[Script Kiddie]

While there are several nice reviews of browsers for osX on The Net, like this one none seem to address idle time resource usage.

So before I left work last night, I started 5 different web browsers with the "about:blank" URL,
then I hid browser and the machine (Blue+White/400MHz/768MB) was left
idle for 13 hours. I was rather surprised to find just how much CPU time was
eaten up by most browsers even while doing absolutely NOTHING.
Camino was the worst offender, while Safari's CPU time reflects barely more than
its startup time!

min:sec.100ths Browser Version
-------------------------------------------
0:05.20 Safari 1.0
5:02.32 Internet Explorer 5.2
7:40.16 Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1
10:00.80 Netscape 7.1
13:38.30 Opera 6.03
17:34.64 Camino 0.7

About 7% of my CPU is used.
Whats going on?!

[ October 21, 2003, 10:34 AM: Message edited by: Script Kiddie ]

 

[monokitty]

Then I guess it's a good thing I only use Safari. Camino sucks, anyway.

 

[Nick]

Hey Lars, I resent that.

I love camino, sure it uses lots of resource sometimes. But I don't notice that differnce.

I also find as a developer that on the whole camino does a much better job rendering the pages then safari. I am not saying that I do not like safari. I am just saying camino is nice too.

Cheers.

 

[Strongblade]

We should keep in mind that Camino is still under a point-1 release. It's probably got a lot of optimization to go before version "1.0" will come about. It's also not being backed by a large group/company.

 

[The Doug]

My main browser is Safari. I stopped using Camino as my alternate browser when I discovered Mozilla Firebird which is a .7 release, and (IMHO) what Camino could have / should have been by now.

 

[Script Kiddie]

The only thing I have against Firebird is I cannot launch a browser by clicking on the "M" on the dock. I have to use applekey-n. Dam, even Netscape can do that

 

[stand_1998]

ScriptKiddie,

Much thanks for your efforts. I have been on an optimization hunt lately (switching programs that are bloated or use too many resources) and find your research useful and interesting.

I am discouraged at software today and how bloated it is. Functionality is one thing, but extra bells and whistles that have very little purpose is another. If programs were once written efficiently on computers with minimal resources, then I believe that this can be true even now.