Naked Browser Challenge : An attempt to make IE8 popular

Microsoft has claimed that IE8 is the fastest web browser. What is your personal experience? Is it really? Compare it with Firefox / Chrome and/or Opera and post your results by taking the naked browser test. You might be thinking why this test is called the Naked Browser Test ?

It's just because we will not be using IE with any add on's. All the add on's will be turned off before using the browser for the test. Hence, it becomes naked !!!

There are a few things which you should note before taking the test :

1. Make sure you are running the IE8 Release Candidate 1. To make sure that you are on this version, just go to IE Help menu and click on “About Internet Explorer” and check the version. If you do not have it, You can download the IE8 from Microsoft site.

2. Go to Tools> Manage Add-Ons. In the Manage Add-Ons window, click on each Application and disable the add-on. You can can disable the add-on by clicking on the “Disable” button located at bottom right, once you have selected the application in the upper window.

3. Next, change the home page for the browsers, temporarily, to the website of your choice; say www.TechQuark.com .

4. Finally, close all the browser windows on your machine. You are all set for the challenge to start.

Browser load test:

Start both the browsers by clicking on the shortcuts on the taskbar one after the another.

Which browser did you see come up faster?

Browsing Speed test:

Type your favourite website address in notepad and copy it in memory (Ctrl + C). then in each browser, paste the URL (Ctrl+V) and press go button. Watch for the status bar at the bottom of browser window to say “Done”. Which browser completed loading the website first?

Here is what Microsoft found in doing the above test: Recorded in a video.

Lets find out, does the Microsoft study make sense. You can win a prize for what you find out.