Internet Explorer 8	Mozilla Firefox 3.0.12
NeoWin.net	1 min 17 secs	44 seconds
MSN.com	2 mins 50 secs (NA)	2 mins 53 secs
Yahoo.com	40 seconds	1 min  05 secs
OSNews.com	53 seconds	20 seconds
Arstechnica.com	40 seconds	40 seconds
Twitter.com	35 seconds	44 seconds
Microsoft.com	1 min 39 secs	1 min 48 secs
YouTube.com	57 seconds	1 min 24 secs
Google.com	25 seconds	6 seconds
My Blog – Live Spaces	2 mins 15 seconds	1 min 15 secs
CNET News	45 seconds	36 seconds
eWeek	3 mins (NA)	40 seconds
ZDNET Blog	40 seconds	59 seconds
Microsoft-Watch.com	40 seconds	14 seconds
Macworld.com	1 min 12 secs	1 min 36 secs

NA – Website did not load in a reasonable amount of time to be considered acceptable.
My Blog – Live Spaces – http://adacosta.spaces.live.com
Connection – GPRS
ISP – LIME (formerly Cable & Wireless)
Speed – 5 KBs per second

 

Broadband

Connection – Cable
ISP – Comcast
Speed – 1.5 MBs per second

As you can see in the above table, performance is negligible; this also indicates that results will always vary depending on your Internet Connection. Internet Explorer 8 has improved performance in some scenarios especially with the proliferation of broadband these days. The majority of users won’t notice a difference in load time for pages, but if you are still using dial up, I will conclude though that Firefox remains faster compared to Internet Explorer 8.

The table features a list of some of the sites I visit daily. Well, given the above indications, IE 8 is not so fast and I have even tried comparing a Firefox 3.0.12 install where web pages are not cached and it still beats IE. What Microsoft does best though is fidelity. I notice when I was trying to load the new Facebook, Firefox loaded it quickly enough, but it would not load properly, while Internet Explorer 8 took its time, but loaded up the web page properly. It’s a weird performance test I know, but this how I prove which is faster. My personal satisfaction really depends on the web paging loading fast enough for me to interact with, not necessarily to load all features of the site immediately.

Security, Reliability and Add On Management

The new InPrivate mode allows users to clear any private information such as cookies, visited web pages and the entire session itself. There is also an improvement to Phishing Filter through Smart Screen which puts greater focus on web pages that try to collect personal information from users; it’s great for preventing scamming sites that utilize URLs such as PayPal or known banking merchants. This is done through a black list of known or suspected phishing sites so it’s an ongoing game of cat and mouse, users should still be cautious about how they enter personal information on the web. Internet Explorer 8 ActiveX permissions are more independent allowing users to define how they run depending on the site. Improved reliability (including automated crash recovery and tab restoration), and enhanced support for accessibility standards. IE 8 has a much cleaner, organized way to manage all your Internet Explorer add-ons in simplified categories. This is one area; I had hoped the IE Team would have also applied to the Internet Explorer 8 Options dialog.

Some things I would have liked:

• Download Manager - trust me, it needs it, I find it very handy in FireFox and Safari - Pause/Resume, Manage.

• Non-adjacent Selection of text on web pages.

• Customizable toolbar, I personally wouldn't mind if buttons such as Home, Feeds, Print, Page, Tools and Help were on a another toolbar group such as the Address bar group, I need more real estate for Tab's that's much cleaner. The new Favourites Bar in particular eats up a lot of space.

• List View layout for Options, similar to Office 2007 Options dialog. Also make the Advance settings a part of the list view Options, this includes: Accessibility, Browsing, International, Multimedia.

• Make Print Preview utilize a Tab instead of opening a separate window.

• Close button Tabs like Firefox.

Internet Explorer 8 is an excellent update, the focus on improving the browsing experience, relevancy and synergy with Windows Live services, developer productivity and easing compatibility in addition to the features that focus on making the browsing experience more secure, personal and not intrusive will surely give users reason to stick with the platform and might even bring some users over from Firefox which I personally have had problems with in the memory resource department.