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Browsers in Linux: They own your CPU (and do so in Windows and Mac, too)
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Comments (11)
thumbs up!
You nailed it, Steven. I don't need to watch zombie movies to get a good scare anymore, I look at the page sources.
I have a CSS file on one of my sites that prints out at more than 50 pages (and I did print it out for some unknown reason).
Yep, Steven, you nailed it. A couple of other browsers you may want to try which may give ou better results:
Arora (WebKit based) Kazehakase (Gecko+WebKit) Midori (Webkit)
...and, of course, Konqueror.
I think you'll find these to be a little less resource intensive.
I was very impressed with hv3 for a lighter browser that supported Javascript (not Flash) but development seems to have stalled.
Arora (WebKit based) Kazehakase (Gecko+WebKit) Midori (Webkit)
...and, of course, Konqueror.
I think you'll find these to be a little less resource intensive.
I was very impressed with hv3 for a lighter browser that supported Javascript (not Flash) but development seems to have stalled.
One thing I'm noticing but can't quite quantify: It seems that in Javascript-intensive situations, Firefox does better than other Gecko-based browsers. Is the Javascript-rendering engine separate from the main Gecko engine?
But the rest of FF pretty much makes it a wash ...
But the rest of FF pretty much makes it a wash ...
I believe the js engine is fairly specific to the browser itself.
An interesting benchmark to run is the SunSpider benchmark on the webkit site.
http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html
I used it as one of my tests a while back when I had to do browser benchmarks for class. I'll have to try it with the current batch of Linux browser I have installed sometime...
The results were rather interesting.
Versions Tested (all in Windows...blegh)
Google Chrome - 1.0.154.53 Opera - 9.64 Internet Explorer - 7.0.5730.13 Mozilla Firefox - 3.0.8 Arora - 0.6
SunSpider times:
* Google Chrome - 3572.8ms +/- 4.5% * Opera - 12315.6ms +/- 5.1% * Internet Eplorer - 105645.2ms +/- 0.7% * Mozilla Firefox - 6646.0ms +/- 10.9% * Arora - 7180.0ms +/- 5.3%
The interesting this is that IE's horrible score was mainly due to the Base64 and Input Validation String Tests.
If you care to look at my fancy page (lol):
http://fbcdubois.no-ip.org/mmontgomery2browsers.html
An interesting benchmark to run is the SunSpider benchmark on the webkit site.
http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html
I used it as one of my tests a while back when I had to do browser benchmarks for class. I'll have to try it with the current batch of Linux browser I have installed sometime...
The results were rather interesting.
Versions Tested (all in Windows...blegh)
Google Chrome - 1.0.154.53 Opera - 9.64 Internet Explorer - 7.0.5730.13 Mozilla Firefox - 3.0.8 Arora - 0.6
SunSpider times:
* Google Chrome - 3572.8ms +/- 4.5% * Opera - 12315.6ms +/- 5.1% * Internet Eplorer - 105645.2ms +/- 0.7% * Mozilla Firefox - 6646.0ms +/- 10.9% * Arora - 7180.0ms +/- 5.3%
The interesting this is that IE's horrible score was mainly due to the Base64 and Input Validation String Tests.
If you care to look at my fancy page (lol):
http://fbcdubois.no-ip.org/mmontgomery2browsers.html
Dillo & Konqueror
Coincidentally, I recently found myself running Dillo. From TinyCore on my USB flashdrive, but I don't think that's important.
What I noted, was that most webpages were probably never tested with Dillo, because I didn't like the experience. Frames and text showed up at places where they were not supposed to show. I have to admit I only tested it for 5 minutes though. But I remember my first 5 minutes with Phoenix were far better.
Konqueror is a story on its ows - I guess. I remember when I was looking for a new browser (I was converting from Windows to some BSD, but for some reason Opera wouldn't install), I installed it and found it to be very slow. Where other browsers load one thing, show that thing, load the next thing, show it, load the next thing, show it and so on, it seemed Konqueror would first load everything, and only after all work was done, show you the page.
This leaded to Konqueror looking really slow, while if you would look at the total time needed to correctly show a page, it probably wasn't all that slow.
So I was really surprised to see how fast Konqueror on KDE4 was. It boots really fast (on a non-KDE desktop!) and also loads javascript pages rather fast. It's probably the lack of plug-ins and me being too lazy to configure the other plug-ins (Flash, java, mediaplayers, pdf) that keep me using Firefox. Even when my current Firefox crashes while trying to view Youtube videos at full size, if it crashes it is not able to restart before manually doing a "killall -9 firefox-bin" and its inability to restore sessions with logins since I migrated to 3.5. And even given the ability of 3d parties like Microsoft to shove software into your Firefox' system-wide add-on directory without Firefox telling the user 'someone beyond Mozilla' installed a new component of FF.
For most Windows users, it's the 'blue E' that's causing them to have trouble to _really_ try another web browser. For me it's the habit of pushing "Winkey + F". Maybe I need to make it start Konqueror, fix the add ons and try longer.
What I noted, was that most webpages were probably never tested with Dillo, because I didn't like the experience. Frames and text showed up at places where they were not supposed to show. I have to admit I only tested it for 5 minutes though. But I remember my first 5 minutes with Phoenix were far better.
Konqueror is a story on its ows - I guess. I remember when I was looking for a new browser (I was converting from Windows to some BSD, but for some reason Opera wouldn't install), I installed it and found it to be very slow. Where other browsers load one thing, show that thing, load the next thing, show it, load the next thing, show it and so on, it seemed Konqueror would first load everything, and only after all work was done, show you the page.
This leaded to Konqueror looking really slow, while if you would look at the total time needed to correctly show a page, it probably wasn't all that slow.
So I was really surprised to see how fast Konqueror on KDE4 was. It boots really fast (on a non-KDE desktop!) and also loads javascript pages rather fast. It's probably the lack of plug-ins and me being too lazy to configure the other plug-ins (Flash, java, mediaplayers, pdf) that keep me using Firefox. Even when my current Firefox crashes while trying to view Youtube videos at full size, if it crashes it is not able to restart before manually doing a "killall -9 firefox-bin" and its inability to restore sessions with logins since I migrated to 3.5. And even given the ability of 3d parties like Microsoft to shove software into your Firefox' system-wide add-on directory without Firefox telling the user 'someone beyond Mozilla' installed a new component of FF.
For most Windows users, it's the 'blue E' that's causing them to have trouble to _really_ try another web browser. For me it's the habit of pushing "Winkey + F". Maybe I need to make it start Konqueror, fix the add ons and try longer.
Hans: If you haven't already, take a good look at these browsers:
Arora Kazehakase HV3
I find HV3 to be much better than Dillo and every bit as fast on old hardware.
Arora Kazehakase HV3
I find HV3 to be much better than Dillo and every bit as fast on old hardware.
I have yet to try Dillo 2, which is supposed to include CSS support, which Dillo 0.8.6 lacks.
Curiously, I believe Dillo was pulled from at least one distro - I think Debian - due to a security issue. Can't remember what it was, but I do recall it happening.
Curiously, I believe Dillo was pulled from at least one distro - I think Debian - due to a security issue. Can't remember what it was, but I do recall it happening.
Just read about HV3 Caitlyn, but it's Alpha and I have to install it myself. But I might still try.
Just read about HV3 Caitlyn, but it's Alpha and I have to install it myself. But I might still try. I found other favorable 2-line comments on the web about it.
However, old hardware is not an issue for me, I only have 1 PC (OK, another one lying in the shed for two consecutive years) and it's fairly up to date. But nice browsers to try nonetheless.
However, old hardware is not an issue for me, I only have 1 PC (OK, another one lying in the shed for two consecutive years) and it's fairly up to date. But nice browsers to try nonetheless.
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