JavaScript performance in Firefox is better on Windows than on Linux, according to our colleagues and open source aficionados TuxRadar's benchmarks.
TuxRadar.com – which is put together by the people behind Linux Format magazine - has done an intensive investigation into the speed of JavaScript on Firefox 3.0.6 running on identical boxes, one with Windows XP SP3 and the other with Fedora 10.
But even the hard-core Linux fans were surprised by the results.
Benchmarks
"We wanted to find out just how well the Linux version of Firefox faces up against its Windows equivalent, so we ran the benchmarks from all three browser makers to make sure we got a full range of results," said TuxRadar.
A look through their extensive results is fairly conclusive with the conclusion that it is performance issues within Linux that are responsible.
"A quick Google can show you that Firefox/Linux performance problems are nothing new, but usually these lie in graphical areas such as slow page refreshes or scrolling," TuxRadar adds.
Performance problems
"With infamous threads such as this one around, and OpenOffice.org still performing much better on Windows than it does on Linux, it seems more likely to us that the performance problems seen above are less Mozilla's fault and more down to general performance issues on Linux.
"Clearly this is an area that's always under construction - people like Michael Meeks take performance seriously, and we're optimistic for the future. Still."
