Tom's Hardware Web Browser Grand Prix: The Top Five, Tested And Ranked

If someone is interested and didn't know already which is the fastest browser.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/firefox-chrome-opera,2558.html#xtor=RSS-182

 

I don't care about browser write-ups, reviews or comparisons. I've been using FF since 1.5 and have been given no reason to switch to another browser. I'd rather make up my own mind about which browser is best for me.

 

I know, so do I. I still use Maxthon only BC of it's features that I'm used to.

Anyway, the article is not about "the best" browser, that's subjective. The best for you is not the best for me obviously.

 

I have tried many browsers and always uninstall them after a short time because they do not meet up to FF. Claims were made about Opera being faster and it does not work that way on my computer. FireFox is the best.

 

it's tomshardware /end thread

 

^^^What do you want to say? That we shouldn't trust them?

 

they posted a lot of garbage before, which is, at least, why i don't trust them anymore.

 

Same here, only I use IE. Comes with my OS, and happens to run perfectly fine. Browser "performance"? Who cares? On my computers, it's practically always the network that's the bottleneck.

Also, I have no interest in installing Google's spyware on my computer, and I really don't need any add-ons.

 

I could care less about any tests. I have always used firefox and probably always will. I'll admit to playing around with IE and Opera in the past, but have always used firefox as my main browser since the beginning.

 

FireFox came in first for memory performance? I love FireFox, but the program loves to hoard memory. The browser developers blame extensions and the extension writers blame the browser developers. The stats from the article are interesting from the standpoint that it makes me start thinking about Opera again. I haven't used that since my web developer days. I use Chrome at the moment. It's like a fit and trim FireFox with an annoying static UI. Good read...interesting results.

 

They are talking milleseconds interesting that browsers take different times for different home pages. Ie is fastest on my home page. I dropped chrome because it features did not measure up, also there is a privacy concern. As stated ie works with MSN and is for me the most stable. FF is great for downloading and add-ons. Opera is best for videos with turbo, still eats RAM and does not allow toolbars. My top three. Under heavy multitask usage over a long time for me ie is best. I use the three. Is there anything negative about using all three?

 

I use 3 browser as well. Chrome for normal browsing, firefox for proxy, ie for bing shopping.

 

I've tried Chrome, Safari, Opera and Maxthon but I keep going back to IE8. Some secure sites recommends IE to access their web site. IE is the most compatible web browser especially for games from MS. Fastest browser? Let's talk more about about it working 100%.

 

I use Chrome because I know wearing tinfoil hats actually doesn't accomplish anything. There are tons of other ways people get rid of their "privacy" everyday through social networking sites and malware.

Google isn't out to blackmail you for the you have in your harddrive.

 

I use 3 browsers as well...IE8, Opera and Chrome. But usually, I am on IE8, which generally works well. I keep Opera, I guess for sentimental reasons and Chrome because it is lightening fast on most sites. The workhorse in my browser stable remains IE8. I previously had FF but I am sick and tired of the add-ons and extensions plus the fact that for some reason it begins to get bogged down. I did try out Safari (for Windows) but did not like the layout and interface (which is a personal thing) so I have not bothered with it since.

But I guess the key issue in browser usage is answering the question: What works for you?

 

why settle for one anyway?
I use almost all the browsers available out there, for web designing and different purposes.
My mostly used browsers though are the big four : Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and IE8.

But really, these comparisons don't mean much. If you have a fast connection, you won't notice any different in loading page and anything of that sort.

I enjoy Firefox the most for one simple reason that non of the other browsers beat the Firefox's add-ons. Chrome comes in second though with their new extensions collection.

 

I have to say, I was impressed by how thorough the tests were. Well done. The tests show each browsers strengths and weaknesses. Though I've tried all the browsers at one point or another, and they all have merits except for Safari, which really needs to be updated. I'll stick to Chrome for 99% of web pages.

 

I have IE and Chrome and have just made the switch to Chrome because of its speed....love it.

 

It's fast, but mostly if you look at it compared to Firefox bloated with add ons. I
just tried IE again, and the difference is very tiny.

 

Compatible with what? IE is one of the most non-compliant browsers out there.

Since we're all sharing personal secrets viz browsers, I'll admit to having been an IE-phile right up until these last few months, when I started trying to write some half-way decent html/javascript for a website I've been tinkering with, and almost any "nifty" idea I came up with had to be written twice - once for all the standards-compliant browsers, and a second time for IE (and I use IE8, I can't even imagine the pain of trying to write for legacy versions of IE, esp. IE6, which is apparently still in widespread use).

I tried a few of the others (other than google's chrome - no sense in giving the new overlords more help than is absolutely necessary - and Maxthon - too many chinese gov't fingers in that pie, from what I could tell), and have found myself settling on FF out of habit. Opera's cute, but doesn't seem to "fit" my habits as well, SRWare Iron (Chrome, without the google) is even more ungainly, and safari just does wierd things on my XPSP3 box.

So, while in general I don't see the browser differences as much more than a matter of subjective, personal taste, I will say that FF does seem to be just a bit more useful than IE, even on a windows box, if nothing else than because it implements the various internet standards better than IE does.

 

The problem with all these benchmark tests is that A) they do not take into consideration the realistic mix of content that people use their web browsers for, and B) they do not take into consideration the additional features a browser has. For example, out of the box, Opera has many more features than Chrome, which to some would justify the memory usage.

Bottom line is, while these benchmarks are interesting to read (I spent some 10 minutes reading through Tom's Hardware's benches and evaluation), nowadays all these browser options are so similar that you can't really go wrong - just use whichever one feels the best to you. Opera's worked great for me since I switched from Firefox 2.0.

 

Compatible with the Internet. IE remains one of the most actually compatible (in real life) browsers out there. Mainly because people have to, but that's kind of besides the point.

I partially echo Midnightsun in that the problem with doing a review like that is that it does end up synthetic-benchmark-heavy, and unlike e.g. for the most part a graphics card, what you actually experience on the web vs synthetic benchmarks have sometimes absolutely nothing to do with each other. Safari is one of the primary cases in point: It seems (as is clear from the benchmarks) totally designed to 'work the numbers'. My experience with what is easily the least compatible-with-the-web-in-reality offering from Cupertino seems to bear that out.

I alternate between Firefox and IE. Chrome gets cranked up if the adblocking in both FF/IE are getting in the way and I can't be bothered to look for why that is. Safari is only used for cookie reasons on OS X (i.e. multiple web email accounts from the same provider on each browser) and never in Windows.

I like Opera for mobile, but I've never really felt comfortable with it on the desktop. Odd.

 

It's not odd. I feel the same way.

 

That means Opera's business model is a success then - the company relies on revenue from the mobile version to stay in business.

The desktop version is just an afterthought nowadays.

 

I highly doubt it. It's only good for non smart phone which is disappearing. Nokia start using firefox.

 

Nokia uses their own Symbian-centric web browser, which on my E63 is quite snappy. I tried using Opera mini, but it just was not worth the hassle.

 

i ve been using Google Chrome for a long time now...almost stopped using Firefox....

just feel comfortable with the simplicity and speed

 

Must be one of those subjective things, then, because, other than Microsoft's own update webpage - which "politely" tells you to go get IE if you try to open it up using a non-IE browser - I've seen more hiccups from websites when I'm using IE than when I'm using a non-IE browser.

And before you start laying into me, keep in mind that, as I said before, in general I have always been an IE-phile, so I'm not saying things out of spite or envy.

 

I mostly prefer Chrome because of its minimalist design, I never realized just how much space IE and Firefox's toolbars (not to mention all of the toolbars different companies like to add for advertisement) used up.

 

The thing is, the vast majority of webpages out there are designed with Internet Explorer 7/8 in mind - web designers go out of their way to make sure the pages work properly in IE, even if it means breaking many web standards.

Therefore, even though Opera adheres very rigorously to web standards (probably the most web-standard-friendly browser right now), pages often don't load perfectly on it.

 

Not so much as in the past - I'm noticing that more and more, pages are written to standards, and then given an IE-only hack to make the page work, more or less, in IE as well. Sometimes the hack itself can make the page display less than perfectly in other browsers. What one calls that (a hack, or designing to IE7/8) is a matter of nomenclature, not substance, but it is something that I'm seeing more of in newer pages.

 

Every now and then I give Opera a shot, but after the last couple releases, I've been tempted less and less to stick with it.

Used to be that it worked pretty well overall, but it just wouldn't load one or two key websites. Now I rarely (if ever) encounter a site that won't load at all in Opera. The problem is that almost *every* site I visit in Opera is fugly. I have no idea why. Maybe it has something to do with cleartype?

Regardless, most sites I've loaded have been ugly to the point of being distracting. Fonts are hyper-boldface and blurry. Menus are weirdly formatted. Some pages hang for several seconds before loading completely.

I'd ask for suggestions on how to improve it, but it doesn't strike me as being my responsibility to fix problems like those after a fresh install. Looks like I'll stick with FF once again, with a little Chrome on the side...

 

Outside of IE, I'd agree that there's not a big difference in speed if you've got a big enough pipe. But I'd still put IE as noticeably slower, even with a fast connection. Opera/Firefox/Chrome/Safari are all fast enough to not feel slow on the vast majority of pages out there these days - with IE, on the other hand, I notice the loading time a lot more often.

chris-m, ClearType could have something to do with the font issues. In general ClearType is more blurry than Non-Clear Type, and some browsers do especially poor with it, or indeed any type of font smoothing (I'm thinking Safari 3 for Windows). I haven't used Opera on a Mac, so I can't say if that's a common problem on that platform. It also may be that somewhere along the line Opera's configuration files got messed up on your install, and that if you completely uninstalled it and deleted all its config files, it would look better. Then again, it might be like Safari 3 for Windows was for me - not worth the bother it would take to get the appearance halfway reasonable.

 

There is a lot of discussion here about what everybody uses, but no good hard evidence as to why one is better.

I've tried to use FF exclusively ever since I discovered how well it resisted the spyware that would cripple my IE. However I on rare occasions I find websites that work better in IE than FF.

I've never tried Google Chrome but the thought of feedback to Google bothers me. I've never tried Chrome or Safari either so I can't even begin to compare them to IE or FF.

Speed is good, but here's what I want to know- which browser is more secure against spyware/adware/malware, and which is most likely to handle the greatest number of websites?

And BTW, the original article on Tom's generated more feedback comments than I've ever seen on any of their articles.