Today, over msn, Tid and I were doing some comparisons of the two browsers (speed wise).

The test page was www.smashbros.com (the "select language" page).

Both browsers had been modified for optimal performance.

Firefox settings:
-network.http.pipelining changed to "True"
-network.http.pipelining.maxrequests changed to "12".

Opera settings:
-Name completion and network lookup disabled.
-Image refresh cache changed to "Every week".

(the information on how to do these can be found at viewtopic.php?f=30&t=18979)

We did three tests in each browser, clearing the cache after each test.
The browsers were run on my computer, with all the same processes running throughout. They were timed with my mobile phone's stopwach.

RESULTS:

Firefox:
Test 1: 2.8 seconds
Test 2: 3.1 seconds
Test 3: 3.0 seconds
AVERAGE: 2.96(repeater) seconds.


Opera:
Test 1: 3.3 seconds
Test 2: 2.9 seconds
Test 3: 2.9 seconds
AVERAGE: 3.03(repeater) seconds.

Looks like Firefox won.

Why do you think so many people use Firefox? (admittedly I have to use safari because Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Explorer don't work on my computer due to some virus my brother created [he tried to force me to use the other dodgy computer])

I personally don't care what browser I use, but if I had to pick, I would pick Firefox.
Snoble you should test chrome and the others, because I want the results and can't be bothered to do it myself.

Because Firefox is one of the most common browsers used today...

IE is used a lot too.

No scientific lab report? I am disappoint.

You guys you guys the reason we didn't test the more common ones like IE, Chrome or Safari is because we don't need to. There's absolutely no way either of those three browsers would be faster then Opera, lettalone Firefox. This was simply about comparing the two browswers which are undoubtably the fastest.

Netscape is slower though.

Basically everything is built off Netscape, but with improvments. Of course it's going to be slower '_'

Chrome and Firefox are clinically proven to be the best, (except Apple and PC says differently). Different clinics go for one or the other

I've used Chrome, Opera and Firefox, and I disagree. Chrome is slower than both of them.

This is in no way official. You timed it with your mobile phone...

We did several tests. And how is timing it with a mobile phone less official then with a stopwatch? They both measure to less then a second. Plus, and of course this part is unofficial, we've both used several different browsers, and can also speak from experience in saying that Firefox operates the best in many different ways.
@DVDV Since when was Chrome proven to be good? I've used it a few times, I'd honestly rather use IE8. And the error reports (and they're frequent at that) are really unhelpful. They always say things like "Something is wrong with the program" or "There is an error". That's super helpful.

I should b**** the pseudo-science out of you, because I highly doubt you considered the variables that one would need to consider when doing these tests.

There's a reason we did it several times....
Of course there are variables. Internet connection isn't consistent for example.
But we tried our best to keep the tests the same, and did what we could to keep it like that throughout all the tests. But that's really hard to do.