Well, I'm using the latest versions of both browsers and while I like the look and feel of Safari more (and the drop down bookmarks) I am beginning to believe that Firefox puts less of a burden on my CPU.
Quite a bit actually (which is a pity). I expected more from Apple. Maybe I'm misreading the activity monitor but I'm seeing transient CPU loads as high as 60-65% with Safari and no more than 35-40% with Firefox. Safari seems to put just as high a load on virtual memory as Firefox if not higher.
All in all, the difference appears to be dramatic and I'm going to use Firefox more consistently for the next week and see if I see a difference in my system performance.
(Here's a postscript: Firefox 0.9 seems to have a real problem with plug-ins. It took me quite a while to get Flash working and I still haven't gotten Shockwave working. On the plus side, the scroll bar on the right-hand side finally draws properly. Ah.. the joys of using software still under development).
Posted by artandscience at July 2, 2004 09:56 AM