Weekend tech reading: Download Firefox 5 final early

Good grief... I've barely got to use Firefox 4.

and it's still slow... what a surprise. Even IE9 performs better - Chrome FTW!

ff5 is only for bug fixes. ff6 is going to be about speed. that's what i've been told.

Really? Are you really saying Firefox 5 is slower than IE9? Your trolling is good, but you gotta work on it more.

Not sure about slower than IE9, but I've used FF almost exclusively as my browser for the past few years, and it has gotten noticeably slower. But all browsers are just about equally fast in my experience, thankfully I don't live life on a millisecond scale.

But I have had my FF4 crash and lock up repeatedly in the past few months, something which never happened before. Maybe FF5 will fix that, as guest said.

To me Firefox is the fastest, then IE9 then Chrome. That's on my machine though. An specific combination of both hardware and software on your machine, will inevitably affect any of the aforementioned.

I'm running Firefox (nightly) 7.0a1 so this irrelevant to me.

I [sarcasm tone]love[/sarcasm tone] how every time news pops up about a browser, it turns into a debate about which browser is better. Why does everyone need to force what they use on others? If you like tuna sandwiches and you see someone eating a club sandwich do you argue with them about it? If you're religious do you go around forcing your religion onto others? Just let people be, they will choose the browser they want.

I would be willing to bet that plugins have a big effect on everything as well. I think that the Skype plugin is a particular source of problems, at least in my case.

@ Elitist Guest

What is wrong with us exchanging our experiences with different browsers? Just ignore the trolls and contribute something.

And we're talking about browsers here. Please move your comments about tuna and club sandwiches here: http://www.techspot.com/news/44312-weekend-open-forum-your-last-meal.html

Here it is noob: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13518459/Chrome-FF.JPG

The problem with frequent browser updates is addon compatibility. Some are still stuck at Firefox 3.6.

Regarding IBM and inventing the PC, far as I know IBM started the Microsoft OS / Intel CPU combination that's currently known as a PC. In that sense they're right, and this certainly had a huge impact on the world of personal computing.

I'm running the Firefox Aurora channel which is now currrently on version 6.0 Alpha 2. I suppose it will update to version 7 on Tuesday. My experience is that the latest versions of the major browsers are roughly equal in terms of speed and it usually comes down to a matter of personal preference when choosing which browser to run as default.

Ya I don't think FF4 is slower guest..maybe it's time to upgrade that ancient sincle core machine your using. But I have had problems with FF4 crashing also on different machines which I never had with prior versions either. I hope FF% fixes that also.

yea ill skip this one since firefox 6 will obviously be coming out in 2 weeks

Sorry, but Guest is not the noob in this instance. Anyone who thinks those test results are the same for every single person needs a good smack up side the head

But now I can vouch for what you said, as my FF4 seems much slower than it was when it was an add-on infested FF3. Before 4, 3 was kicking *** and taking names. Now, IE9 has knocked it down the list.

To the guest that said firefox is slower. The one you tested was peacekeeper, which is one benchmark. You are the noob for thinking that one benchmark is definitive. Besides like lawfer said, a combination of your hardware and software can impact the performance of both; be it positively or negatively. Who knows, for all we know you might have a crappy pentium 4 and a load of garbage plugins or useless toolbars...

Truth is..

If you want to make any browser faster, block them from loading ads and data trackers.

I cant believe am saying this about a browser I once loved...but FF4 suck....a snail is faster. I hope FF5 improves on speed. Cant say the same for Chrome cause thats a beast of a browser.

Maybe so. At least the other main browsers start loading my page immediately as opposed to FF5 which takes what seems like 5 seconds before it even starts doing anything... and this is on an i7 (25/5Mbps connection with a ping of around 20ms) so I can't imagine what it would be like on a slower single core machine. The reason I started using Chrome in the first place was because I was using an HP netbook for a short period of time and the only browser that would run decently with its crappy hardware was Chrome, everything else would be practically unusable - I think efficiency should speak for itself. I can respect that others have different opinions but I won't lie and say I know why.

My browser is better than your browser, your browser sucks. You should use my browser because my browser is better than your browser, your browser sucks. My toothpaste is better than your toothpaste, your toothpaste sucks. You should use my toothpaste because my toothpaste is better than your toothpaste, your toothpaste sucks.