What is Digg?245 Comments
- gontro, on 10/12/2007, -3/+92Umm, Opera is actually the fastest... its rated by how long it takes to process the javascript, hence smaller number equals better... I'm actually surprised at how slow firefox is.
- theoallardyce, on 10/12/2007, -19/+97Just what I thought all along: Firefox is bulky, memory hungry and slow as *****. Firefox users are smug and arrogant.
// I use firefox.. - sjalt, on 10/12/2007, -14/+66i submit that i am a fool for not reading the article, and submit my former comment to proper burial. However, in light of you insight, the speed of opera is quite shocking, as it is more than 3X as fast as the next leader. This shows how it is not only speed that powers popularity of browsers, but other features and a forced consumer base.
- psxman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+48"Also, it is just sad that as slick a browser as Opera is, there is still no possible way to lay it out the way I want to. Their tabbed browsing philosophy gets in the way of my preferred tab layout. I don't care if the address bar is separate for each tab, I still expect to be able to put my tabs below the address bar. I bet adding that feature alone would make a ton of Firefox users a lot more comfortable trying out Opera."
Shift+F12, Panels, check both Address Bar and Main Bar, move everything from the Address Bar to the Main Bar, uncheck the Address Bar.
Hooray, customizability! - Nezzari, on 10/12/2007, -4/+47IE6 : 609
Opera 9: 313
FF 1.5 : 1,150
Fresh copies on all of them. And for the record, I find it funny how I got modded down for saying that FF didn't score as fast as Opera on a test I performed. Even though I use Firefox, that's what I call blind ignorance. - masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -7/+46A lot of peopel think of Firefox as this infallible open source monster. It's simply not true. I use Firefox because of its widely supported extensions, but Opera is truely the better browser. It's tons of times faster than IE, let alone Firefox, it doesn't have the memory leak bug (it's not a bug, it's a feature!), and it passes the Acid2 test. Meanwhile, Firefox 2.0 won't even pass the Acid2 test, and it certainly won't get any faster. Add this to the fact that its JavaScript is apparently faster, and Opera is looking nice...
Opera is a force to be reckoned with. If it could manage to do something spectacular, like, be compatible with Firefox's extensions, or at least make its own format of extensions and get wide support for it, it could reign as the supreme overlord of browsers.
And @theoallardyce: I fully agree.
//I use Firefox, too. - jmechy, on 10/12/2007, -9/+47Many of the features that were in opera have been ported to firefox, and realize that opera has many features that firefox has yet to implement. Opera is a feature rich browser, so much to the point that FF fanboys call it bloatware (though memory, CPU and hard drive space were both smaller last time i checked).
- salmonmoose, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32Java != Javascript
- Durinthal, on 10/12/2007, -7/+34My score's 0. The NoScript extension makes it run really fast, apparently.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27This should come as no surprise. Anyone who's used Opera knows that it's the fastest browser right now.
- salmonmoose, on 10/12/2007, -14/+39If Opera gave me a solid competition to extensions (or even made an emulator) i'd switch in a heartbeat.
- Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22"I still expect to be able to put my tabs below the address bar."
Huh??
My Opera tabs are definitely below my address bar. Unfortunately I'm in no position to screenshot it now (not on my personal computer). But I'd never be able to use Opera comfortably if they weren't. :-p Have you tried adding an address bar + all toolbar icons you need to a toolbar that *can* be put above the tabs and disabling the toolbar that can't? I think I did something like that. You see -- not all toolbars can be placed above/below any other in Opera, and that's key to understanding how you can customize it. Yeah, it sucks a bit, but you can still achieve the results you're looking for at least.
edit: ^-- aah, psxman explains it more practically above - LucasVB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20@SoberEmu "I'd switch to Opera very quickly if they had alternatives to some of the best firefox extensions (adblock, greasemonkey, customized gestures, etc.)"
It has! Opera has content blocking and UserJS, and customized gestures are also a default feature. In fact, a lot of the most popular Firefox extensions have functionality available out of the box in Opera. Here's a list you (and other Firefox users) should check out before bashing Opera due to lack of functions or extensions.
http://my.opera.com/Rijk/homes/blog/extensions.html - gontro, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Hmm, yeah why did you get modded down? (ticks back to 0) :)
My results...
IE6: 710
Opera 9: 343
FF 1.5: 1266
I'm also a Firefox user by preference, though I have enjoyed using Opera in the past. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19not exactly surprising considering Opera is designed and marketed as a fast browser.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18I agree that Java programs have a bad tendency to be poorly programmed, but this article is about JavaScript, which is completely different.
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20"FF would win by system memory"
HAHAHAHHA... Hahhahahahaha, hhahahaha, hhaha HHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
...You're kidding, right? - kamaru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Opera usually wins these types of things, never seen it lose those tests for web standards compatibility also..
- fcuk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18I'm getting the following results in OSX:
Firefox 1.5: 1313
Camino 1: 1568
Safari 2: 495
Opera 9: 787 - vuzman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15This http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html is a more comprehensive test, testing more than just script speed and tests several versions and on several platforms.
The results are not much different though...
edit: I guess I should've refreshed this page before posting ;) - freexe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I always have my tabs below the address bar. I also customize a bunch of other things including the menus, toolbars, icon sizes and searches
http://freexe.com/files/opera_ss.png
Only with opera can I really maximize my screen real estate while still having all the functionality close by - Jdub7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14922 ms - Opera 9
2281ms - Firefox 1.5
2594ms - Internet Explorer 7
future Fan of Opera with extensions. Future fan of firefox with speed. - netsurfer, on 10/12/2007, -11/+24Yay to opera!
- sesh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Oh, your so wrong.....
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13"I was thinking that. Every time I see a browser showdown between FF, IE and Opera with the tagline "You might be surprised..."
Everytime I see an article like that, I'm NEVER surprised. Know why? I use Opera. :) - cazabam, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13I was thinking that. Every time I see a browser showdown between FF, IE and Opera with the tagline "You might be surprised...", it's always Opera. It's like the browser that cried wolf :-)
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Simply put, Firefox is inferior to IE, Opera, Safari, etc... on all fronts speed and memory.
It's a slow browser. People use it because of extensions, not speed. - Nezzari, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6827/gggfxs6.jpg
Not sure what is happening, but Opera is fast... - 15charmaxwtf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11If you look at the code in the page, it looks at first glance it is just using normal library functions.
- Devz0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@awok
Tools -> Preferences -> Shortcut -> Edit "Keyboard shortcuts"
default is F8 or CTRL+L - toastgodsupreme, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Of course it is. If the public sees that FireFox (the fave browser of many of us Digg users) is lacking, maybe the guys over at Mozilla will sit down and work on speeding it up some more.
Granted, I have no problems with Firefox as it is. I love it. I was using it before it was trendy to do so. - Numfar28, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12@salmonmoose
Unfortunately, odds are that those who don't know that Java != Javascript, also are unaware what "!=" actually means.
So for clarity: Java is not Javascript. - Saoshyant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8The problem is that Gecko is quite flawed. It won't require one or two patches, but a major rewrite. The sad part of this story is that such rewrite will never happen.
Mozilla is starting to suffer from a disease called "corporate arrogance", and I'm afraid they won't see it coming until they are burned by the experience. It sucks, because it's us the users who are mostly affected by this situation.
But who knows? Maybe things will change radically. Maybe issues in Gecko will be fixed. Maybe Fx2 won't turn as bloated as it seems to be right now. Maybe, maybe not. I guess the average user doesn't have a say on this.
You can start moddding me down by now, although I do think I've put up a good argument. - gontro, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Indeed, but don't forget marketing. Its amazing how some products gain extreme popularity and dominate market share when there may be a better alternative out there. Microsoft for example, have good marketing strategies and a strong name behind them which fuels end-user trust and popularity. Though it does not mean that Microsofts products are the best on the market. Sometimes it can be hard for competing software to become known due it being drowned in the marketing/media frenzy, which is sad because not only does the alternates get killed off, but the end-user suffers from lack of competition which in turn affects future development of the product in question.
- thereisnospoon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9On my windows XP work laptop:
Firefox1.5: 3846 ms
IE6: 3385 ms
Opera9: 1061 ms
It's an almost 4 year old thinkpad if you wonder why it seems slow.
I'll test all my browsers on my Mac Mini tonight. - Vasto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@masamunecyrus
What are you talking about? Opera is free.... - chesterjosiah, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Because of this article, I switched to Opera. Already I'm amazed at how much faster it is than Firefox. I heard it was faster but wow!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11You mean like this?
Internet Explorer 6: http://www.autark.se/ie6-acid2.png
Opera 9: http://my.opera.com/tarquinwj/homes/albums/45511/Opera9.png
Konqueror 3.5: http://www.autark.se/konq3.5-acid2.png
Firefox 1.5: http://www.davidbetz.net/webdesign/Firefox15Acid2.png
Safari 2: http://www.tomrafteryit.net/images/safari_acid2_test.png
Yeah, Firefox's rendering is SO much better than Opera's. :p - vuzman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I run both Firefox and Opera all the time (for work related reasons) and in my experience Opera uses far less memory and is more stable than FF.
Firefox is notorius for its huge memory usage and ditto leaks. This is a well-established fact. - zlliksddam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Whoa! I don't know how accurate this test is but i just got 1359 in fire-fox beta 1, and 360 in opera 9; both freshly started. Pretty sick.
- LucasVB, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Or you could drop down the paranoya and admit to yourself that Opera is indeed faster.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Opera FTW
Kudos to Digg for fixing the Bury Story Drop Down Bug in Opera. - nonsequitor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I would hope the Open Source community will see these results and take it as a challenge. The power of open source being that anyone can write a patch and fix the Gecko Engine.
- JamesGlover, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@ ho0ber
You can disable the 'Start Bar' as its called (The little drop down from the address bar) by simply right clicking on the toolbar Choosing customise and unchecking 'start bar'. Its fairly simple, although admittedly the name doesn't make it immediately clear what its talking about. - Agret, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7With more and more Web 2.0 apps using Javascript consistently then yes, yes it is important.
- thinkdifferent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"...and safari is based on opera so your point is?"
Nope, Safari uses WebKit which was a fork from KHTML (a.k.a. Konqueror). Nothing is shared with the Opera codebase. You might be confused since Opera was commonly used on cellphones & Nokia announced last year that they would begin using WebKit (Safari's open-source core) to drive their cell phone browsers. - poopsacky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@TaeBoX "Aren't we forgetting something? Like Opera is version 9 and has commercial products. I would hope that opera is faster."
What are you trying to say? Because Opera is at version 9 that it should be 3 versions better than IE6? and 7.5 versions better than firefox 1.5?
Opera has comercial products? Do you mean the free Opera 9 web browser they offer? Are you trying to say they make money like firefox on their web browser? http://digg.com/tech_news/Mozilla_made_$72_million_from_Firefox
= ] - nokkloom, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7to be absolutely correct, there were 8 tests altogether ;)
I converted from FF to Opera about half a year ago and I'm totally happy now :) - phpirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@chesterjosiah: Real developers use opera to better support w3 standards. Opera is very picky about how webpages look, and its actually for the better. Sure a few websites have minor issues, so email those sites and tell them to get their developers off their asses.
- Coreguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The execution efficiency issue of Javascript under Firefox has already been talked about for a lot of times. Opera has the dominance in this aspect, apparently.
Moreover since Bon Echo doesn't involve the update of Gecko engine, Firefox 2.X will not deliver improvement. We have to wait for Minefield(3.0).
Opera does have quite a lot of merits and features, but Firefox is still my primary .
I do not like the feeling of browsing using Opera.. -
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