I was always Internet Explorer user. Since 1996. I always have other browsers installed because I need to test web tools, however, my personal preference was IE. Why? Mainly, because of performance. Somehow IE managed to be more lightweight (I’ll show benchmark charts supporting this point). Now 95% of time I use Firefox. What happened? I have installed IE 7.0.
A few months back (when I was using Internet Explorer 6.0) I asked myself: is there any rational reason besides my habit? The question led to benchmarking test on my PC.
Conditions: P4-2.8 GHz, 1G RAM, 64M Video card, Windows XP SP2, www.yahoo.com as a start page.
Methodology: I used the following sequence #1:
1) Clean the cache of all three browsers,
2) Reboot,
3) Start Task Manager,
4) Wait for about 30 seconds, than start Firefox 1.5.0.7, wait for a few seconds until I see CPU utilization on low level, close Firefox; do the same with Opera 8.54 and IE 6.0.
I know, it is not the best methodology, however, I was doing it for myself only.
After that I rebooted and reversed the sequence (IE first, FF – second).
The results pretty much convinced me that Internet Explorer 6.0 was faster and more lightweight than Firefox.
A few days back I installed Internet Explorer 7.0. After long installation process, reboot and post-reboot configuration, it finally completed its setup. And? I launched it and waited for about 10 seconds until it finished loading up. Well…
After a few days of use I realized, that it’s slow and heavy like mammoth. Since I use Firefox in parallel, it became obvious, that there is something wrong with IE. So, a week later I found myself using Firefox on regular basis.
Just out of curiosity I decided to repeat benchmark test for these two browsers. Same methodology (except the reboot):
Conclusion.
Internet Explorer 7.0 spends about 2 times more rendering the same page in compare to Firefox 1.5.0.7. Why the heck should I wait? So, I don’t use IE 7.0 on regular basis anymore. Period.
It turned out that I use Firefox 1.5.0.7 only because of new Internet Explorer 7.0. I would never imagine that would make me switch…
6 comments ↓
Did you have any extensions or non-default themes? That can contibute to the memory.
No they didn’t have any extras at that time.
It was bare minimum installation for all browsers.
IE 6.0 and FF 1.5 were very close in terms of performance. I guess, using IE was a matter of habit. However, IE 7.0 is significantly slower than FF, so, I was literally forced to use FF. No regrets at all.
Hi Pavel,
Glad to see another Firefox convert.
Your story kick-started a new section at my site that I’ve been wanting to start for awhile now. I don’t “tell” your story, rather I link back to it on your site.
Here’s the post: http://firefoxrawx.com/2006/10/08/internet-explorer-made-me-do-it/
Hi Richard,
Cool idea. I also like design of your site.
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I would like to see a continuation of the topic
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