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Is this 64bit Firefox faster for you?

Jon Martindale June 24, 2014 Online, Software & Gaming

Update: As many of our other users have pointed out, any bandwidth improvements seen by those that sent in the original story were likely coincidental, as browser is very unlikely to affect that. However, something like rendering speed for certain browser properties is very much affected by your choice.

Putting both the latest version of Chrome and Waterfox through the Webkit Sunspider benchmark, we found that Waterfox performed far faster in almost all tests. However, putting those exact same browsers though the Speed-Battle browser comparison tool gave us decidedly different results, with Chrome coming out on top.

From our quick tests, it seems Java Script performance can be as dependant on the benchmark as it is on the browser. Have you guys had similar results? 

Original Story: Back in the day, using an alternative browser meant using something other than Internet Explorer. Nowadays, with much more of a fair share of the pie going to both Mozilla's Firefox, Google's Chrome and Microsoft's audience split across many generations of the same software, you have to go a little more derivative for your browser to be deemed so. Waterfox is one potential example of this type of browser, but is it worth switching to?

Designed specifically to run on 64bit systems and to run faster because of it, Waterfox failed to live up to these claims in the past when tested against its contemporary competitors. Has that changed in the last few years? Some of you have gotten in touch to tell us it has, reporting faster download times when using it instead of your usual browser.

waterfox
No drastic differences here

From my personal experience it doesn't seem to offer anything particularly quick. However my downloads and uploads are limited much more by my local exchange than by any software on my system. But what about the rest of you?

If you'd like to have a play with Waterfox to see if it makes much of a difference for you, head here to find out more.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Let us know on the KG Facebook page if Waterfox makes much of a difference. We'd be very interested to find out. 

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2 comments

  1. Chris
    June 24, 2014 at 10:12 am

    The current Beta version of Chrome & Chrome Canary are both 64bit, looking very promising also so we will see live soon 🙂

  2. Required: Name
    June 24, 2014 at 10:23 am

    Of course it wouldn’t be a notable difference, browsers don’t dictate your upload/download speeds. When it comes down to its that is determined by your ISP and your internet plan.

    I read the title and thought it be a performance benchmark/comparisons but instead facepalmed as I got shown a up/down test.

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