IE9 and Firefox 4 browsers head-to-head

ConceivablyTech has published "the first duel" between Microsoft’s IE9 RC and Mozilla’s Firefox 4 RC web browsers. 

"Both IE9 and Firefox 4 are beautiful browsers with dramatically enhanced user interfaces," wrote ConceivablyTech’s Wolfgang Gruener.

Gruener described said Firefox developer Mozilla faced "a massive dtask on its shoulders" to retake lost market share and defend against the new Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.

Both browsers were benchmarked in a range of tasks including performance of Adobe’s Flash 10.2 player. IE9 took pole position, with Firefox 4 making major gains over Firefox 3.6 but not enough to beat Microsoft’s new browser.

Elsewhere the scores were often shown neck and neck with Gruener summarising: "Firefox 4 and IE9 are substantially upgraded browsers when compared to their predecessors and show few weaknesses in any benchmark."

The benchmarks showed that Firefox 4 offers a high performance JavaScript engine while IE9 pulled out ahead in tests which allowed Microsoft’s hardware acceleration.

"IE9’s hardware acceleration engine is the one to beat today," said Gruener.