[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Browser Showdown: IE 8 vs. Firefox here

[hogwaump]

I have been using the FireFox 3.1 beta for some months now, and one of the first differences I noted is that it is considerably less processor-bound when loading pages, which translates into much faster loading times on my machine. I would like to see this test repeated with the 3.1 version, due to be released soon.

[WinTard]

I cannot comment on the 32-bit version of IE8, but under Windows 7 Ultimate x64 beta, IE8 is the fastest browser I've ever used. Contrary to XP 32-bit and IE7, most pages use 0 ~ 35% CPU, and multithreads much better. As evidenced by the much different graphs in Task Manager. Most of the time, the CPU sits at 0% CPU utilization.

[big8news]

win i start up ie8 its fast than firefox ie8 comes on frist and firefox comes 2 .xp what im using

[virtualpalaboi]

When Firefox was the faster browser, it's a big issue for these writers. Now that it's the other way around, they don't want to people to notice it.

Great indirect bias.

[saber]

I thought the new beta release of Chrome or Safari is not bad either... Will love to see those to in the comparison chart too...

[Stringer52]

It just kills me when people haggle over a second's ... my god, a second's ... difference in page loading time. Give me a break. Now, if it were minutes, OK, that would be worth a whine.
Another example as to how we've become a society both lazy and impatient at the same time.
I use Firefox 3, well, simply because it's what I've become accustomed to.

[Internet2k4]

I used FF3.1 for several weeks but returned to FF3.0 - the beta is indeed faster but not ready for prime time in stability and extension compatibility. I'm very impressed with IE8, having run the RC for a while. It is a shade slower than both Chrome and the beta FF3.1 - however, it seems to use fewer resources, which counts on netbooks, etc. If I was running 1gig of RAM and a small SSD drive on an XP netbook, I don't think I'd bother with more than IE8.


The other big advantage IE will have over the other browsers, much overlooked in "speed test" mania, is compatibility with Microsoft's new cloud offerings, which are all free so far and very sophisticated. Live Mesh storage, sync and remote desktop beta, the Live Mail desktop, etc. are part of the IE "package" and add real value by integrating multiple devices. Then MS Office will go online, for cloud work on existing enterprise templates for documents, spreadsheets and presentations that Google just can't handle. Even thought it's going to be uninstallable on the new W7, IE8 is going to retain users with this new infrastructure.

[Elijah]

I have been using FF 3.1 Beta 3 for awhile, and it is a lot faster! If IE 8, is about as fast as Firefox will be a lot faster than IE.

[mikedgolf40505]

When Firefox was the faster browser, it's a big issue for these writers. Now that it's the other way around, they don't want to people to notice it.
Great indirect bias.

You are 100% correct. They were trying to deny it when Microsoft first published the report on IE8 speed at the beginning of this month. I am unbiased, I run Safari on my MacBook Pro.

[skicrazer]

I would like to know when Safari will be ready for prime time. I don't notice speed differences between IE and FF, but it's very obvious when I use Safari. Problem is, it's also obvious when Safari doesn't support features that IE and FF do.

[WinTard]

Um, when I meant fast, I meant that any and all pages apparently load faster. But as well, as some mention it, the initial load of IE8 also is faster than anything else I've used. Perhaps it is due to the prefetch cache? Regardless, IE8 is currently the fastest of all browsers (at least to my experience).

[TechieXP]

The fact Chrome and Safari doesn't support much of the enhanced code in pages especially media based ones will make the faster. But what good is speed if it doesn't render the whole page properly? CSS is used on many sites as a way to control how the data is laid out on the page. IE is the only one that natively renders CSS properly. FF does better than the others mentioned. I found increasing ram will make browsing a bit faster...

If your system has multiple cores or CPU's...using one of them just for IE can make a difference. Just open teh task manager, go to the Processes tab, right click on 'iexplorer.exe' and go to the 'Infinity' option and choose one of your CPU's.

Its nice to see something nice about IE.
I noticed tho IE8 x64 still breaks on many pages do to page incompatibility. Do we really need a 64bit browser yet?

Nice to see IE8 loads Apple's homepage faster than Safari probably does. I like the new features in Safari...but it isn't an IE replacement for me...

[WinTard]

TechieXP said:

The fact Chrome and Safari doesn't support much of the enhanced code in pages especially media based ones will make the faster. But what good is speed if it doesn't render the whole page properly? CSS is used on many sites as a way to control how the data is laid out on the page. IE is the only one that natively renders CSS properly. FF does better than the others mentioned. I found increasing ram will make browsing a bit faster...

If your system has multiple cores or CPU's...using one of them just for IE can make a difference. Just open teh task manager, go to the Processes tab, right click on 'iexplorer.exe' and go to the 'Infinity' option and choose one of your CPU's.

Its nice to see something nice about IE.
I noticed tho IE8 x64 still breaks on many pages do to page incompatibility. Do we really need a 64bit browser yet?

Nice to see IE8 loads Apple's homepage faster than Safari probably does. I like the new features in Safari...but it isn't an IE replacement for me...

Hi TechieXP! Thanks for the tip, I didn't know about that.

I happen to believe we need 64-bit EVERYTHING. Including all the plug-ins that aren't there yet.

PS: Perhaps you should try 7057?

[TechieXP]

Other suggestions to speed up browsing:
Both Windows XP and Vista offer 3rd party utilities that allow you to change some features in Windows to increase speed.
In this case browser speed.
Internet Browsers allow a setting to delete your cache after closing teh broswer, or when you shutdown. The down side to that however is all browsers download specific content when loading a page. This includes images, css files, flv files and more. This helps speed up browsing if this is a page you visit often and the data doesn't change often.
Use 3rd party utilities i=to increase you browsers cache size. If you ahve a large hard drive increase the cache size to 20% of your drive size. This can be done through IE Internet Options.
RAM Drive. Some utilities allow for creating a RAM drive. What happens is, the utility create a registry entry to create a drive in your computers memory. Your memory will always be faster then an hardware based drive. This is espeically good for users who never shutdown their system. After creating a RAM drive, move the browser cache to it.

[TechieXP]

Here is a way to create a ram disk:
You can use the dos based ramdrive.sys in Win XP by following these steps.
1.start the add hardware wizzard
2.Click on 'Next' on the 'Welcome' screen of the Hardware Wizard.
3.The Hardware Wizard will scan your machine for new hardware.
4.When it finds no new hardware, say YES, you have the hardware in.
5.Go to the bottom and choose the 'Add a new hardware device' option.
6.Use the 'Install the hardware that I manually select from a List (Advanced)' choice.
7.On the next screen, use the first choice 'Show all devices'. [WAIT!!]
8.From the next screen, choose 'Microsoft' in the list and select the 'RAMdisk Driver'. There is also the 'Have Disk' button - if you click that button, you can manually select ramdisk.inf from C:WINDOWSINF
9.Click 'Next' and the Hardware Wizard will install the RAMdisk driver
That installs the hardware so that it now exists on the system. The next thing is to configure it so as to be useful. A quick way may be to add this to your registry and see what happens on your machine. I do not know if this will work for you but I have this in my registry.
Put this into a text file called .reg and click it -> yes
-----start----
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEYLOCALMACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesRamdisk]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,44,00,
52,00,49,00,56,00,45,00,52,00,53,00,5c,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,64,00,69,00,73,
00,6b,00,2e,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,00,00
"DisplayName"="Ramdisk Driver"
[HKEYLOCALMACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesRamdiskParameters]
"BreakOnEntry"=dword:00000000
"DebugLevel"=dword:00000000
"DebugComp"=dword:ffffffff
"DiskSize"=dword:002e8000
"DriveLetter"="Z:"
"RootDirEntries"=dword:00000200
"SectorsPerCluster"=dword:00000002
[HKEYLOCALMACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesRamdiskSecurity]
"Security"=hex:01,00,14,80,90,00,00,00,9c,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,30,00,00,00,02,
00,1c,00,01,00,00,00,02,80,14,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,
00,00,02,00,60,00,04,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,fd,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,
05,12,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,
20,02,00,00,00,00,14,00,8d,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,0b,00,00,00,00,
00,18,00,fd,01,02,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,23,02,00,00,01,01,
00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00
[HKEYLOCALMACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ServicesRamdiskEnum]
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001
"0"="RootUNKNOWN0000"
--------end-------
This ramdrive.sys only supports up to 32 MB but Microsoft also have a sample driver you can download and modify to suit your specific needs. It was mad for 2000 but should be suitable for XP. This will hopefully get you to the 256MB you desire but I do not know since I have not used it.
http://support.micro...s/Q257/4/05.ASP

I noticed nobody has replied to you so I have signed up just for you -- aaaaw
hope this helps give you a start in the right direction.

[michaelwagner23]

I've been trying out IE8 today and find it significantly slower than Firefox.

[TechieXP]

Here is a great RAMDISK utility athat is free and works in Vista. It is also cool because it had a GUI and it also allows you to choose how much ram to use and assign a drive letter.

Just remember the following. This is not an actual hard disk and any info you save or use from a ramdisk will disappear after you shutdown. It is best to either us Suspend or sleep mode so that you don't have to create the drive every time you boot.

Even though the drive isn't real it works just like a real one. You can ever forat them to create space. Remember space depends on how much ram you have.


For those looking for a 3rd party ultility...http://www.totalidea.com/
I have used both Tweak XP and VI for Vista and they work very well. Both include the utility for creating ramdisks and they will create teh registry entry for you to enable this at every boot.

Also...if you have 1GB of ram or more here is another way to speed up Windows period. These utilities offer an option to run Windows core from RAM. This will prevent so many drive swaps. This can also be done manually in the registry. Using the utility is safer. Also you can do this by eliminating the swap file in Windows which will force Windows virtual file to run from memory vs your hard disk. Howvever if you choose this route be aware of some things. If one day you suffer a BSOD Windows will not provide you with an option for having a text file written to explain the error. Just use Google to see the details of eliminating the Windows swap file. For Xp you should have at least 2GB of ram if you plan not to use a swap file. For Vista I suggest 4GB or more.

[hogwaump]

Faster, slower, it doesn't much matter. Internet Explorer intrinsically carries the seeds of its own destruction simply because of who puts it out. If Microsoft bundles it with operating systems, then it instantly becomes the prime target for hackers, and most people will still be using more obscure software such as FireFox.

I like FireFox, but have been seriously considering switching to something else, simply because it has been getting too popular of late. I'm not encouraged by the guys in Mozilla skunkworks having to put out emergency security updates.

[TechieXP]

I forgot link to free RAMdisk - http://www.mydigital...nd-2003-server/