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I'm not sure what the author is talking about. After my recent tab clean-up, I've got 35 tabs open. Opening a new one is near-instantaneous, and I can say the s

I'm not sure what the author is talking about. After my recent tab clean-up, I've got 35 tabs open. Opening a new one is near-instantaneous, and I can say the same thing about bringing up any other tab I have open, as long as it has been loaded since the last time I restarted my browser. I've got an Atom-based 2014 laptop at home. That one might take a second to open a new tab if I'm doing anything else on it at the time. Modern browsers handle a higher load than older ones did; a more complex web means a greater amount of more complex data, and that means more complex data management. The overhead is higher (there's a lower floor), but it allows the browser to scale better (higher ceiling).

NotOscarWilde 10y ago
I have a Intel Atom 1.6 GHz/2GB of RAM netbook afrom 2009 with Linux on it, and Firefox/Chrome is the only unusable app on it; other Linux applications seem to be fairly responsive on the hardware. I really feel the slowness on that one. Tab switching takes seconds, other interactions take seconds (especially on sites with javascript), Facebook.com is unreadable (script takes too long). It is just an anecdote, but at least on Linux the browser is what makes older computers obsolete. PS: Interestingly, some minimalist WebKit-based web browsers seem to work fine on there (like uzbl), of course that comes with a huge downside of no sync, practically no addons, and so forth.
- khedoros1 10y ago
  I've also got a similar machine (Lenovo S10-2), which I used as my primary laptop for a few years. Using the web on it was painful even 5 years ago. Almost as bad as the 2003 IBM laptop sitting next to it in my closet. The author was talking about a 2014 iMac, 5 years newer than your netbook and likely 3-4x the price. They're running a modern OS with a browser (Safari) claimed to be 1.4x - 7x faster (by Apple's numbers on their Safari page) than the Firefox browser that I use. So that's what I'm wondering about. By the author's description, their premium 2014 computer isn't running a browser as well as my super-budget refurb 2014 computer.

NotOscarWilde 10y ago

I have a Intel Atom 1.6 GHz/2GB of RAM netbook afrom 2009 with Linux on it, and Firefox/Chrome is the only unusable app on it; other Linux applications seem to be fairly responsive on the hardware. I really feel the slowness on that one. Tab switching takes seconds, other interactions take seconds (especially on sites with javascript), Facebook.com is unreadable (script takes too long). It is just an anecdote, but at least on Linux the browser is what makes older computers obsolete. PS: Interestingly, some minimalist WebKit-based web browsers seem to work fine on there (like uzbl), of course that comes with a huge downside of no sync, practically no addons, and so forth.

khedoros1 10y ago
I've also got a similar machine (Lenovo S10-2), which I used as my primary laptop for a few years. Using the web on it was painful even 5 years ago. Almost as bad as the 2003 IBM laptop sitting next to it in my closet. The author was talking about a 2014 iMac, 5 years newer than your netbook and likely 3-4x the price. They're running a modern OS with a browser (Safari) claimed to be 1.4x - 7x faster (by Apple's numbers on their Safari page) than the Firefox browser that I use. So that's what I'm wondering about. By the author's description, their premium 2014 computer isn't running a browser as well as my super-budget refurb 2014 computer.