Fastest web browser

I just downloaded and test drove it (actually I am posting from it) and I have to say I am more than impressed. If this build is finished, I will certainly make it my standard browser, but at the moment, as others have mentioned, I can't get things like Plugins to work.

Anyway, the speed is incredible! Really! The only browser I know which is faster is Lynx.
 
I've been testing it for about two minutes now. So far I like it a lot.

I went to this page: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/12/2250209&mode=thread&threshold=0

in IE on my 500 mhz icebook and it took 45 seconds to load. (Timed with the system clock.) I went to the same page and loaded it in this mozilla build. It took between 4 and 5 seconds.

Another thing to note, I can see via my network monitor that it takes very little time to actually download the page on my cable modem. All the time is spent rendering the page.

Bottom line: It's very fast.

Vanguard

PS Keyboard shortcuts are working for me. I'll keep playing around with this build.

PPS I can see that this comes from the nightly builds. Quality should be getting better and better towards the end of this month because they will stop adding features and start working only on bugs as they prepare for the milestone release.
 
Originally posted by martinatkinson
Also, kinda wondering how they can copy Netscapes icons without getting in trouble.
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albert, it's the other way around. netscape uses mozilla's icons. read my rant earlier in thread to understand this.

]Don't bash mozilla's web browser untill you try this one
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kilowatt - i am not bashing mozilla's performance which is the only thing i would be judging by downloading and using. as excited as you are about this, my guess is that i was using mozilla before you ever heard of it (maybe not) and have long since removed it from my hd. you don't seem to get that i am talking about the politics of using a product that supports aol thru the free labor of its users. do you support sweatshops in other industries? now if aol payed people to use mozolla, i would have a different view. i still wouldn't use it but i would at least figure that they weren't supporting ripping off their customers with free labor. but then again, have you ever heard of "blood money"?

With regards to the not bashing thing, that's great advice. I wish more people on this board became educated before the became vocal.
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vanguard - my "bashing" is an attempt to educate. now i am trying to understand your position about obeying sstandards? can't this also be accomplihed by supporting the indies? my icab even has a little smilie face that frowns when a page doesn't follow standards. (it is sad right now). and as for the test link earlier. it loaded it in the same 4-5 secs that mozilla did!!
 
javintosh - about 9-10 secs with icab. but i have my doubts that it rendered properly. 1st part of page looks normal enough, but then text is one word or two to a line. icab is frowning so the page does not meet standards. (btw, i assume we are all using broadband connections for this comparison and even at that i am sure there is some variation among connections that is independent of browser.)
 
That is pretty fast fendering in iCab.

I do wonder about the standards compliance. Does iCab give you additional information about the compliance?

I ran the page against the W3C's own HMTL validator at http://validator.w3.org/ . It reports no errors against the HTML 4.0 Transitional Doctype standatd.
 
javintosh - i just tested all my osx browsers on your page. 1st thing is it confirmed my doubts that while icab was fast it did not render page in its best form. nicest rendering was in omniweb and opera. ie and netscape were adequite.

netrape -22 secs
exploiter - 25 secs
omniweb latest beta - 35 secs
opera latest beta - 43 secs

this is how they stack up on my humble imac with pachell dsl.

i should also note that my icab is not stock. i have tweaked it to get optimum performance for pages i visit regularly. it can probably be tweaked to render your page better as well. one funny thing that made it faster was changing the icon set.
 
javintosh - icab generates an error report and has an EMCAScript/inscript debugger to optimize pages you use regularly that do not change.

here is example: part of the error report for reply page:

Altogether 266 errors found. Only 25 errors are listed below.
Warning (73/1): The attribute "LEFTMARGIN" is not allowed for the tag <BODY>.
Warning (73/1): The attribute "TOPMARGIN" is not allowed for the tag <BODY>.
Error (73/1): In the tag <BODY> the attribute "MARGINWIDTH" is not allowed.
Error (73/1): In the tag <BODY> the attribute "MARGINHEIGHT" is not allowed.
Warning (97/1): The tag <CENTER> should no longer be used since HTML 4.0.
Error (113/4): The character '&' must be written as '&amp;'.
Error (116/4): The character '&' must be written as '&amp;'.
Warning (136/1): The tag <CENTER> should no longer be used since HTML 4.0.
Error (136/9): The character '&' must be written as '&amp;'.
 
I downloaded the source and ran it part BBEdit, it found 2 types of errors:

unencoded entities (2,268 instances) :D
an invalid a href... tag (a space before http://) - bad W3C. bad! :mad: :D

Funny BBEdit does not find some of the other errors iCab seems to find. Makes me wonder how accurate the iCab standards compliance check is. If I had to bet money, I would bet on BBEdit.

In any case, I'll have to give iCab a twirl and check out that speed!
 
well here is icab's homepage http://www.icab.de/ for you and everyone else who would like to check it out. i know they have more info about web standards and compliance on the site. they even have a page to check and see if you have your browser configured to read them. it may not be as 'mature' or 'professional' looking as the other browsers but it does a great job once you play with the prefs and the icon sets a little.

i really wish omniweb would do as well. i like the looks of it better than any.
 
Originally posted by Ed Spruiell

vanguard - my "bashing" is an attempt to educate. now i am trying to understand your position about obeying sstandards? can't this also be accomplihed by supporting the indies? my icab even has a little smilie face that frowns when a page doesn't follow standards. (it is sad right now). and as for the test link earlier. it loaded it in the same 4-5 secs that mozilla did!!
Click to expand...

Yes, supporting the indies is another great way to support standards. As far as I know, everybody but msft desires to support w3c standards. Not everybody has the resources to pull it off. I would guess that the rendering problem you found with iCab is caused by an improper implementation. Sigh, if only everybody had a $1b development budget.

That's cool about the speed that you're getting with iCab. I'll have to give it a shot.

Finally, I don't agree with the evils of making a project open source and using development time from the community. (Apple does this with Darwin btw) I think it's nice that if you ever disagree with the direction they take the project you can get the code and do as you please. If they stopped taking care of their users that would happen. Also, although not likely in this case, when a company goes under it's nice to have the code available. Several Linux projects have continued on and made great strides after the companies that got them started went out of business.
 
I don't agree with the evils of making a project open source and using development time from the community. (Apple does this with Darwin btw)
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ok, i'll back down on this one. i did overstate it abit a while back. i am not in general against people helping something they believe in be better. but why i would post my original statements is because i am STRONGLY opposed to aol. and you can read the responses that act like mozilla has nothing to do with aol. note albert's questioning how they got away with using netscape's icons!! killowatt asking me to just judge it by how fast it is!!
if there is some other project that takes the open source of mozilla and improves on it without feeding it to aol, i would be behind it all the way.
coors gives money to both the john birch society and norml. for years i have refused to drink coors, much less buy it. even though part of the money would go to a cause i believe in, another part would go to cutting my own throat. so if i want to support the cause i believe in i would just give directly to them and avoid anybody who supports my enemies. and i sincerely believe that aol is my enemy in more ways than one. i have started a poll to see how others have experienced aol. it makes no sense to me to see a company as being a problem and indirectly supporting them.
in psychology this is called 'enabling' and the enabler is usually the one who needs treatment first before we can move forward with treatment of the enabled.
i grew up seeing social changes brought about by people who stood up to things they believe are wrong. i believe that the way aol does business is wrong. i am doing my part to stand up to them. i am attempting to show others why they might benefit in the long run if they do as well. but i can never make that choice for them. it will always be their's. and until someone reaches the understanding that everything they do in the outisde world has political implications, they will not change the world they are creating. i use political here in the broader scope of controling the world we live in. in the sense that when you watch x-files instead of alias, you are making a political choice.
so if given a choice between the independent browsers that are fighting against the same 'powers that be' as i am, and an open source developer who's gains are directly profitting the powers that be, it is my choice to support the new guys. i am willing to sacrifice a few seconds of my day towards that. even a few minutes. in the long run we have a better chance of getting what we really want this way.
and should it ever come that the new browsers fail because of support, then all those who whined about them not being this or that will have only themselves to blame for their total lack of choice. and lack of caring that accompanies that.
using mozilla is supporting its development over the development of omni, icab and opera.

now wouldn't it be great if apple were to fund icab or omni and make it an open source project? then manic and his buddies could post my arguements aimed at apple and we wouldn't care less!!! in fact we would say that was the best thing about it!!!
now, does that make any more sense!!
 
Ed - I'm a little curious - exactly what do you believe AOL does wrong in it's business practices? I'm no fan of them, but view them as the lesser of two evils. Yeah, AOL goes on buying sprees and gobbles up companies it thinks it can benefit from owning. But just about every company AOL has bought has continued on just as before they were part of AOL (Spinner & ICQ being two examples). Netscape has gone down hill since becoming part of AOL, but that is because Netscape was slow to repsond to the IE threat before AOL bought them. Netscape took too long on version 6, and lost too much ground to IE.

I support Netscape/AOL/Mozilla because it is in EVERYONE's interest in having a viable, alternative browser to Microsoft's IE. Remember, Microsoft's main goal of domination is to eliminate the competition, and once that happens, you see the real Microsoft. Microsoft only innovates when it has to. Once it's the only game in town, it get's lazy and starts jacking up it's prices.
 
The fastest of all browsers is Netscape. It's finished loading netsape.com before I've even typed the address :rolleyes:

Well, I'll give that mozilla thing a new try. This time I hope I get a download speed higher than 250 bytes/sec and that the file actually works :p
 
Ed - I'm a little curious - exactly what do you believe AOL does wrong in it's business practices?
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good question. i've been taking my time going thru and trying to come up with a list of point by point reasons. the most difficult part of this is that my anger at aol has long since reached the point where it is acccessed on a more emotional level than that.
i have noticed that there is no one standing up for aol as being a good thing. at best it has been defended as being "the lesser of two evils" or "better than m$" or a lousy company that only hurts those ignorant enough to use it. gee, these are great testimonials aren't they?
so i'll trace my experience with aol as best i can. i must admit that i do not know how aol does some of these things today as the burning taste they left in my mouth has put them on my ignore list long ago. 1st, i signed up for aol after i was already internet experienced. hell, the one thing you couldn't do very easily was get on the web. but aol built up so much of an internal network that people thought they were on the web. this was certainly before the days of broadband access and almost anything that you wanted to do required that you first download and cache additional graphics and programs. download time could be over 30 mins for something that one minute to see or do. well, at the time aol secured your credit card # before letting you take your free trial. so when my free trial expired they just started charging me. there was no place to go on their site to discontinue service and i got busy and forgot to pursue it any further. eventually i was able to talk to a supervisor in customer service and get my service shut off after paying for several months worth of service i never used. alos at the time there were many parts of thier site that could not be used by macs. they updated their features and versions constantly for the pc, but rarely for mac.
now back inthe days of floppies i could make good use of those free trial version disks they sent. but these days all they are doing is using resources and littering the planet with the almost biweekly free trial offer disks.
now i always make it a big point to not let my friends get sucked into aol. but my stepdad saw the ads and talked to the salesman (that also convinced him that a pc was the only way to go) and got aol. it took him forever to figure out how to find the web and basically he can't ddo anything but visit site because the aol and browser combo sucks up every bit of abvailable memory he has. and he is still using the version that was built for his pc's capabilities - ie, he had one custom built that was supposed to be very good for the time. he refuses to switch or let me teach him how the internet really works because aol advertising has him convinced he has the best. my attempts to use his computer while i am visiting are one frustration after another just trying to do things my old lc 475 did easily with a regular isp.
i could go on and i will add more if this is not enough for anyone. the fact is that aol charges a premium and delivers subquality service. i constantly visit sites that tell aol customers to go thru some complicated procedure to do what i do with the click of a mouse. a single button mouse at that. some sites simply state that aol customers won't be able to something altogether. and if i count my version updates correctly, they are still not giving the support to mac users that they do to pc's.
so while i don't want a world with only m$, i also don't want a world with only aol or m$ !!!!!!! i refuse to do anything that supports them when i have alternatives. and unlike elections wwhre your vote only counts if your choice wins, in the market place there is room for competition. and the little guys will only get bigger and better if we support them. otherwise we are contributing to a world where m$ and aol are left. then all we have are "two evils." My only question in raising this issue to start with: "is that what you want?" if it is then go ahead and use mozilla and tell everybody else to. spread the word. do aol's advertising and development for them. just don't ever expect to hear them or me say "thanks".
 
i want to make one thing clear. there is no one involved in this debate that i have anything against personally . quite the opposite. all those who have spoken up are people i haved developed a high regard for and will continue to see them in a positive light. this was never about "i'm better" or "i'm smarter". never.
this has been a very specifically directed plea(?) with much broader apllications: to ask mac users to unite and support those companies that treat us with respect and give us the equal attention we deserve. while there still are companies that put efforts into the mac, let us support them so that they prosper and grow for their efforts rather than folding to the masses and supporting our own demise. we all have an economic vote. and even using a 'free' product has economic implications behind it. if it didn't , do you think anyone would take the time and money to develop one? do you honestly believe that m$ and aol (netrape) spend money to give away browsers out of the kindness of their hearts? as a way of saying thanks?
if a few seconds here and a few seconds there are enough to make you not care what the future brings, then fine. that is your choice.
outside of m$ who had all sorts of product to pump, there was not one single other browser represented at the macworld expo except for omniweb. Brian, one of the three behind it, was there shaking hands and talking face to face with people. the problem with getting omniweb to where we all want it to be - money and support. my guess is that icab has the same problem. if we gave them some of both, maybe they could move faster.
 
Ed, I'm glad we agree on that - nothing presonal here, just tech talk and stuff.

And I've had similar stuff with AOL, like slow downloads, and a sort of microcosm aol places arround the user, between the user and the internet.

But let me point out something to you, as a sort of analogy:

FreeBSD has a license which allows others to use their code, without having to make the end result open source.

you probably know where I'm going with this, but I want to make sure everyone else does (you know, all those people who read 3 page threads... ;-) ).

Well, microsoft uses some BSD code in windows.

but I don't boycott BSD.

It just seems to me, Ed, that you are boycotting Mozilla because AOL supports them. Granted, AOL isn't my friend either. But honestly, mozilla is great. Remember, most of the non-windows world doesn't use IE. On linux, its almost 90% netscape/mozilla.

By using Mozilla, I don't help aol one bit. All I'm doing is:
1) having a good web browsing experiance
2) Making an open source effort more popular
and 3) ading in the development and protection of internet standards. Netscape 6 is currently the most standards-compliant web broswer avaliable.

consider this: AOL uses Sun computers. So, in effect, Sun enables AOL. So are you going to boycot Sun now? Oh, and Sun uses a few AMD chips in their scsi controllers. Lets ban amd too. And motorola, they probably have something in those servers.

And AOL paid for those servers, too. AOL funded, in effect, some of sun's business.

Yet I don't feel the slightest anger towards sun.

Overall, I think Moz is important to the internet community. No other browser is as cross-plat form avaliable, compatable, or standards compliant.

I respect your adherance to principal, I just think your principal is mis-placed.


PS: like my sig?
 
yea kilowatt, i noticed your sig when you posted the screenshot for neyo. pretty cool looking. i like dinasaurs just fine. that took some creativity if it is original!!! well done.
i agree that mozilla is an excellent browser. i have never once said anything to the contrary. i liked it a lot when i used it. it was once my default browser (for quite a long time). i would use it over netscape or ie anyday except for the fact that my using it contributed to the next release of netscape.
putting aside the bsd example for a moment, the others you give are not the same because they are all products that aol/netscape purchases. and all the people who build the product take home paychecks at the end of the week. Sun, AMD and motorola pay their employees.
mozilla specifically states on their site that the majority of work is done by users. some in terms of reporting bugs, some in terms of code development, etc.. this work does benefit aol/netscape. if aol wants to pay a bunch of developers to sit down and write code and improve a product that is fine. it's their business. when they release that product i still will not use it any more than i have to. notice in my page load comparisons - ihave ie and netscape. i am forced to use them at times. why, because the two of them have virtual control over certain sectors of the net.
it wasn't long ago that i was using netscape/mozilla as the lesser of two evils. it was the only other choice i had. but now there are 3 other companies trying to bring the web back to us. we stand at another crossroads with new options. we can continue down the familiar road or embark on a new one. i imagine that you too can remember when netscape was the new kid on the block. wasn't 'archie' the standard before them? netscape was terrific as long as they lasted. but the day aol bought netscape it became something different. aol bought it to make money with. not as some cheap way to give their clients a thank you gift. so yes, the cause and effect now leads from good people using mozilla to profit for aol.
i still don't get why you believe you are not benefitting them.

now as for bsd, i don't know enugh about them or their connection to say whether i would want to boycott them or not for having code that m$ uses. i have no linux background and very little time spent on pc's . none by choice. but perhaps if i knew more, i might feel the same way, i just don't know. i'm really not so sure how i feel about open sourcing right now. so far it doesn't really sound like anybody has finacially benefitted from it except for big companies that take it and put it into something commercial at no cost to them. in the end a few power users are happy with the open development at the expense of the average user. i think i am generally oppossed to that however misguided you might think i am. i can remember my dad saying how misguided i was for being against the war in vietnam too.

i do know that i would prefer doing my business with a hungry dog than a fat one. and when that hungry dog gets fat and complacent like his buddy, it is time to go find another hungry dog. and from where i sit, mozilla is just a meal for that big fat dog that sits on the porch smiling and doing nothing but getting fed and being fat.
 
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