Lots of people who are testing the various Windows 7 builds have already reported that Windows 7 is faster and snappier than Windows Vista, and some even say that it approaches Windows XP. Apparently, web browsers in particular will benefit from running on Windows 7 instead of Windows Vista SP2. BetaNews ran tests of all the major browsers on both Vista SP2 and Windows 7, and concluded that in general, browsers are round and about 12%-18% faster on 7 than on Vista.
The tests were performed using a fully up-to-date Windows Vista SP2 installation and the Windows 7 release candidate on the same machine. The results show that when looking at stable releases, all browsers show a performance boost when run on Windows 7 as compared to running on Windows Vista SP2, with Safari 3 leading the pack with an 18% speed increase, and Opera 9.64 coming in last with only a 2% speed increase.
Moving on to the latest non-nightly test builds, the picture is completely different. It seems that everyone except Apple is testing their next browser release on Windows 7, since Safari 4 beta 528.17 saw a dramatic performance drop of 22%, while all other browsers’ test releases saw speed improvements between 12 and 16%. Chrome 3.0.182.2 and Firefox 3.5 beta 4 led the pack here, both coming in at 16%.
The results neatly summarised in a chart:
The tests on Safari 4 were run multiple times just to confirm them, but the results were the same every time. Still, it probably indicates a bug somewhere in Safari 4, which will probably get fixed soon enough. Overall though, these figures indicate that browser users – which means all of us – will enjoy a faster browsing experience on Windows 7.
“It are”? I can has cheezburger?
kthxbye
I must be blind. I can’t find those 2 words, “It are”, together anywhere in the article!
Yeah, I recalled seeing kittehs in the article, now they’re gone!
I guess its time to cut down on cheezburger and other deadly noms.
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Edited 2009-05-29 17:10 UTC
Now I’d like to see the gains in speed comparing XP to Windows 7.
If all browsers benefit in speed, this indicates that all apps will run faster in general.
“If all browsers benefit in speed, this indicates that all apps will run faster in general.”
How do you figure? The math behind that statement is flawed.
1: A web broswer is an aplication
2: Web broswers appear to be faster in windows 7
3: All aplications appear to be faster in windos 7
4: …er, wait what?
While the vast majority of aplications are infact faster in windows 7 broswers are quicker for multiple reasons, some of which are primarily how Win 7 deals with web services (slightly different than vista).
That’s why I said it indicates. So I’m not concluding it does.
I’m just trying to keep things in perceptive. If it benefits browsers then it probably benefits other applications too. So the gain is not really just in browsing, but a all-round better and faster OS than Vista by design.
And if Win7 deals with web services differently that allows a browser-specific improvement, I’d like even more to see a comparison with WinXP.
Edited 2009-05-29 19:22 UTC
“and some even say that it approaches Windows XP”
So you count that as good news, don’t you? Didn’t the articles here tell us for months that Windows 7 is the new slim and slick revision of Vista?
What a sad state not being able to compete with your six year old pre-predecessor.
Well, its a chicken and egg situation. You can’t add features and not bog it down.
You know, DRM functionality and anti-malware technologies are not performance enhancements.
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“anti malware technology” amounts to not running as admin all the time… XP Pro can do that too, heck NT 3.5 could do that. Nothing new there…
I think he meant Windows Defender. It’s included in Vista / 7 and on by default.
Heard of Windows Defender (default on Windoze 7)?
What do you think that runs on? Your GPU?
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Edit: Ooh, Kroc beat me to the punch!
Edited 2009-05-29 17:01 UTC
Yeah, we’ve just gotten too used to that because its the Microsoft way. Funny how Ubuntu 9.04 boots in half the time the old one did on my machine, responds in an altogether more snappy way, and yet the changelog isn’t just a list of things they removed!. Intel seems to be achieving similar things with Moblin – new features, and snappier performance at the same time – OMG, a paradox.
Right. And can I run Office, uTorrent and other frequently-used programs without hacks (don’t even think of mentioning WINE as that POS barely works half the time)? Oh wait…it can’t.
Sure, Microsoft can and ought to do a better job streamlining its O.S., but 7 is getting there, slowly. Give it time, and perhaps you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Fsckwit. Microsoft Office suffers the same tendency to bloat as the OS it runs on. If you want to ask if you can run your piece of sh!t apps on another platform as well as the platform they were designed to run on, then NO.
If you want to run Office apps, download a torrent, and perform other frequently-performed tasks then the answer is a resounding YES.
Almost as good as the old one.
Truly a glowing endorsement.
It seems that rising popularity of Apple and Linux nearing actual usability has created a reality distortion field around Microsoft products. Now that Mac and Linux are almost legitimate choices, Windows users have to develop similar protective cognitive dissonance and delusions as Mac and Linux users have always had.
Isn’t it shameful for Microsoft that their browser is the slowest one in the list? No wonder it’s losing market share like ice on the polar caps. 🙂
Of course Windows Vista is the BESTEST OS i used. Now I am switching to Microsoft Window$ 7 because it will be even better than the BESTEST. I love Microsoft and MARKETING!
Windows Vista was CRAP for end users, mainly because of poor Microsoft decisions (too many stuff and services on inappropriate hardware by default) and horrid OEM vendors (Lenovo, Sony, HP… to name the ones I’ve personally seen), including gigabytes of crap made in Java that loads on startup. I’ve seen a few brand new Lenovos take 5-6 minutes to have a barely responsive system from a cold start. Customers that have used those systems for a few months (not even using Internet but a .NET propietary system we sell), report as much as “ten minutes” till I can double click something. Our system is for dentists, they don’t have IM/Mail on those boxes (nor any other windows program for the matter), so it’s not a “bad user” case.
On the other hand vista has been the first small (and not so small) step for Microsoft to try to patch a decade of poorly made decisions regarding their OS. In my humble opinion it was plagued with lies, deadlines and bad stuff, but it also brought a new base that will be improved (Win 7 being the 1st improvement).
However, should you try Windows 7 (having Vista experience) you’ll notice a million years of improvements in almost every area. I am surprised. Despite that, there are things about Windows 7 that I still don’t really like (and probably never will). If I had to use Windows (and I do) I’d definitely use Windows 7.
That said, it’s been 7 years since I’ve been using OS X and Windows XP (Vista for the last 8 months) inside a VM for Visual Studio .NET 3.5 development.
At least since the incarnation of Parallels/VMware. Before those, I used a Windows box with Visual Studio and SQL Server only, no internet at all and my Macintosh box next to it with all “my life”.
My point is simple, Windows 7 still has things I do not like, but it’s really decent compared to Vista. We’ll have to wait to see how OEM vendors break all that again…
Windows 7 does come with improvements over XP. Some are just simple visual ones like the screen doesn’t go black a few times during logon, icons don’t redraw every moment.
It appears to boot win 7 faster but when comparing a new 2.5GHz athlon x2 to an old 1GHz athlon the later still boots XP faster.
my laundry is washed whiter than white for the last 50-60 years
and we had the year of linux on the desktop for at least 10 years in a row now
I’ll wait for Windows 8. It will be much faster than 7, faster than ever – “out of the box”, of course.
“I’ll wait for Windows 8. It will be much faster than 7, faster than ever – “out of the box”, of course.”
But will Windows 8 still be slower than XP?
I wish people would stop comparing with Vista – as an unfortunate Vista user, I find Vista slow, unintuitive and generally vile.
Saying ….os is better than Vista is a bit like saying small-pox is better than black death – who cares I don’t wont either
I have read OSN for years now. Normally, I just read the articles and perhaps browse a few comments under the articles every now and then. Now I have never registered to post due, to the fact I tend to enjoy the articles without needing to comment. I have decided to at least throw in my 2 cents under this topic.
I would like to disagree with a few of the rational posters here. Vista might and did not work out of the box for some or even most people. We deployed Vista within our environment after SP1 was released. We have not had any application issues (that could not be solved by compatibility mode) or show stoppers that seems to permeate the comments found all over the web. True enough we did not deploy Vista when first released, which was mainly due to “We never release until after a SP and tested”.
We have a very heterogeneous infrastructure with Linux, Mac, and Windows XP Pro\Vista Enterprise workstations connected to a Solaris & Windows 2003|08 Infrastructure. We have found Vista to be responsive and pretty solid. Then again we are not benchmarking here. To be honest Vista coupled with Windows Server 2008 is pretty snappy.
I know a lot of posters will not agree with my comments. I just wanted to throw in my two cents due, I don’t think really anyone has honestly given Vista a true view. But, then again I don’t think anyone has given the Linux on the desktop a real honest approach either.
Linux deployed here is for the residents within our assisted living centers. The residents have not had any issues with browsing the web, using e-mail, or even typing letters. I think if elderly people within our care can use Linux (and I mean USE not code, program, and game). Then Linux could easily be found on a desktop within a home.
I would just like to see people who are very intelligent here just shed a better light on their knowledge and not join the bandwagon of “it sucks”
I really enjoy the articles found on OSNews so keep up the good work everyone. Please I am not trying to get flamed or start a rant. Just wanted to throw in our 2 cents.
Half the people that make the claims have never used Vista… Or at least it seems that way.
My brothers 7 year old windows 2k install died, finally, and I did a few minor upgrades to his system and installed Vista just to see how well it would run.
His tower is by no means a powerhouse – p4 2.66/512k L2/533mhz fsb, 512mb pc2700, nvidia fx-5200 128mb agp, 20gb udma5 ide drive – and Vista actually runs fairly smooth on it. It’s nowhere near as snappy as windows 2k pro was, but its not awful. After a few weeks, it figured out his usage pattern pretty well and all his apps load like lightning. He is plenty happy with it. I’m going to pop more ram in when I get the chance, but there is no real rush.
Vista, after SP1, isn’t a horrible OS. It isn’t the best, but it isn’t the beast people make it out to be unless you are using an ancient system (by current standards
).
Edited 2009-05-31 03:50 UTC
I beg to differ I use Vista daily on a PC lowish specs but made since Vista with a nvidia video card and gig of RAM.
Problems:
>It is so slow much slower than Linux, XP etc
>Every time you need to save to a network PC it searches the whole network a process the take about two minutes
>Random grey screens on apps these usually clear if you wait long enough
>Out of memory errors when working on an Excell spread sheets (this doesn’t happen on similar spec PCs running Linux and Crossover)
>The mouse not working after the PC wakes up (sometimes)
>Not being able to run Office 2000 without fiddling Outlook wont run at all (but I don’t use it anyway)
>The menu is horrid but you do get used to it and it is unintuitive – change IP address click status Mmm I’d guess that immedietly
>I do like the search thing although the advanced search is horrid
>Oh it also tends to rearrange the desktop
These just come immediately to mind if I was to write down all the problems over a week or two I’m sure the list would be much longer.
Note I haven’t complained about UAC it is a bit annoying but probably a good thing – if it produced a neat dialog box rather than the screen greying it would be better it is very irritating if you are working and the screen greys because an app wonts to update (it greys even if you cancel.)
There is a logical fallacy in the last sentence of the article.