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Firefox 3 Released

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icekin:
While i appreciate any independent testing on this website, it seems more and more people are posting their "results" with absolutely no details/supporting evidence whatsoever. For example, what sites were the browsers tested on? was the cache empty? were the browsers using pipelining? what addons/widgets were installed? was any 3rd party software present that may have interfered? etc etc.

Ehtyar.
-Ehtyar (June 19, 2008, 04:45 PM)
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Apologies for the lack of detailed information on that post. I did what I'd consider to be a fair test. Both FF and Opera were installed, non-portable versions. FF had the following extensions :

Adblock Plus, Better Gmail 2, BugMenot, Customize Google, Firebug, Gmail S/MIME, IE Tab, MR Tech Toolkit, SeoQuake, Stumbleupon, Stylish, Sxipper, Tab Mix Plus (the version posted earlier in this thread), TinyMenu, Web Developer, YSlow

Plugins : IETab, Java, Mozilla Default, Quicktime, Shockwave, Shockwave for Director, Silverlight, Windows Presentation Presentation

Third Party Software that monitors my connection: Admuncher, Spyware Blaster, IE Spy Ads, Comodo Firewall Pro

Opera had about 35 javascript files in the user.js directory, but of course, many of them (about 20) are site specific, so they only come into play when I visit that site. Many of those 20 sites were not part of my test. Although, I am not sure if Opera loads all the js at once, or only when I visit the site.

Sites I tried out (mostly with poor html):

http://football365.com
http://myspace.com (plus a few random user pages)
And a few other from Vincent Flander's site

Test Machine (Windows) :

Acer Travelmate 4070
Intel Centrino 1733 Mhz
2GB 667 Mhz DDR2
60GB 5400 RPM Parallel ATA
Windows XP SP3 (Nlited, many services turned off)

Test Machine (Linux):

1.8Ghz AMD Athlon
512 MB RAM
Xubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)
7200 RPM 250GB Parallel ATA

I realize that I am not presenting as much details as some would like, but frankly I can't recall all the details of my test. But I would like to say (again with no evidence to back this statement) that I am only making my comments based on my own user experience. I do not declare allegiance to either the Mozilla or Opera camp and in fact, I've used both extensively, along with K-Meleon. Hence, when I state that as a user, I've experienced a problem or enjoyed a feature, its because I actually have and I hope that the developers can fix it or implement it elsewhere. I am not trying to make any product appear better than another through my comments.

Ehtyar:
Thank you for the details, though i wouldn't consider that a fair test at all. A fresh windows installation, and clean copies of opera/firefox would be needed for a 'fair' test i should think.

Ehtyar.

icekin:
Thank you for the details, though i wouldn't consider that a fair test at all. A fresh windows installation, and clean copies of opera/firefox would be needed for a 'fair' test i should think.

Ehtyar.
-Ehtyar (June 19, 2008, 07:05 PM)
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I should point out that your average end user is not going to be installing opera or FF on top of a fresh install of XP either. Even worse, it could be one of those default Windows XP installs that comes with the machine, pre-filled with auto-starting programs and other crapware. The ideal goal for developers should be to make a piece of software that can run efficiently on the minimum system requirements advertised, under the practical system environment that an end user is going to have. For an example, look at uTorrent or xplorer2. Both programs have always started and responded, even when my system has 30 other applications open.

My own test and its results are not meant to be used as benchmarks (and neither will they be), but they are certainly fair since all three browsers (Opera, FF and K-Meleon) were run on the same machine and started with clear caches. All 3 browsers were given the same set of resouces to work with. Yet, if some of them can perform in some areas and others can't, I think its an issue with the program, not my testing method.

nosh:
I couldn't bear the wait (not while the whole fxing world was talking about nothing else!) so I decided this would be a nice opportunity to start a fresh FF install. I've managed to find most of my extensions or even better replacements.

Got rid of the titlebar & menus using 'Autohide' (you have to run in fullscreen mode & ask it to always show whichever elements you need to see at all times, the rest can be easily toggled on when needed by getting out of FS mode)

MenuEditor is available (yaay!) - though I haven't had the time to put it to use yet.

Toolbars are not as quirky to customize as before but do take a bit of doing.

The Library is awesome, I botched up some stuff while putting it to the test and instinctively hit Ctrl+Z (I'd never have noticed it in the menu) & could undo every step (don't know if this was a feature in FF2 but it's awesome to not lose bookmarks just coz you're in sleep deprived zombie mode! )

The performance: well, Firefox doesn't feel like Firefox anymore. Can't wait to see how much better it'll get after I give it the full Tweakguides workout. 8)

Thank you, Mozilla!
 

Ehtyar:
I should point out that your average end user is not going to be installing opera or FF on top of a fresh install of XP either.
...
Yet, if some of them can perform in some areas and others can't, I think its an issue with the program, not my testing method.
-icekin (June 19, 2008, 08:52 PM)
--- End quote ---
I cannot see how you expect to administer a 'fair' test when you've modified each piece of software from its original configuration in different ways across the board, though i will concede that most users won't be using the software without modification on a clean OS install.

Ehtyar.

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