Google Chrome ignites browser speed race

[Zeus_Hunt]

You may have decided against a switch to Chrome (at least market share data indicates that Chrome is losing share quickly again), but there is a good chance you won’t get rid of the browser entirely. We guess you may even launch it from time to time, especially when IE or Firefox get stuck. Whatever Chrome’s future path may be, its responsiveness and speed have left a lasting impression that will stick. Other browser makers took notice and are working on faster browsers as well: Firefox 3.1, scheduled for a late 2008 release, comes with TraceMonkey and Web Workers, two key technologies that could easily render Chrome's speed gains obsolete. TG Daily had a close look on what to expect from the current speed race and next-gen browsers.

The engine that is running under a browser's hood directly affects how much horse power web applications have at their disposal. Chrome excels in this area thanks to two key solutions: V8 and its clever design. V8 is Chrome's javascript engine that turns javascript programs in a so-called machine code, basically a series of instructions native to the processor powering your computer. The browser's clever design stems from the fact that Google’s engineers had the resources to design a browser from scratch. Chrome feels smooth: Tabs switch instantly and user interface (UI) is responsive even when a tab is stuck in an endless loop or takes all resources for itself.

If early Firefox 3.1 alpha builds are any indication, Chrome's key advantages may be short-lived. Firefox 3.1 features the new javascript engine called TraceMonkey that replaces the SpiderMonkey engine used in Firefox 3.0.1. Since most web applications are written in javascript, performance improvements in a browser's javascript engine are directly passed on to web applications. Early benchmarks reveal that TraceMonkey runs javascript code up to 30x faster than SpiderMonkey and even faster than Chrome's V8.

Quite an interesting read... Check out the links on that page for comparisions.

View: Original Article

View: Progress of TraceMonkey (Comparisions) - Huge Difference between Firefox 3.0 and 3.1

[Marik]

~moved to it's proper place, the soft news section ;)~

DNW tried the new alpha ver of firefox, and said that it's faster than anything he ever saw

[irefay]

I like Chrome for its speed and its something fresh but it will have to be developed a bit more for me to make a full switch.

[hman333]

I like Chrome for its speed and its something fresh but it will have to be developed a bit more for me to make a full switch.

the 3.1prebeta builds with tracemonkey enabled smoke chrome from what i have experienced playing around with them both, 3.1 is crazy fast

latest build of 3.1 pre beta: Download

[MadBandit]

my biggest disappointment with chrome so far, it the lack of options for the little things.

There are some things in FF and even IE that i am "used to" and the options just aren't there in Chrome...

Still it beats the pants of IE7 and IE8(Beta 2) with ease...

bring it on google... lets see where you can take this!

[Donkeyhootie]

Yeah FF 3.1 beta is about as fast as Chrome.

But the real killer for Chrome is that you can't kill JavaScript at all, let alone selectively, and that you can't prevent permanent placement of the Google cookie even in their sandbox (incognito) mode.

No thanks - forever.

Firefox

CookieSafe

NoScript

Adblock Plus

Works for me.

[shought]

Is the 3.1 Beta really that much faster?

[Marik]

Is the 3.1 Beta really that much faster?

it's not really that much faster...it's blazin' faster

[demonon]

I decided to give it a try. Wow!

It's like changing from v2 to v3.

[rKAnjEL]

FireFox3 is a piece of junk, regardless of any new features it consumes twice (if not more) as much memory as FireFox2.

FF2 is not really lite on resources at all, but FF3 is just a resource hog!

PS: I tested Opera, Safari, Chrome, and FF2/3 and FF2/3 consumes the most memory of all!

[Marik]

FireFox3 is a piece of junk

don't say harsh things like that...

the reason as to why it consumes so much ram, is because of the installed addons, and because it's the most flexible and modular browser on the net

[KilJaden]

Modular .... The thing is that most if not all of the addons you need in Firefox are allready built in Opera , and i'm just wondering why use something that does not have all the things you need and after getting all the features you're browser becomes bloated ?

I'm just wodering how can opera have as many features by Default and Firefox lags behing http://files.myopera.com/Rijk/blog/extensions.html http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=144237

[Marik]

I'll stick with Mozilla, mainly because I have lots of bookmarks that I don't have on opera.

Didn't say opera is bad. FireFox being behind opera?

Let's not forget who jumped out the window, and started working on a new skin once they saw ff 3.0 beta's skin

i really like that link :rolleyes: http://files.myopera.com/Rijk/blog/extensi...html?1221312575

just as Microsoft employees are paid to praise vista, so are these guys, since the Internet is one big competition, I guess the one who posts the most crap wins eh?

[KilJaden]

I'll stick with Mozilla, mainly because I have lots of bookmarks that I don't have on opera.

Didn't say opera is bad. FireFox being behind opera?

Let's not forget who jumped out the window, and started working on a new skin once they saw ff 3.0 beta's skin

i really like that link :rolleyes: http://files.myopera.com/Rijk/blog/extensi...html

just as Microsoft employees are paid to praise vista, so are these guys, since the Internet is one big competition, I guess the one who posts the most crap wins eh?

I only said when it comes to features built in by default Opera is the clear winner . Never said Opera is better or something like that.

And when it comes to who stole from who ... Remember who is the pioner in many things we take in todays browsers for granted Tabs for instance ...

[Marik]

And when it comes to who stole from who ... Remember who is the pioner in many things we take in todays browsers for granted Tabs for instance ...

indeed :unsure:

NetCaptor was one of the first tabbed browsing interfaces, followed two years later by IBrowse in 1999, then Opera in 2000, Mozilla in 2001, Konqueror in 2003, and Safari in 2003.

The first browser to offer tabbed browsing was InternetWorks in 1994, but the feature did not become popular until Mozilla incorporated the function into their browser in 2003.

well I guess we have InternetWorks to thank for tabbed browsing :rolleyes:

[KilJaden]

:rolleyes:

That was no no from me :unsure: , I somehow knew that Opera was the fisrt one but it was 1 st between today's major browsers.

But http://operawiki.info/OperaInnovations says more than me .

[Marik]

haha, we debated so much, that this thread got HOT :rolleyes:

[KilJaden]

haha, we debated so much, that this thread got HOT :rolleyes:

Uhm i guess F5 button is the guilty one :unsure:

[rKAnjEL]

don't say harsh things like that...

the reason as to why it consumes so much ram, is because of the installed addons, and because it's the most flexible and modular browser on the net

Maybe I should've made myself clear, it consumes a HUGE amount of memory with default setup, I didn't add a single addon yet FF2 consumes 50~90Mb while FF3 consumes 100~150Mb! I dunno about you but I think that's outrageous.

The thing is that most if not all of the addons you need in Firefox are allready built in Opera

So true, so true and yet it doesn't consume half as much memory!

[HATE9X]

don't say harsh things like that...

the reason as to why it consumes so much ram, is because of the installed addons, and because it's the most flexible and modular browser on the net

Maybe I should've made myself clear, it consumes a HUGE amount of memory with default setup, I didn't add a single addon yet FF2 consumes 50~90Mb while FF3 consumes 100~150Mb! I dunno about you but I think that's outrageous.

The thing is that most if not all of the addons you need in Firefox are allready built in Opera

So true, so true and yet it doesn't consume half as much memory!

ff3 fixed all the memory leaks ff2 sometimes had.. and ff3 consumes much less memory than ff2 on my pcs.. :pirate:

[rKAnjEL]

ff3 fixed all the memory leaks ff2 sometimes had.. and ff3 consumes much less memory than ff2 on my pcs..

That's odd, I tested both FF2 and FF3 for quite some time and on my PC, FF3 consumes much more memory (almost twice as FF2's).