So I decided, after not checking for months, quarters, probably a year or two, where the performance is for some browsers. Here’s what I got.
IE is bloated – no surprise really. Slow tactile response to clicking. Page load fast, faster depending on caching styles and certain “IE” style caching favoritism it seems to have for Microsoft oriented pages – hmmm.
Firefox is doing very well. Sometimes slow but more active response in tactile feeling. Pages load somewhat fast. Some pages load faster than in other browsers, but it seems to be a little fussy about certain AJAX or Javascript intensive apps. Not as troublesome as IE though.
Opera is doing ok. Tactile response is instant on everything. Pages appear to load extremely fast. If it is ECMA compliant javascript, it screams fast.
The websites I loaded are; www.adronbhall.com (Mostly just CSS and a few externally derived bits and formatting – nothing intensive for the browsers), http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/publicMap.shtml?a=portsc (NextBus Streetcar Java app for arrival times), and www.pageflakes.com (nice AJAXy intensive page).
The results; (click on the images to enlarge)
Initial load with all the browser tabs opened in each browser.
All three browsers displaying the tabs I opened.
I opened up four page flakes tabs in each browser.
I picked one of the tabs (the first one) and added each of these page flake widgets.
Now it became this obvious who rocks, and who does not.
IE 8 is supposed to be better, performance-wise…much more like firefox.
points presented at mix08 keynote, along with a link to download ie 8 developer beta (you might have already seen it) can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/05/internet-explorer-8-beta-1-for-developers-now-available.aspx
I personally will admit, what I’ve heard, I have high hopes for IE 8. I hope they finally get around to making a good jump in usage of the technology available.