The browser bit was also much, much snappier than anything else in common use, except maybe Opera. Including the Mozilla browser. Performance took a giant hit

The browser bit was also much, much snappier than anything else in common use, except maybe Opera. Including the Mozilla browser. Performance took a giant hit some time in the 1.x series and never recovered, but before that, it was remarkably lightweight and snappy, so much so that normal people would notice.