Explorer SLOWER than Netscape?

Why?

[snowfox121]

I noticed something today when testing my site in Netscape 4.7 on my G3 Mac. <snipped> One page on my site contains a large table which takes about 20 seconds to load in IE 5. (i have DSL high speed access) In Netscape the same page took about 1 second. The same thing happens when i use my navigational aid to go to another smaller table. IE takes 8 seconds and then 8 seconds to return when i click the back button. Netscape does it instantly. What's happening here?

[edited by: Macguru at 3:33 pm (utc) on July 17, 2002]
[edit reason] URL snipped, look in profile [/edit]

[Macguru]

Hi snowfox121,

Sorry I had to snip both URL from your post. We try to keep topics general here, without pointing to specific pages (especially if we relate to it). Doing so keeps a good signal to noise ratio, as URL drops tend to open the floodgates to self-promotion.

Netscape always rendered pages faster than IE for me on both Macs and PC. Usenet groups and countless discussions forums are filled with this fact. Your browsers cache settings can also have a dramatic influence on how fast a page is displayed. I recommend looking up at your cache settings of IE.

Also, you can allow IE to use 50 % more RAM than recommended by Microsoft. This can also improve it's performance and reliability.

[snowfox121]

No problem. i had posted this same question in the general forum and Ted edited my post to say "look in user's profile, page /Wrpubs.htm"

My IE cache is to a RAM disk, the size is 12 MB. My memory for IE is set at 50,000 instead of the 8,150 recommended by Microsoft. These things do not help.

i got a number of suggestions as to how to improve the efficiency of my page. i will work at this, which will involve me learning to use CSS properly, but NONE of these efficiencies can possible account for a difference of 15-20 seconds loading in IE and 1 second in Netscape and Opera. That's too big a difference.

Something is wrong.

[EliteWeb]

You have to find the right version for your computer - some work better than others. For instance on my iBook the OS X IE loads and renders pages hella fast but in OS 9 it was a bit slower and netscape was slower. i was using newest versions of all the browsers :)