Windows vs. Linux (Firefox, Firefox Wine and Opera)

By | February 17, 2009 | 13 Comments

If you ever wondered about the performance differences between Windows and Linux Firefox versions while surfing the net, then wonder no more. Tux Radar has tested Firefox on Windows and Linux (original Firefox + Firefox Wine (Wine allows you to run Windows applications on Linux) to see how they compete.

Tested with Firefox 3.06 on Windows XP SP3 (x86) and Fedora 10 (x86).

SunSpider
Results in milliseconds; lower is better.

V8 Benchmark Suite
Results are measured against a reference system with score 100; higher is better.

Dromaeo
Results measured in test runs a second; higher is better.

Few days ago they have also tested the following:

Firefox running on Windows.
Firefox running on Fedora using the Fedora package.
Firefox running on Fedora using the Mozilla build.
Firefox as compiled for Windows running on Fedora using Wine.
Opera 9.63 running on Fedora.

The end result: Firefox from Mozilla or from Fedora has almost nil speed difference, and Firefox running on Wine is faster than native Firefox.

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About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • K3M15A

    WOW!

    Did not expect that.

    The common perception is that Windows’ bloat and huge overhead prevented software from running as fast as possible, hell there was a joke that branded Windows a virus based on how it hampered performance.

    hmm…

    My mistake for thinking that open sorce apps run better on open source OSes.

    One thing tho, does the many different linux distros present too many environments in which firfox will be installed?

    Similar to how windows has to compensate for a miriad of hardware configs, does the same hold true for open source apps when faced with so many different forms of linux, and has to aim for the lowest common denominator?

  • http://myopera.com/fatal FataL

    Seems the difference is pretty significant. Interesting…

  • Michael Johnson

    IIUC, the difference is the fact that Firefox is, in fact, optimized for Windows, not Linux. In other words, the Linux version of Fx is a port, not the other way around.

    It would be interesting to see a similar comparision for Opera (e.g. Windows vs. Linux vs. Wine), since Opera is geared more to be cross platform.

  • xErath

    Hum.. don’t you think people are sick of the same old V8, sunspider benchmarks ?

  • sigh

    This is just stupid, Vyggie. Why didn’t you include Opera in a proper fashion? Is it supposed to be some kind of statement?

    Pathetic.

  • http://www.favbrowser.com Vygantas Lipskas

    Hi,

    What are you talking about?

  • Fandango

    I hope this bug gets fixed and you can try again:

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418866

    The bug is about enabling a compiler feature that tweaks compiler optimization based on runtime profiling, on benchmarks for example. Apparently this can give an 11% performance improvement.

  • Fandango

    the improvement is on javascript benchmarks, and is taken from this page: http://gemal.dk/blog/2008/03/04/firefox_3_with_profileguided_optimization_speeding_ticket/

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  • ardbeg

    Are you seriously using Firefox through Wine as the Windows side in this comparison? Or did I miss something?

    Wine+Firefox is not the same as Windows+Firefox. Really, there’s a huge difference.

  • jack

    I do not believe it, cause the experiences I have are totally different. FF starts up in Linux less then 3 secs while it takes 27 secs in Windows with the same machine. The V8 benchmark result is probably the comparing between a linux and a ‘naked’ windows which is a weak OS without any antivirus, antispyware and other software. In the real one, a windows user usually have to install all these anti-stuffs. they slow down a machine quite a bit. To make things worse, windows file system jammed together in profile directory, those file structures work hard with anti-stuffs together, only for one thing : to make the machine slower and slower, day by day.

  • http://www.facebook.com/michael.sherbakov Michael Sherbakov

    Go Linux – and soon you will realise just how powerful the console truly is. here’s a good cmparsion http://coolometer.org/windows-vs-linux

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