Microsoft will talk about hardware acceleration making IE9 such a fast browser. They compare it to Firefox but do NOT tell you they run Firefox without hardware acceleration! So someone tried it and here are the results: http://i.imgur.com/wXC13.png This is why you must NEVER trust anything you hear from Microsoft.
Nothing new - the testing from Microsoft was for the default behaviour of each browser. FF4 does not run HW acceleration by default. This testing anomaly was reported last week. Your results however do not match what others who have turned on HW acceleration on Firefox are having result-wise on the Psychedelic test where IE9 Preview narrowly beat FF with HW acceleration on.
That figures ms should just toss in the towel and give up on the browser market. They are so far behind.
It was not. IE9 had acceleration, FF4 did not as I said. Yet! Not my test. Done by Paul Rouget who says Remember, all the features Microsoft is bragging about in IE9 are available right now in Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera (at least the beta versions) and will be out before the end of the year. IE9 won't be out till next year at the earliest and won't be as advanced is the others by then!
HW acceleration is turned on by default for IE9, and you admitted that FF4 does not have it on by default. Not sure how that you see the default behaviour statement as being erroneous. I had a look at that link. Looks more like he has some graphic driver issues which would account for his inconsistent results. My testing results and others were very close to what MS has in their test results. Perhaps some other DP members can give what results they get. Not sure what this has to do with the original post.
FF4 will be out in the coming months with acceleration turned on. No one knows when IE9 will be out yet everyone acts like it's out now. Yeeeaahhh. Paul wouldn't notice any technical stuff now would he? My point is, IE9 is already so far behind all other browsers, it's trying to catch up to where they are today but won't be out for a year or two. IE is a wasted effort. It amazes me that people like you use it and even glorify it as if it was anything better than what it is: a 12-year old, backwards inept browser.
Again, as in my original reply, the test was done on the default setting of browsers that that time. If FF4 Final does come with HW acceleration turned on by default, that does not change that when this test was run, it was disabled by default. You are correct regarding people's response to IE9 - it is an alpha release at best right now. I do not know about Paul. I do know about benchmarking as I benchmarked any computer HW/SW that could be benchmarked while working for a computer magazine for a few years. I based my observation upon my experience when seeing such inconsistent results. Again, this had nothing to do with the original post and is an offshoot discussion at best. I have been an Opera user since it came out so am not sure what you meant by the use/glorify comment. I am simply questioning the original post where the results and post do not seem to be valid.
And FF4 is in beta. The point is, when acceleration is turned on, FF4 competes with IE9 and Microsoft left it turned off while IE9 had it turned on giving the impression FF4 did not compete. Another point I'm trying to make to those who want to glorify IE9. Microsoft pulls tricks on people and they need to be aware of them.