[10068]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bredin /img/forum/go_quote.gif But they don't have the addons that makes them superfast and safe on the other hand. What is safest or most secure? Firefox + a lot of addons or a normal stock browser? That would be interesting to know. I know that other browsers outperforms firefox on some performance benchmarks, but I feel that they are slower IRL when firefox uses some addons.

This is indeed very interesting, i'd like to know as well

I've found that most (cough cough all) Web Browser Benchmarks online are just short of dumb... they are either uncontrolled, unscientific, leave out major pieces of data (such as yours above) or even major widely-used versions of a specific browser (i.e. FF Beta) and lastly use simplified or limited testing methods. Or all of the above.

 

[Superfrag]

Firefox, due to the addons.
Stylish, Rehost, Imageshack Toolbar, IDM are few of the addons I love.

 

[hectuero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek /img/forum/go_quote.gif To play devil's advocate -- yes, IE6 is awful and should die. IE7 and IE8 (with most recent patches/updates/etc) honestly aren't terrible. Would I choose to use them over Chrome, FF, Opera, etc? Probably not. If it's my only option(s), would I cry? Nope. They do what they need to do, and are faster and more secure than previous incarnations of IE. IE still kinda sucks, but it doesn't suck nearly as much as it used to. That being said, there's still some stuff that is RIDICULOUS about IE -- for example when asking to save a UN/PW combo, even in IE8 it still takes up the whole screen (in terms of I/O UI access) and if you say No, you have to clear ALL Passwords stored if you change your mind and want to store that one instead. Anyway, just sayin'.... IE is not great but it's not as bad as it once was in 5.x or 6.x Now it's... bad instead of awful. lol

IE7 & 8 are still awful, just ask any web developer

. While all the other mainstream browsers strive to support new web standards and features, IE continues to ignore them, in same cases even creating proprietary, non-standard, and sub-par alternatives. The Acid3 test, which tests a browsers' conformance to various web standards, is proof that IE continues to lag behind every other browser. (I love when people use Mac or Linux rather than Windows because I know they don't even have the possibility of using IE

)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bredin /img/forum/go_quote.gif But they don't have the addons that makes them superfast and safe on the other hand. What is safest or most secure? Firefox + a lot of addons or a normal stock browser? That would be interesting to know. I know that other browsers outperforms firefox on some performance benchmarks, but I feel that they are slower IRL when firefox uses some addons.

Addons can slow down Firefox, actually, especially if they're badly programmed. They add another layer of processing and use more memory, though some (like NoScript and FlashBlock) remove more processing than they create anyway. But the issue is that while NoScript will speed up the loading of many sites, the sites that matter most (the ones you visit and use the most) are likely to be on NoScript's whitelist, in which case Firefox is still slower than Chrome anyway. I said it before: it just doesn't make sense to compare Firefox's performance with addons to another browser.

As far as security, NoScript will certainly increase security from many attacks, but it's too much of a nuisance for many (including myself).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek /img/forum/go_quote.gif What's the consensus about switching from FireFox? I've been using Firefox for years, and if i'm going to get serious about switching to either Chrome 4x or Opera 10x i'm not sure which would be "most similar" to a user very familiar with FF...

While I seem to have been advocating Chrome a lot, I'm a diehard Firefox user. I'm too dependent on various addons to switch. Once Chrome's plugin system stops sucking and there's actually plugins for it I'd switch. If you can live without the addons, I'd say go for it. I've never been an Opera fan, always found its interface unappealing and cluttered; though, Opera's current pre-alpha has the fastest JS rendering at the moment.

 

[hectuero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek /img/forum/go_quote.gif This is indeed very interesting, i'd like to know as well I've found that most (cough cough all) Web Browser Benchmarks online are just short of dumb... they are either uncontrolled, unscientific, leave out major pieces of data (such as yours above) or even major widely-used versions of a specific browser (i.e. FF Beta) and lastly use simplified or limited testing methods. Or all of the above.

Takes a long time to do them right, so they're not done very often sadly, and most people don't care enough to do them right (or are too technically naive to know how). Lifehacker(/any other Gawker blog) tends to do decent ones. For JavaScript SunSpider is the standard, Acid3 (as I've mentioned before) is the standard for, uhhh… standards

. You just have to be careful with SunSpider that you're not doing lots of other crazy stuff while running the test so the browser can use as much CPU as possible.

Edit: Mozilla's Dromaeo JavaScript test is probably better, since it runs SunSpider plus a bunch of other tests too.

 

[Bredin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hectuero /img/forum/go_quote.gif Addons can slow down Firefox, actually, especially if they're badly programmed. They add another layer of processing and use more memory, though some (like NoScript and FlashBlock) remove more processing than they create anyway. But the issue is that while NoScript will speed up the loading of many sites, the sites that matter most (the ones you visit and use the most) are likely to be on NoScript's whitelist, in which case Firefox is still slower than Chrome anyway. I said it before: it just doesn't make sense to compare Firefox's performance with addons to another browser. As far as security, NoScript will certainly increase security from many attacks, but it's too much of a nuisance for many (including myself).

That's not the question, we know that faster browsers will render the website faster than firefox IF they render the same data. But as I said 2-4pages back, that one site took 8seconds with chrome and 1second with firefox. That by not having to load the ads on that page, and run irrelevant scripts. Also there's a plugin for firefox called fasterfox that makes it faster by using pre-fetch.

And as for privacy, install ghostery and you will see what tracks you (google), and it will cover you with "ghostery". So that should improve privacy on the web.

Also, why do you use chrome when there's chromium? Chrome without google

 

[Justin Uthadude]

Out of curiosity, do many of you notice this lack of speed in Firefox? I use it with a fast connection, and every time I test it's speed or notice any speed problems, it's almost always the wait state for data from the host I'm connected to.
.

EDIT: On the other hand, I don't usually frequent sites that are heavy activeX, Java or Flash laden. Maybe this is why?
.

 

[FrederikS|TPU]

I use FF due to the many different nice add-ons, like flash blocker, advanced ad blockers and so on.

 

[Bredin]

Is there no master-password for chrome/chromium?

 

[Prog Rock Man]

I have just gone from XP to W7 and after recommendation also switched to Chrome. I still use IE for a site that will not let you do anything with Chrome. I find Chrome more reliable, about the same speed, but I like the tabs which are independent of each other, so if something goes wrong, you just lose that tab. I don't have a hugely reliable connection, so that is invaluable.

 

[10068]

Is there such a thing as like, JavaBlock? You know, like FlashBlock except for Java. And no, I don't want to use NoScript.

 

[hectuero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is there such a thing as like, JavaBlock? You know, like FlashBlock except for Java. And no, I don't want to use NoScript.

I don't think there's any specific addon that'll do it. I come across Java so little (and there's often an alternative to it on whatever site is using it) that I disabled it entirely in the browser. (And because it's faster than going through the menus to turn it back on, I just open a different browser when I need it ). Obviously not an ideal setup though

QuickJava may be sort of what you're looking for, but there's no whitelist, it's just a quick way of enabling/disabling Java (and JavaScript).

 

[10068]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hectuero /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't think there's any specific addon that'll do it. I come across Java so little (and there's often an alternative to it on whatever site is using it) that I disabled it entirely in the browser. (And because it's faster than going through the menus to turn it back on, I just open a different browser when I need it ). Obviously not an ideal setup though QuickJava may be sort of what you're looking for, but there's no whitelist, it's just a quick way of enabling/disabling Java (and JavaScript).

Ah fantastic, that might work.

I am just thinking of sites like MySpace, that bump up CPU usage to 100% even on some decent-ish computers, due to the ridiculous(-ly furiating) amount of Java and Flash content. Flash is only half the picture (heh, no pun) for improving performance and stability on such sites.

Granted, I don't visit MySpace even once a month any more, but there are other such sites and they're still irritating and make the browser lag like sludge (yes, even FF)

 

[calaf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sduibek /img/forum/go_quote.gif I agree about the interface though, it's almost too minimalist to me. I'll try to find a skin or something. One thing also i'm not getting is Chrome is underlining in red EVERY WORD I enter into text boxes. Like right now as i'm typing this, there's a red squiggly line under every single word in this box. Creepy.

have you tried to right click in the input text box and check your "Spell-checker Options"?

 

[10068]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calaf /img/forum/go_quote.gif have you tried to right click in the input text box and check your "Spell-checker Options"?

No lol. Why would that be the default anyway though? Just dumb.

 

[Shike]

Opera

Secure, fast, and most importantly stable. FF has to many memory leaks and Chrome isn't always compatible with pages. Also, Opera link FTW ^_^