Netscape 7 slower than IE6 under XP Pro?

[Scooter24]

This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but is it possible that IE6 will load pages faster than Netscape 7 und Windows XP Pro? At least that's the impression I get (I'm using a DSL line). Could it be that Microsoft purposely designed XP to slow down Netscape browsers?

[tedster]

I think it's more likely that MS has leveraged Explorer's integration with the XP operating system -- even more than they did with previous operating systems. That integration gives IE a head start over other browsers.

So it's not that MS intentionally handicaps other browsers, but just that IE naturally has some advantages that non-MS browsers can't have.

Netscape 7 seems to have some extra overhead that slows it down compared to Mozilla, which is the main source of the browser engine. I'm not on XP yet, but Opera and Mozilla (Firebird especially) are still faster than IE, even though IE does have the "home court advantage".

[PatrickDeese]

but is it possible that IE6 will load pages faster than Netscape 7

Actually about 8 months ago someone on Slashdot said that IE doesn't disconnect after each petition as browser to server etiquette dictates - so it maintains a "always on" connection - which supposedly gains a tiny bit of time accessing a website.