waste of resources is? If you call taking up around 50 megs (including cache, history etc) out of my 250gig harddrive a waste of space then by all means Opera is BLOAT. As for memory wise, I would like to see you provide any broswer that is more efficient than opera. In terms of memory for me browsers are all pretty much the same (though I have heard of memory leaks in FF). IE may use up 1 meg with one tab open but honestly does the 7 meg difference (between opera with 1 tab open) make up a significant performance difference especially since the memory usage of all browsers tend to escalate significantly upon having more than 5 tabs open.

I believe you should also look up the term "functional" in a dictionary. OPERA is CUSTOMISABLE. Anybody who has the mental capacities to customise opera to their liking will tell you that it is probably the most easy to use broswer ever. If you are unable to take it to a next level and customise opera then i guess using alternative browsers will be ideal for you.

Ontopic:

Maybe it's my geographical location but on every speed test I've come across IE7 surpases opera9. I have a 10mbit connection thus the small increase in speed does not necessarily affect me but it is something i've noticed. However, when actualling using IE7 as compared to Opera, Opera loads significantly "smoother".

[.Neo]

Bloat is another one of those words people throw around carelessly trying to undermine the program. Can you care to define what a waste of resources is? If you call taking up around 50 megs (including cache, history etc) out of my 250gig harddrive a waste of space then by all means Opera is BLOAT.

? Takes for ever to launch: Safari bounces twice, Opera up to 8 times.

? High RAM usage (both with the same amount of tabs and sites): Safari 20 MB Real Memory, 127 MB Virtual Memory. Opera 33 MB Real Memory, 253 MB Virtual Memory;

? Opera has higher CPU usage when loading pages. Safari won't go over 80% in most cases, Opera goes for the full 99%.

If you want me to I can provide screenshots of Activity Monitor showing the above memory usage.

I believe you should also look up the term "functional" in a dictionary. OPERA is CUSTOMISABLE. Anybody who has the mental capacities to customise opera to their liking will tell you that it is probably the most easy to use broswer ever. If you are unable to take it to a next level and customise opera then i guess using alternative browsers will be ideal for you.

Opera uses an interface rendering engine completely independent of Mac OS X itself (which is probably also the reason why Opera uses much more resources). You can customize the living hell out of it and it will still look out of place. It's default "Aqua" inte- for lack of a better word - - has nothing to do with Mac OS X anymore. Writing a good looking Aqua theme (superficial only of course) yourself can take days if not weeks with the proper amount of knowledge which most people don't posses in the first place.

Doesn't matter how many features you remove from the main window you still will be confronted with them every time you acces a customize panel (which are also much more complex than anything you'll find on Mac OS X), Preferences or the Menubar. Which can be a pain and really starts getting in your way after a while. Truly customizing everything to your own likings can really take a while. Safari on the other hand takes about 5 to set up and adjust and has a true Aqua interface right out of the box.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Opera as a browser on Windows but compared to almost any other Mac OS X application it's interface is just very poorly designed. Not to mention the fact it feels much more responsive and quicker under Windows XP.

My problems with the browser are based on a Mac OS X user point of view only and like I said before it all depends on what you expect from a browser.

Um.. Opera's preferences dialog is not bloated or anything. It's very well layed out and simple actually

Open up almost any application's Preferences that's truly coded for Mac OS X and you'll see the difference.

Edited July 2, 2006 by Neowave

[vcv]

Oh right that's why it takes for ever for Opera to launch compared to Safari and other Mac OS X browsers! Plus the features are always there, I'm confronted with them in Preferences, when customizing toolbars etc.

Start time doesnt have all that much to do with "bloat". If that's your only argument, it's pretty weak. Besides, my opera starts within a few seconds and that's good enough.

Um.. Opera's preferences dialog is not bloated or anything. It's very well layed out and simple actually. Anything not common is under "advanced", but still easy to navigate. Customizing toolbars.. oh no! You are confronted by choice and customization! SO SCARY! Geez man, what a weak argument.

[PT 13]

Opera is the fastest I ever used (Opera, Firefox, IE5/6/7, flock)

[Julius Caro]

From my own experience, Opera performs faster than any other browser I tried on both linux and windows.

My browser is firefox, but I can't deny opera is VERY good.

Bon Echo is really fast at pretty much everything. Loading, rendering, opening/closing/scrolling between tabs.

Is Bon Echo that much of an improvement? I dont use any extension so I might try it soon :D

[Julius Caro]

The differences are fractions of seconds, or in some extreme cases a few seconds, but there isn't enough of a difference for me to chose the browser I use based on speed. Now if you have a browser that takes like 25+ additional seconds to load even simple sites that's a different story, but that's not what the differences are these days.

My advice is to try those things in old computers. You're right when you say that on computers nowadays, those things aren't noticeable.

I was using a 2001 computer (256mb ram, 1GHz processor) up until a couple of months ago, and I can say that opera was much faster. Under ubuntu, I was impressed on how fast and responsive it was. Under Windows it was the fastes too, but apps under windows felt more responsive overall than most apps run on linux.

On XP, IE loaded faster than FF, but FF performed better. After all, IE6 hadn't been substantially updated for years.

[Guest craft660]

I think i've found one of the smallest and fastest browsers - OffByONE

[CPressland]

I like Safari, I've got it setup to start in the background when my MacBook turns on. So when I need it, it's instant. Plus it renders pages much quicker then Firefox and most noticably Opera.

[gtho]

depends on the site! :jump: loll

[Raa]

Fastest Browser? IE 2.0

You didn't say anything about functional :p

Seriously, IE 6 is -fast-, Maxthon is probably the best for "all around" including speed, in fact in a lot of cases I think Maxthon is faster than IE :D

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Maxthon renders just as fast as IE does, because Maxthon is only a shell over IE (well, Trident)

Anyway, the Cairo builds of Firefox 3 (Minefield) are blazing fast on my system, some kinda advanced things (e.g. lots of fixed 32bit PNG's) slow it down, but you see that with every other browser as well.

[solardog]

Rendering wise and startup wise IE7 is incredibly fast. Its not even close, IE7 blows Opera and Firefox away off the line. As for browsing speed, the difference is neglegable any more, Now, if MS adds all the all tweakiness of Opera and Firefox to IE7, I would probably go exlusively IE7. As it is, I use all of them with a slight preference towards Opera.

[Lant]

I think i've found one of the smallest and fastest browsers - OffByONE

Yeah it may be fast but two things put me off. The site design and the fact it advertises it has HTML 3.2 support so... maybe not.

Anyway I use FF just because I like the extensions otherwise I would be using Opera which IMO is much lighter on resources (which isn't really a problem) and loads faster. I like IE7 but it feels a little clunky even with the good idea to remove the file edit bar etc. which I've done in FF.

[htwho]

Here we are again with another browser war... I really believe that all the mainstream browsers are quick (ie7, Firefox, Opera).

It just depends on what the user wants.

Firefox + extensions

ie7 for microsoft's integrated network

Opera's all in one - torrent app + lightweight + Acid test pass

[Dogan]

I've used IE6, IE7 FF1.5, FF2.0 and Opera since version 8.5.

And by "used", I don't mean a couple of hours. I've used them for months.

The browser that has got my vote is Opera.

It's the fastest (starting up and browsing) and most lightweight of the ones I've mentioned.

Even though it's lightweight and fast, doesn't mean it lacks functionality. It has features like torrent app and ad-blocking right out of the box :)

[david13lt]

I had read a lot of articles and seen statistics... No one can beat Safari... I would like to have it in my PC...

Here are the test results: http://www.24fun.com/downloadcenter/benchjs/

[Leddy]

Any browser which you use a lot will be fast. Vista has superfetch. Yay?

[MrKuro]

I'll admit FireFox with Fasterfox adddin is the Fastest , however I use Opera because i like the feel and feature set of it more :)

[[deXter]]

In my experience I always felt Opera was the fastest browser.

But now, it's proven that Opera is indeed the fastest.

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

[Harlem39s Finest]

firefox 2

[tsupersonic]

On a slower system, definitely Opera.

IE 7 is a memory hog, and tends to be very slow, same with Firefox.

Slower system meaning XP w/ 512 MB, along with multiple processor combinations. On systems with more memory, I still prefer Opera, but I also like Firefox too, so I don't hate/like one over the other.