IE 8 vs Firefox 3.0

Microsoft's newest browser promises faster page load speeds. Does IE 8 deliver? Just look at test against the latest version of Firefox.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 is here at last--the newest entry into the ongoing browser wars. Microsoft packed a healthy number of new features into IE 8, and made security a top priority in its newest version of this venerable Web browser.

But just as important as all that is browsing speed--that is, how quickly can IE 8 render your favorite Web sites? To get an idea of how IE 8 compares, we put it to the test. Websites like Amazon, MySpace, Yahoo, PC World, YouTube, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Wikipedia are used for testing. By and large, Found that Internet Explorer 8 performed well, and beat out Firefox 3.0.7 in the majority of time trials.

However, IE 8's performance advantage is relatively negligible. In most of our testing, IE 8's advantage was half a second or less. One notable exception, however, was in loading the English-language Wikipedia home page, where IE 8 beat out Firefox by an average of one second (IE 8 took about 2.2 seconds to load the page on average, while Firefox 3 took about 3.3 seconds). Also of note: on average, IE 8 loaded Apple's home page nearly twice as quickly as Firefox.

In practical, everyday use, you likely won't notice much of a difference between IE 8 and Firefox 3. Due to the fact that broadband connections are so commonplace today, and the fact that browsers in general can load pages faster than they could even a couple years ago, the page load time differences between the two are relatively moot. If you use Firefox and are happy with it, you may as well stick with it. That said, it is encouraging to see browser vendors compete with each other, and aim to ship the fastest Web browsers they possibly can.