IE8 vs FF3.5 vs IE7?

Firefox 3.5 ROCKS!

IE8 is slower than IE7.

FF 3.6a1pre for me. The main thrust of development is to increase speed atm.

FullyLoadedMan said:

Its like the sexiest thing ever!!

i think you exaggerate maybe a teensy weensy bit , but chrome is also my browser of choice.

on a side note (not aimed at anyone in particular, or even this thread): i get slightly annoyed reading comments saying x,y, or z is 'the best'.

there is no 'best' browser, it's a case of personal preference. everyone uses the www in a different way, and different browsers cater for different people.

we all prefer one browser over another, it doesn't make it the best, it merely makes it your favourite. </rant>

I disagree. Yes there are differences between the browsers that one person may favour over another as a matter of personal opinion, something you might call a subjective opinion. But at the same time, on a technical level, there are differences that makes some browsers objectively better that the others.

you're probably right, but the way i think about it is a bit like this:

if somebody said, i think browser X is better than Y because it allows users to add useful add-ons, then i have no objection to that statement, browser X is better in that particular respect, and it will suit users who like having add-ons.

but browser Y may be better than X at rendering speeds, for example, or crashes less, and it suits people who want to look at websites quickly.

browser Z may be ultra-secure, but is clunky and it's difficult to add bookmarks, so that suits the more paranoid types.

which is the best? in my opinion, none of them. 'favourite' does not equal 'best'.

someone on this forum in a different thread used a car analogy - which is best, a porsche or a truck? well, it depends if you need to move big heavy stuff, or if you want to drive around quickly. neither is 'the best' - each of them are better in different ways.

at the end of the day, it's great that we have a choice, so we can all use whatever we like- and as you say, it's subjective.

smarteyeball said:

I've tried to like Chrome, I really have, but I just can't get into it.

I feel exactly the same way that you do. It's an alright browser, but a bit too minimalistic for my liking and of course lacking my firefox plug-ins.

I find Firefox 3.5 no faster than IE8. Maybe FF is faster in microbenchmarks by nanoseconds, but based on my experience in page load times there is no discernable difference. Third party add-ons require more resources causing bloat to FF and are a source for crashes.

It's great that FF is well rooted in open source and open standards but this doesn't mean much for the end-user. Until they have an acceptable client for Linux that matches the performance on Windows I'm not supporting FF. I'm also waiting for isolated processes for better security and performance and multithreaded rendering...

In my opinion IE has a more streamlined interface and integrates well with Windows (common RSS feed, favorites)