Apple Safari Speed Can't Beat Firefox's Ease

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i'm not so happy with the update - on macbook pro it is running not so fast, the load bar (rotating circle) was so annoying - i prefer to old style where the address bar itslef is a load bar.. so i was forced to revert to safari 3.
why should apple leave the safari's "mac" outlook anyway?? if i wanted a standard looking OS i would by a PC... darn it, Apple!

90909 of AZ 3:11PM May 11, 2009

Speed is about several things:
-HTML, CSS rendering, Safari is faster a bit.
-JavaScript, Safari is faster.
-Loading resources - Firefox is faster.
But you don't really get to notice that as a user because it's mostly about milliseconds.
Memory:
-Safari 4 is a memory hog and also leaking (on windows), Firefox uses and manages memory much better.
Standards compliance:
-Safari 4 seems better at passing the acid 3 test, but it has chosen the MOV video for HTML5 which is the worst for the users since its closed source, full of patents from Apple and not free. Firefox is better cause it chose a free codec in any sense, nobody would notice the quality difference anyway.
-Plugins, themes and addons. Safari is nowhere near, Firefox clearly wins.
Both browsers have a slow cold startup.

Brian of AL 2:13AM March 02, 2009

I don't know about the speed but firefox crashes all the time and locks up my mac for about 30 seconds each time. So much for updates.....

Philip John Brooks of GA 12:14PM February 27, 2009

speed is mostly influenced by network.
the js speed increase is nice, but in reality, those numbers are obtained by asking the browser to run a function 1000000 times, so in real world, i doubt anybody can tell the difference of 0.01ms. not to mention js is such a tiny portion of the web.
Its stupid to use js speed to equal the browsing speed.
but hey, Apple is famous for creating stupid culture, im not surprised.

cris of TX 3:11PM February 25, 2009

Isn't the speed really mostly dependent on how busy the website server and intermediate routers are? Seems to me people often get a notion in their heads that one browser is faster than another without ever objectively testing speeds with a stopwatch. Firefox sometimes seems slow loading because it checks for updates for the add-ons.

Luther of IL 2:45PM February 25, 2009