Doogald....

Your test is rubbish. The version of ie8 that runs on windows 7 is still the beta2 version which is far slower than the current rc1 version released for xp and vista. Release candidate 1 is much faster. I can't test out the sites that you are opening but did my own test with 30 tabs and ie8 rc1 is quicker. This is not likely to be the case though if all the sites require a lot of JavaScript rendering. It was probably just coincidence but Firefox crashed twice trying to open the tabs. I must admit though I rarely have more than 5 tabs open, for me it is not a sensible way to browse the web.

Well, I just did a test in the Win7 beta. So, the OS is beta, IE is beta, and it is running in a VM - so your results may vary. But I have a folder of bookmarks that I open when I start my browser every day (called "Stuff to open daily", coincidentally - 13 bookmarks) and I just timed IE8 open them all in tabs, then I closed IE and had FF open them all in tabs. What I found is that in the same time that IE8 took to open them all once, FF opened them all, I closed them all, and then opened them again faster. And IE was a lot "doggier" with 13 tabs open, too.

I've done several unscientific comparisons of IE8, Google Chrome, and Firefox 3 and I've found that the fastest to open and render a page is IE8. Google Chrome is a close second, but many pages don't open with Chrome. Firefox is just cool for all the gadgetry (I was an avid user of Firefox--as a developer, it's got the best tools and best standards support). However, in the end, I gave up the gadgetry just to have the performance of opening a browser and BAM there's my home page.

@Stuart:

I didn't think that you didn't like Firefox. However, saying "I found that the browser is hyped up massively. It seems that people think it is clever to take an anti-Microsoft stance without properly understanding what they are talking about" makes it sound like you think most people are picking Firefox either out of ignorance or bias against Microsoft. I don't believe that's the case.

As for caring what browsers people use, I assumed that you don't care. If you did, that would be kind of weird. :D

As for Web slices, it looks interesting, but is it really much more than widgets (or even Palm's old Web clippings)? It seems like an in-context way to get a widget/clippings.

Also, if IE 8 doesn't have a way to show all Web clippings on a page, it should. You shouldn't have to play hide-and-seek by hovering your mouse over everything.

Steve

Again, I would like to stress that I'm not anti Firefox and still use the browser myself on occasions. It seems that people are already getting upset that I have taken a liking to Microsofts new browser. I do not believe all users are ignorant when selecting a browser. Clearly certain features will attract certain users. Tabbed browsing and security issues were important factors when choosing a browser in the past. IE has supported tabbed browsing since version 7. The new tab system has been thoroughly improved and groups tabs by colour-coding them. As for the NoScript add-on in Firefox, this is great. However, the new version of IE8 includes built-in anti-clickjacking technologies. The settings for this inbuilt feature can be customised well.

I do not intend for anyone to pick IE8 based on my preferences. To be quite honest I don't care which browser people use to view web pages. My original post was simply an explanation of my experiences with the browser to inform ctitanic of my views. I believe browser competition is good as it accelerates the development of web technologies.

Stuart

Boy, something like NoScript is worth the admission to Firefox, in my opinion. Microsoft, Apple and Opera REALLY need to do something to make it easier to blacklist everyone, whitelist who you choose, when it comes to scripting.

I run FF with only NoScript, Foxmarks, Adblock Plus (another great feature that all browsers should offer), and that's it.

I've only run IE8 when I was playing with Windows 7 beta, and the second thing that I did with it was go to getfirefox.com.

@Stuart:

Unitil recently I was using Firefox. On the whole I had few problems with the browser. However, I found that the browser is hyped up massively. It seems that people think it is clever to take an anti-Microsoft stance without properly understanding what they are talking about.

I'm not sure where that comes from. Yes, some people do hate Microsoft because it's Microsoft. However, I switched to Mozilla (the predecessor to Firefox) for two main reasons:

1. Tabbed browsing. Yes, you could get add-ons for IE 6 that did that, but why bother?

2. Security. IE had lots of bugs that were being targeted. While all software has bugs, crackers would focus on IE because of it's dominant market share. That's less true now, of course, but IE still has the largest share of the market.

There are also the great plug-ins that you can get (like View in IE or Flash Block), but those are gravy.

Yes, IE has improved a lot, but let's not basically call people ignorant because of their choices.

Steve

Unitil recently I was using Firefox. On the whole I had few problems with the browser. However, I found that the browser is hyped up massively. It seems that people think it is clever to take an anti-Microsoft stance without properly understanding what they are talking about. I have been using ie8 since the beta2 release and have not had one crash. I do not find this suprising as it was shown to have less bugs and to be more secure than other browsers in testing. Clearly I have been lucky as there are obviously known issues as there are with any software. I must confess that Firefox does crash on me on occasions (1-2 times a week). The rendering has been no problem at all. For some sites the compatability button is required. ie8 stores these sites so that the button is not required on further visits.

I am using a fairly old fashioned machine with 512MB of Ram and an old pentium 4 processor. The browser feels responsive. I find accelerators and web slices really good, they speed up web browsing significantly and are a nice addition. I was suprised to see that the browser is performing on a par with the latest version of firefox. There is no questioning that the rendering of JavaScript is still superior in Firefox as a whole. However, ie8 was optimised for the most popularly visited sites on the net. For the 20% of the time that is spent rendering JavaScript the difference, if I'm honest, is not significantly different. If I can barely notice the difference on webpages with this old dinosaur of a computer then the majority of people will be fine.

Many other features have been improved in ie8. These were much needed as other browsers were setting the standard in this area. I would say that if you are obsessed with add-ons and you cant do without downloading a plug-in every time you need to do something then stick with Firefox.

I do like the Firefox browser and will continue to use it. However, I am actually finding fewer and fewer reasons to run the browser. I really enjoy using ie8 for browsing the web.

Well, IE8 can be customized too with Addins. This Live Search Web Slices is an addin for what I can see. Anyway... I just want to listen some opinions of those who have tested IE8 and are Firefox users to see what they say about this new version of IE.

You've customized your browser so much it's slow so you want to go back to a browser you can't easily customize? I'd say figure out which extensions are slowing you down and drop them (or find alternatives).