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I love my Mac, but Internet browsing is faster on a PC. I don't know what it is, but if you have a 2.8Ghz or faster P4 with XP running IE that thing is smoking fast browsing websites.
 
Are we there yet?

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Patience is a lost art. I can't believe how many people complain about the browsing speed difference between the two platforms. Unless I opened the same site on both sitting right next to each other (for some twisted reason), I'd never notice the difference. We're talking a matter of seconds or fractions thereof. If a picture takes 3 seconds or 5 seconds to travel around the world to appear on my screen, it's still amazing! Take some time to read/enjoy the content! :)

I do agree that noone cares whose fault something really is - the blame automatically goes to the "proprietary Mac". I always have co-workers who tell me that someone can't operate a web site because they're using a Mac. Every time, it's actually because they're using IE. I have to tell them, "hey - if someone insists on using a 5-year-old browser to view current web sites, that's their problem, not Apple's!" They'll buy that for a second, but the next time it happens, what comes out of their mouths? "Those Macs..." ;)

I challenge everyone who has complained about either system's browsing speed to drive to work without passing other cars - to stand in line at the grocery store without checking out other lanes to see if they're moving faster - to practice patience. All skills need practice.
 
After G said:
And before anyone says anything, I do this with alarming regularity...

Have you tried Opera for Mac?

I was using Opera on Windows, and tried to use it on OS X. Well, Opera wasn't really stable on Windows (crashed often) but on OS X it's a joke. It crashes even more often. I'm not sure if that program leaks memory or what, but since then I've switched to Safari. It's fast, stable and it just works. The only things I miss are the mouse movements and the ability to disable animated GIFs (and a quick menu to enable plug-ins/java/javascript would be nice too).
 
SLCentral said:
Before making yourself sound like an idiot, you should actually try what you're saying. MTV.com videos do NOT work on a Mac, even if you have RealPlayer, WMP, VLC, mPlayer, etc.

I'd bet they won't work either on PC if you use Firefox or Opera, or Konqueror on Linux.

A website not working doesn't equal broken browser. Most of the time, crappy web code is to blame.

Heck, maybe the website is using ActiveX... Will only work on Windows with Internet Explorer (nothing else).
 
I use a P4 2.8GHz at work, running Netscape 7. I really don't notice much difference between it and my dual 533 G4 running Safari (in Panther).

LOL, everyone knows Newegg makes it's page slow on purpose, so you'll order a bunch of hardware. :p :rolleyes:
 
shane-o-mac said:
None of them can open cool apps like in mtv.com where all I want to do is watch a video, I mean for god sake I paid $2000 for a computer to just surf the internet and use word...is it asking too much.
Yeah, apparently it is. The mtv.com player pages work fine with Macs, but videos are no longer available in Real or QuickTime, only in a flavor of WMV not supported on Mac. It's related to the format war among Apple, labels and Microsoft. It's a shame too, because many of the videos hosted by MTV are not available elsewhere. The same blocking happens on Yahoo within their Launch service. After much back and forth with Yahoo, I've learned that their engineers are aware of the incompatibility and know exactly how to fix it, but they won't.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how slow Flash is in Safari. When I try to watch flash cartoons they are always choppy on my iBook.
 
AdamR01 said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how slow Flash is in Safari. When I try to watch flash cartoons they are always choppy on my iBook.

What iBook do you have? I view lots of flash content and it is always smooth on the machine in my sig.
 
blaskillet4 said:
The only people who think browsing the web on a mac is fast are the people who haven't used a PC in a while (or have, but the PC is 10 years old).

Internet browsing on a mac is just plain slow. Period.

Yeeeaaaahhh.. I'm just not buying this one.
 
ok it looks like we have all the usual replies from all the browser and platform fanatics, but where is shane-o-macs reply to the question of how much RAM he has loaded? That answer could tell us a lot about how his machine is running, and could be the solution to a lot of his problems.
 
It would appear that Shane-o-macs is not interested in a solution to their problem or informing the fourm of whether any of the feedback has helped or not.

One definition of a troll is someone who posts something deliberately inflammatory to a forum, and then sits back to see the reactions.
 
CanadaRAM said:
It would appear that Shane-o-macs is not interested in a solution to their problem or informing the fourm of whether any of the feedback has helped or not.

One definition of a troll is someone who posts something deliberately inflammatory to a forum, and then sits back to see the reactions.

Don't think so. Shane-o-macs isn't a newbie and looking at a couple of his previous postings, seems to genuinely love (or has loved) his PowerBook, although a couple of his posts may have been a little over the top. Perhaps it was an infatuation that ended as quickly as it began ...
 
mad jew said:
Prerequisite for complaining is at least 1GB of RAM. How much have you got? Maybe you need more?

Prerequisite for complaining! I mean, come on a gig of ram. all the guy wants is to surf the net. If apple does not provide you with a laptop that can surf for $2500 stock then its worth bringing to everyones attention so that it can be made better or a solution can be found to his specific problems. Personally, I have found my PB (even before the extra gig stick) to be more than adequate for surfing (in comparison to a windows PC) but none the less I think that the OP has reason to question why he can't find a browser to suit his needs (even if some of the things that he wants to do is not the browsers "fault"). My suggestion would be to work on customizing firefox to suit your needs as best you can... sometimes it takes some work (more than it should). Also, I think that camino will come along very nicely with some time. I know that spell checking will be one of those things that are put in. Finally, I imagine that Safari will come along with its speed with some more time as well.

PS After reading the post it sounds more harsh than it is intended to be at the first... :eek:
 
bodeh6 said:
What iBook do you have? I view lots of flash content and it is always smooth on the machine in my sig.

I have an 800MHz G3 iBook with 640mb of ram. I hope no one trys to tell me that that is why I am having a problem. I know its an older model, but it should under no circumstance have any sort of problem with flash. I've used 500MHz PIII's with 128mb of ram that run flash without being choppy. Firefox is faster with the Flash than Safari, but it still isnt as fast as any PC I've used.
 
man, slow?
i run a g4 400 powermac and a g3 400 powerbook both with 512 MB of RAM, and while not speedy they get the job done. they never feel "slow".

my gf has a 17" powerbook 1.67 - i've used it compared to mine they rip. feels fast and useable to me.

what are these speed nuts doing in their browser that requires more power? plus it sounds as though you are griping more about the software than the hardware, to me anyway.
 
godbout said:
Prerequisite for complaining! I mean, come on a gig of ram. all the guy wants is to surf the net. If apple does not provide you with a laptop that can surf for $2500 stock then its worth bringing to everyones attention so that it can be made better or a solution can be found to his specific problems.

It is pretty well established that when Apple was shipping machines with 256 Mb RAM, this was inadequate for any kind of performance under 10.3, and especially deadly under 10.4; thus their recent switch to 512 Mb minimum shipping configuration.

512 Mb under Tiger is still not optimal, especially on laptops where the 4200 RPM or 5400 RPM hard drive speed penalty for using virtual memory is much more serious than on a desktop with a 7200 RPM drive.
 
blaskillet4 said:
The only people who think browsing the web on a mac is fast are the people who haven't used a PC in a while (or have, but the PC is 10 years old).

Internet browsing on a mac is just plain slow. Period.

I'll have to try some more browsing on my eMac and PB, compared to my iMac G5 20". Browsing was a bit slow with the standard RAM - but breezes along with 2GB that I recently upgraded to.

Honestly though, I see no real difference between a PC and a Mac with the comparable amount of RAM - this may be due more to the difference of DSL (work and the PC, compared to home with cable modem).

[For full disclosure, I generally have many windows open on my Mac when compared to our XP system at work.]

blaskillet4 said:
Uh oh, wait a minute, I wasn't trolling. I have a Mac, I love my mac, But I also have a PC, and I'm not going to lie to myself or anybody else. Browsing on my PC is just so much faster. Do I like windows, NO, but I'm no 'fanboi' who is blind to any problems my mac has.

Try it yourself.

Get a Clean PC, and a Mac. (please, no dual 2.7 vs 1.5 celeron or whatever)

Make sure that they have equal RAM
go to a website such as newegg.com

And see what happens.

What be infected in something like 12 minutes on the PC? Sorry could not resist.

iMeowbot said:
Javascript really is horrendously slow in Safari. It's much improved in 1.3/2.0, but still needs a lot of work. The nightly Webkit builds are making seriously good progress on that problem, but it's not quite there yet.

Newegg.com is a great example of a Safari killer, as is "check all" on Horde mail pages.

Java on the Apple is the main pain that I feel. Less so with Tiger and Safari 2.x. The menus on DPReview forums now work.

powermac666 said:
or a 2400 baud? ;) I remember having a 14.4 modem on a 2400 line. One day I noticed that AOL added a local 28.8 line. I sprung for the new 28.8 modem, enjoyed a "screaming fast" web experience for about two weeks, then AOL dropped the 28.8 line back to 2400.:mad:

I love my cable modem. :p And my Mac browses fine by my standards.

Man, I know what you mean. Had to to dial up back at my old place when the cable modem went out (had to transfer a file for work). Surprised at just how painful it was, compared to what I had. It showed my ex just how "lucky" we were that I paid the bill for broadband access.

Chrispy said:
CanadaRAM, you may very well have some of the best and most thought out posts on MR lol. You always bring up very valid points and help to bring discussions back into perspective. Thank you for helping stop the panic many newbies probably felt when they started reading this post. Sure, some websites don't work that well on mac... but then again I guess its better to have an OS that doesn't do the "best" job of surfing the web than an OS that doesn't do such a good job of running the operating system but is great at suring the net haha.

Active-X is the death of the web IMO. Everyone wants the "flash", instead of their substance being the drivers for viewer-ship. I would rather be "safe" than "sorry".
 
EJBasile said:
well currently I am extremely upset that all of my iPods have not lasted more than a year. WAY TO GO APPLE.

really, sorry to hear that, mine had its second birthday back in june, and aside from a battery change its all good, hell it ran all of last week nonstop and regularly does 8 hours a day :eek:
 
safari is fast on my ibook
but your right about mtv.com but thats pretty minor...

well sorry your experiences with apple have been so bad

enjoy windows
 
blaskillet4 said:
Try it yourself.

Get a Clean PC, and a Mac. (please, no dual 2.7 vs 1.5 celeron or whatever)

Make sure that they have equal RAM
go to a website such as newegg.com

And see what happens.

The operative phrase in your statement here being clean pc It doesn't stay clean for very long and when that happens any Mac will run rings around a pc browser. :rolleyes:
 
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