I apologize for this simply question, but I really want to know why K-Meleon is faster than Firefox, thinking that both browsers use Gecko.

My comment is based on the result for my PC, when I ran both a Firefox and a K-Meleon on a XUL-runner GRE some while ago. I tested things I like to be fast.
A real Firefox has some optimizations that the XUL-runner based Fox did not have.

My findings do not mean that K-Meleon is faster on every machine, with every system configuration and for each purpose.

K-Meleon is surfing 10-15% faster then a comparable XUL application (Firefox) with an identical GRE. But on startup a windows application like K-Meleon is much faster.

BTW. We mainly notice the different startup behavior - the margin of 10-15% is not noticeable and can be only measured (most PPL need a difference of about 25% to notice).

The bottle-neck is often the connection speed. In such environments Firefox cannot catch up with K-Meleon's initial advantage of a fast start, even if You do things that Firefox can do faster. 10% is too little to notice but amounts to an extra hour of surfing time every 10 hours

IMHO the reasons For better speed are: K-Meleon's better Windows integration, less XUL (chrome folder). If You search You will find that K-Meleon also has fewer dll and xpt in components folder (You can only count them with a dynamically linked Firefox, which is hard to find - I noticed it with Dr. Orca, a browser that has the GRE identical to a dynamically linked Firefox ).

K-Meleon strikes a better balance with its resource usage than any other browser, so it can be a little faster and responsive. This is especially noticeable when resources are limited e. g. on older machines or when You have to run several applications.

p. s. Part of the topos/saying that K-Meleon is faster comes from the past:
AFAIK K-Meleon 0.8x was significantly faster than Firefox 0.8x



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2007 01:48PM by guenter.

I have rediscovered the pleasure of browsing with K-Meleon.
Thank you GUenter and thank you Alain for Pocket K-Meleon.

I have hound a problem with some XP PRO install with Pocket 1.1.2.

My first tests seems to incriminate the compressed dll in components, and compressed K-Meleon.exe.

As I was searching for the problem, my test with uncompressed dll makes me find (it's not a surprise), that uncompresed version is really faster than Pocket. So, I'm probably about to package a Pocket version with unpacked dll, and perhaps uncompressed jar to have a faster version. It will also solve the problem I have found and another similar problem that a french user reports. I just want first to find the exact reason, and also see if Pocket size isn't too big (I don't think so).

A+

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Mozilla/5.0 (x11; U; Linux x86_64; fr-FR; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Ubuntu/12.04 K-Meleon/76.0

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Web: http://jujuland.pagesperso-orange.fr/
Mail : alain [dot] aupeix [at] wanadoo [dot] fr

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Ubuntu 12.04 - Gramps 3.4.9 - Harbour 3.2.0 - Hwgui 2.20-3 - K-Meleon 76.0 rc

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Alain,

I seem to recall Pocket K-Meleon 1.1.2 7z package is about 5.8 MB.

I keep a ready-to-go zip package of P K-M on my USB stick (just in case) that includes the latest AdBlock Plus from Vladmir's site, KmmSpeedUp, and only the Phoenity New skin. This package already has the profile installed allowing me to include KmmSpeedUp. As for AdBlock, it has been installed, but P K-M has never been restarted to select the repository site. So, the first time P K-M would be run after this package is unzipped, AB+ will ask for the repository to be referenced. The end to this long story is the size of the zip file is about 6.3 MB. This package has no special file compressions, only that done by the zip of the entire P K-M directory (using the zip algorithm of the 7z program at max compression).

This might be sacrilege, but sacrificing one or more of the skins in P K-M may more than make up for any of the bulk created by not compressing the dll's or the jar's. And if P K-M is faster, it is worth it, especially considering one of the intents is to use it in USB flash, which is slower than a disk to start with.

It is rather easy to install skins to P K-M from your "extensions" site should a user so desire (although, the user will have to go to c:\\programs to remove some information if K-M should not happen to be installed on the PC). This is one thing you and guenter may want to look at - can the skin folder be uncompressed and installed on a flash drive without adding the skin picture to the c:\\programs location? This would then be the bee's knees for P K-M users! [I want to see if that phrase translates! :-) ]

For the record, my USB P K-M weighs-in at 9.5 MB. This uncompressed directory, in addition to KmmSpeedUp and AB+, also includes the Klassic skin created by guenter found on your extensions site.

Finally, the cost of flash is relatively cheap compared to what it used to be and 1 GB and 2 GB sticks are rather common today. The bulk gained by not compressing dll's and jar's may no longer be as much of a concern as it might have once been when sticks were normally 128 MB and 256 MB.

I'm no programmer - an engineer by training - but, as I am an avid P K-M user, if I can be of any help to you in any manner on P K-M, I'd be willing to do so.

Regards,

Edit: Alain - I took Dorian's K-Meleon 1.5a and converted it to a Pocket version ala Douglas' methodology and all seems to work well. It seems to be very fast! With no compression of any dll or jar the main folder is 16.6 MB. All I did was unzip Dorian's posted file; I also replaced Phoenity and Phoenity Large with Phoenity New and added AdBlock Plus and KmmSpeedUp. I have not tried the SeaMonkey version of xpcom_core.dll as of yet. I am visiting friends this weekend; I hope to have some time next week to try the SeaMonkey dll and to see what the impact of compression may be.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2007 11:04PM by gvgerman.

Just to add to the speed discussion, there's a very difficult and saturated site in my country to make some official documents application and K-Meleon is the big secret to get that job done, all the other browsers just hang being there (I'll tried IE, FF, Opera, Slim & Max). I don't know the why but I can see the results.. Excuse my English...

kmeleon is faster than any browser

Firefox 3 is going to be the quickest for a while.

Firefox 3 seems not at all to be faster, at least not when
I tried it just now on Linux with a no-chrome K-Meleon and wine.
The speed differences are anyhow not big anymore, as long
as no extensions in chrome are in use.
Every added extension.jar makes browsers slower.
This is not the case for added extension-like functions
that work by macros, as in K-Meleon.

Fred

Somebody should try them on Windows.

What about Opera 9.5? Did you try it?

I have not tried Opera 9.5 yet. The older Opera and
K-Meleon seemed to be very close to each other, depending
on the website, but as I said very little difference.
The speed seems now mostly fast enough, it is now mainly
a matter of taste, and what features you want in a browser.
The biggest advantage of K-Meleon still lays in its
flexibility to be adapted to the needs of a particular
user by adding or changing existing macros, without
being dependent on a extension of somebody else, which
is hard to edit.

Fred

Taste AND security.

Well, I use IE and FF to write in CMS (if I one them freezes, I just use the other one), for all other stuff I use K-Meleon.

With new computers everything is really fast.

As I said, now it is just down to taste and security.

Welcome.

I'm operating at an older laptop (IBM Thinkpad T20 Celeron 700Mhz Speed Step, 256MB RAM) - and I have tested at least 10 programs last time. The most important are:

1. Safari (new version)
2. FirefoX 2.0
3. Firefox 3.0 RC
4. Firefox 3.0 Offical
5. SeaMonkey
6. Internet Expolorer 6.0, 7.0, 8,0 (beta)
and
7. K-MELEON.

As you see - I have not quite fast equipment, but I use it mainly for work,not for playing.

After many tests - I said that SAFARI is the most potential program for me.
Till today. Of course KMELEON is faster. Much faster.

Safari has a better interface (especially with Bookmarks) - but I think, that if KMELEON will be provided by new updates - everything can happend.

I only want to say - KMELEON is really great program. I think that if only interface will be more progressed - and the speed will be maintained - especially for older computers - it can be outstanding product !

Firefox will be long long after KMELEON

Regards
PAQ

One of the reasons to try to keep future K-Meleon versions
compatible to older Windows versions is to keep this fast
browser usable for users who have old hardware, where
Vista cannot be installed, and sometimes not even XP.
You might say they should buy new computers, but not all
people can afford that right away.
It is just these old machines, where Firefox will be
from very slow to unusable.
K-Meleon should still be available for them in times to come.
I don't know if this is possible, but it would be surely
welcomed by many.

Fred

Yes, it's true Fred
I think that is great way to gain more and more of users.
I know a lot of people who are using computers to work. So there is no need to change laptops at every year, because they are not playing in games.
In this way I think, that if KMELEON will maintain the current usability connected with large speed of browsing - this can be a gate to gain more users with new hardware.

I have no idea - why the KMELEON has no marketing.

Look - KMELEON has many users in different countries. Making of www in many languages - shouldn't be any problem.

I can offer my services in POLISH Version of translation of KMELEON www or stuff

I use Firefox 3.0 and it's fast as K-Meleon is, but I use nine extensions in my Firefox. So for me speed is not as important but useful extensions. K-Meleon is a great program but it could be more useful if Firefox extensions were compatible with it.

Haven't looked my self, but I understand that many if not most FF extensions will work with FF. Some in fact have been especially adapted to K-meleon: see Extension Setup 1.9.0 for K-Meleon 1.1 (& 1.5) and google
Some of KM's Dev's also have sites where plugins can be downloaded, but I can't recall those links. Perhaps some one will post them for you.

Some of my friends using broadband connections get great page load speed with pretty much any browser. But with a dialup connection such as I use, KM must truely be the fastest browser alive.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

K-meleon is simply faster than all versions of Firefox, including Firefox 3 for me, and I use Vista. In addition, Firfox uses at least twice the memory that Kmeleon does, especially after the browsers have been in use for awhile.

Firefox 3 has a very attractive appearance and some nice features but being very fast and a non-memory hog are not among the features, in spite of Mozilla's claims to the contrary.

I have K-Meleon 1.1.5 and Firefox 3.0 installed on my laptop using 56k dialup. K-Meleon is faster on browser startup and initial page load on any particular website. Once on any website, past the initial page, Firefox 3.0 loads pages as fast as K-Meleon 1.1.5. . WinXP is as far as I can go with a Windows OS. My laptop does not meet system requirements for Vista so I appreciate a browser ( K-Meleon ) that will run on an older OS.

I just installed K-Meleon on my netbook with a solid state drive and it is running way faster than mozilla firefox or IE7. For something with SSD get K-Meleon.

I was just gonna post this thread forgeting it was here lol. This post is old thats for sure. I don't know why but its just plain faster Thats for anyone else that just stumbles here and wonders why.



Reeko

IMHO It much depends on hardware, settings... & last compiler options working well.

K-Meleon has good defaults - but that does not mean = faster on every PC, settings ... for every old PC or new PC. It depends on optimization for a certain CPU... software settings... (much posted with details in 2004 or so).


p.s. IMHO we all would have to judge alone.... (because differences You feel/or can observe must be bigger than 25% .... for the own frequently used or other, You try what is done well on realy used pages, else ....all is similarly fast or slow).

It would be good if someone would test speed and other stuff of different Kmeleon versions (Kmlite, official Kmeleon, kmeleon CCF ME, Gorilla's Kmeleon, Fred's Kmeleon, ...). I wonder which one would prevail.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2009 04:46PM by panzer.

Holly shit, Batman, IE8 is the safest browser!

http://webtoolsandtips.com/pc-security/safe-internet-browser-which-is-the-safest-web-browser/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2009 01:34PM by panzer.

this is nanny test.. ability to compare against phishing blacklists, not actually "safe" computing but babysitter computing. safe is minimum vulnerabilities and ie will always be worst when it comes to that.

Quote
panzer
Holly shit, Batman, IE8 is the safest browser!

http://webtoolsandtips.com/pc-security/safe-internet-browser-which-is-the-safest-web-browser/

And here the proof :
Microsoft Internet Explorer File Download Denial of Service Vulnerability

Quote
disrupted
this is nanny test.. ability to compare against phishing blacklists, not actually "safe" computing but babysitter computing. safe is minimum vulnerabilities and ie will always be worst when it comes to that.

The IE fan boys are replying to you: the pdf report states that 'Phishing protection was not included in this study'
That aside, it also states that 'Exploits that install malware without the user being aware (also referred to as “clickjacking” and “drive-by downloads”) are not included in this particular study'
So, the test relies on 'in-the-cloud systems' as you mean?

K-Meleon is starting faster than Firefox on my laptop