Thread: Browser Wars

Well, I logged onto the tech forum in order to say that I'm trying out Opera for the first time. I haven't really decided if it works better than Chrome yet, but I like some of its features so far. I'm a little bit confused about the Opera Turbo. I had mine set to auto, and it turned it off with a notification saying that it's only useful on slow networks. I was under the impression it could be an improvement anyways, but oh well.

I do like how Opera loads XML or whatever its called piece by piece, but still allows normal functionality while it's doing that. For instance, it loaded the text box first so I was able to start typing smoothly while the rest of the page was loading.

Or maybe I just never noticed it on the other browsers

Originally Posted by oniman7

I do like how Opera loads XML or whatever its called piece by piece, but still allows normal functionality while it's doing that. For instance, it loaded the text box first so I was able to start typing smoothly while the rest of the page was loading.

Ynot, I'll take this one. Never say that to a technical user. If Opera is loading XML in pieces, then it's not a proper XML parser and is sure to falter somewhere. The XML specifications require that the entire thing get loaded and parsed before any work is done, if it doesn't do that, then it is not considered an XML parser. XML is one of those rare formats where both the format and the logic of the parser are defined by the specifications. SAX can be done in pieces, but SAX is less robust than XML.

Hense why I use JSON for all my stuff

Sorry, I'm not a real high-end techie. I've done some playing around in C, but I don't know a whole lot about the technical or coding end of the computer, although I did pick up some handy logic.

What I meant -- and failed -- to say is that the graphics on the webpage load one piece at a time, instead of loading the whole page at once. I'm not sure if it was done by design, or maybe just something with my computer, but it seems to be a more efficient process.
Maybe it's all the cookies I've got on Google Chrome, but that seems to load almost instantly, and Opera is noticeably slower. I do like that it seems to operate more smoothly, where Google Chrome tends to slow down now and then.

Oh, all browsers do that. Some of them just have things in cache so they load very quickly, some sites (like DV) come back compressed, so it has to be loaded all at once, (except for images of course.)

Chrome all the way. Light, standard-compliant (for html'ing), noob-friendly, nice looks.

Originally Posted by oniman7

I'm a little bit confused about the Opera Turbo. I had mine set to auto, and it turned it off with a notification saying that it's only useful on slow networks.

When you've got Opera Turbo activated, the pages will go through Opera's servers and get compressed before the page is sent to you. This leads to a noticeable speed up on dialup, or when you're browsing through your cell phone and other slow connections, but since it requires an extra step it won't help with a fast connection.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Hense why I use JSON for all my stuff

JSON isn't all that supported yet, though, is it?

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Chrome all the way. Light, standard-compliant (for html'ing), noob-friendly, nice looks.

Opera is also very standard compliant, noob-firendly and nice looking. Though it's best suited for tabbed browsing.

edit: Also, the gradual load of pages are due to a slow connection. Opera outputs something as soon as it's got something to output, and the redraws the window continuously until all content is downloaded. Many other browsers wait till they have more to display. On my connection the pages appear nearly instantaneously.

Originally Posted by khh

JSON isn't all that supported yet, though, is it?

In what capacity? A good chunk of server to client communication is done via JSON because it's lighter weight than XML. Server to server still has to be XML because of advanced features of XML. JSON -> JS Objects conversion is embedded in the JS engines of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

JSON is preferred by me because the specifications don't require that it all be parsed at once. I wrote the fastest JSON parser out there because mine does on-the-fly analysis. My engine can load an array of 100 thousand JSON objects and not skip a beat. Try that in XML.

Originally Posted by khh

Opera is also very standard compliant, noob-firendly and nice looking. Though it's best suited for tabbed browsing.

edit: Also, the gradual load of pages are due to a slow connection. Opera outputs something as soon as it's got something to output, and the redraws the window continuously until all content is downloaded. Many other browsers wait till they have more to display. On my connection the pages appear nearly instantaneously.

Tried Opera, found it terrible.