Crowning A Windows XP Champion
Using our new scoring system, we not only see the placing order and winner, but also a rudimentary margin of victory between the contenders.
| Placing | Web Browser | Point Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Opera | 21 |
| 2nd | Chrome | 20.5 |
| 3rd | Firefox | 12.5 |
| 4th | Safari | 9.5 |
| 5th | Internet Explorer 8 | -2.5 |
In an out-of-nowhere upset, Opera proves the be the best choice for XP users still stuck using circa-2003 hardware. Gratulerer, Opera!
So there you have it. The next time you're doing free PC support for a hardware-challenged friend or family member, try to push Opera (or Chrome) for a quick boost to their Web browsing experience. This outcome doesn't exactly come as a surprise to us. Both Opera and Chrome feltmuch smoother on our old PC than Firefox. Safari has been lackluster everywhere except OS X for a long time. And IE8 is, well, IE8.
Whether you go with Opera or Chrome, this is one Web Browser Grand Prix where we can definitely say the objective results mirror our subjective experience. Imparting slower loading times across the board, our old beater of a PC allowed us to observe differences that'd otherwise be far too subtle on the faster hardware in our lab.
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