We ran numerous bandwidth speed tests on Waterfox Portable, the installed Waterfox, Firefox 18, Internet Explorer 9 32-bit and 64-bit, Opera, and Google Chrome. Other than that, Waterfox looks and behaves exactly like what it is, Firefox with some fancy tuning under the hood. If you open Waterfox and then open Firefox, the pages will open in Waterfox, and vice versa: If we had Firefox open, clicking the Waterfox icon opened a new page in Firefox (which is why we tried Waterfox with and without Firefox installed). Waterfox automatically imported our user data from our existing Firefox installation. The biggest difference most users will see between Firefox and Waterfox (installed or portable) is the deep-blue Waterfox Start button and blue logo. We also tried Waterfox Portable with and without standard Firefox installed. We pitted it against top-ranked browsers in two separate 64-bit Windows installations, Home Premium and Ultimate. The 64-bit Waterfox is also available in a fully portable version for users who prefer portable programs or who want a portable 64-bit Web browser for their USB drive. Of course, while your Internet connection's speed and reliability will have a much greater impact on your day-to-day browsing speed than your browser will, a 64-bit browser offers some advantages in 64-bit Windows, such as increased speed and improved stress handling. Waterfox takes advantage of a variety of speed-boosting technologies found in most current Intel CPUs and the latest AMD processors, too, such as SSE3, AVX, and Jemalloc. Again, I don't know if it's Yahoo's doing or Waterfox's, or some kind of deal between them, but it definitely is not the format I'm seeing with v.16 and those other browsers (Win 7 or 8).Many different Web browsers are built on Mozilla's open-source Firefox project, including Waterfox, a 64-bit version of Firefox. For me, and I suspect many many others, a large part of the value of Yahoo's home page has been taken away with this layout. Financial quotes have also been moved to the right column, instead of being a single small line under the main news categoy. Instead of separate news categories with small sized one-line article leads down the center, easy to peruse at a glance with mouse, the categories are now top tabbed - all or one category at a time - and articles have large 1 to 2 line heads, followed by 1 to 3 lines of text and lots of blank space. The reason? I don't know if it is Yahoo's doing or Waterfox's or both in cohoots, but Yahoo's home page (logged in) news categories, a key element of their home page, have been rendered effectively unusable with Waterfox 18, vs. If Waterfox were my main browser, I'd go back to 16. Waterfox is well worth running if you’re using a 64-bit version of Windows and want to push the performance envelope as far as you can. It’s also important to note that Waterfox shares your Firefox settings, so should you come to uninstall it, don’t select the option to delete all personal information if you’re still using Firefox. You’ll also find handy links to 64-bit versions of Flash, Silverlight and Sun Java on the Waterfox download page too, while all add-ons that work in Firefox should work with Waterfox too. Note, because the app is 64-bit, you’ll need to have installed the 64-bit version of Microsoft's Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable to avoid an MSVCR100.DLL missing error message when you try to launch the app. Aside from its name on the menu at the top of the main window, there’s nothing to differentiate it from Firefox. This makes it instantly familiar to existing Firefox users – Waterfox is based on the current stable Firefox build, which means it functions in exactly the same way. This is a dedicated 64-bit browser based on Firefox’s open source code, compiled specifically for 64-bit versions of Windows, complete with optimizations to help speed things up a little more. Despite the growing popularity of 64-bit though, we're still in that transitional phase where many applications are still only available in 32-bit builds – they're compatible with 64-bit, but you get none of the performance benefits 64-bit computing can bring.įirefox is one such example: the latest Nightly build is available in 64-bit, but we're at least six months away from it making the transition through Aurora and Beta to a final release.įor those who can’t wait for Firefox to embrace 64-bit, take a look at Waterfox instead. 64-bit is the future of computing – and one obvious benefit of running a 64-bit version of Windows is the fact it allows you to access more than 3.5GB of RAM, helping speed up your computer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |