Holy shit!
I didn't think this
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1805678&cid=33762968
would become reality so fast

IE might have improved, but it has still a far worse rendering engine if it needs to use 2 CPUs and a GPU to reach the speed that ff opera and chrome have on 1 CPU...

Life finds a way... Malcolm was right!

Am I missing something here? since when is "utilizing more hardware" equivalent to "improving your performance"? Yes it will be faster than IE8, but at the expense of your other applications' performance...

A lousy rendering engine stays a lousy rendering engine, even if you artificially improve it's speed by giving it more hardware!

"You're probably being rooted as I type this"
don't you know what a LOCAL-root exploit is or are you by any chance trying to scare us into executing malware with root privileges?

Actually I find this interesting

• Firefox 3.6 (the browser everyone calls bloated and slow nowadays) still beats IE9 beta
• Firefox 4 beta, the bloated and slow browser is not "dead last" (that's IE8 by FAAAAAAAAR!) and it's no big difference to the "oh so fast" IE9 or even the "lightning-fast" opera
• to reach this performance, IE9 has to utilize much more hardware (GPU acceleration, all CPU cores) which will be a bitch in real real-world usage (unless websurfing is everything you ever do)
• did they use Adblock in FF? otherwise I wouldn't call it a "real-world" benchmark...

1. it would not be the first time that microsoft left out security features in beta versions to show off performance that the final cannot reach
2. all modern browsers compile javascript to bytecode
3. a rendering engine does not become better by utilizing more hardware ressources (by that logic i could improve the quality of my sourcecodes by buying a faster CPU)

I think it's really ridiculous that THIS article comes from a magazine which calls itself "PC Pro", because nowadays you NEED Linux skills to get good IT jobs (to be a "pro") and this article shows extreme ignorance to Linux and even computers and operating systems as such!

• Installing it using Wubi - WHY? This way, windows takes at least some performance - making it slower, compared to a native, bootable installer.
• Jumplists and Start menu search -vs- multiple workspaces - that's all they compare in the usability section - that's ridiculous and it's even more ridiculous that windows wins 9-7 in this section! (btw: I have yet to find a useful application of jumplists or any third party software that supports them)
• "Features such as Jumplists and Start menu search offer a layer of sophistication Ubuntu can't yet match." ever heard of beagle or Tracker? nooooooo, ubuntu "CAN'T" reach this layer of sophistication...
• "Windows 7 is less of a resource-hog than its predecessor, but it can't quite match Ubuntu's ability to run on practically anything." Well Windows 7 is the same resource-hog as its predecessor, but almost 3 years after vista, better hardware was more common so people didn't notice that much anymore (run vista on 2-4 GB ram and you're just as fine). This can't compete with a Kubuntu installation which hardly ever goes beyond 500 mb of allocated RAM (and I run dozens of applications and websites at the same time)
• "Ubuntu takes full advantage of the iPhone-led thirst for "apps" with its own Software Centre" WTF!? linux had an "App-Store" DECADES before apple, you ignorant SHMUCK!
• "While we're on the subject of home entertainment, Ubuntu has nothing to match the swish appeal of Windows Media Center." sorry, I didn't know we were talking about media centers, I thought we were talking about operating systems - silly me! you haven't tried mythTV, have you?
• "Given the current vogue for app stores, it's surprising Microsoft hasn't attempted something similar. It certainly makes it easier to serendipitously find an app you've never heard of before." that's all you have to say about this? how about the fact that it keeps all of your software and drivers up-to-date and also offers you security far beyond anything windows has? or didn't you know that? is "PC-Pro"'s knowledge about the "Pro"-OS that limited, YOU IGNORANT SCHMUCK!?
• "Until recently, that [having OpenOffice] would have given Ubuntu a huge advantage over Windows 7, [...]. Now many new PCs come with Office 2010 Starter, [...] Those buying Windows off the shelf are still left without any meaningful office software" you must be kidding me, right? If you buy a PC which has Office 2010 Starter, then the vendor ADDS IT TO THE PRICE of the PC so you are F*CKING telling me that having only wordpad -vs- having OpenOffice is no disadvantage, because I can buy some MS-Office version? ARE YOU THAT STUPID OR IS THIS ARTICLE PAID FUD!?
• "abject photo-editing software" this is amazing! windows has no photo-editing software preinstalled BUT YOU CAN DOWNLOAD ONE SOMEWHERE SO THAT'S OK - but linux has photo-editing software preinstalled but it sucks and installing a different one is unacceptable, so FUCK THIS, POINT GOES TO WINDOWS... this is so ridiculous! how can you take this article serious!?
• "Windows' sheer ubiquity and familiarity make it the safe choice for business users, despite licence and additional security costs." and another point which sounds like it was copy-pasted straight from a windows advertisement...

I think it's really amazing that THIS even got published - everything looks like they didn't even try ubuntu for more than a day before making this comparison. Do you call THAT journalism? This could well be written by Microsoft!

As a programmer I have to say FUCK WINDOWS! I program this piece of shit at my day-job on API level and it's API is so god damn horribly BAD! to get this piece of shit doing things, you need at least 4 times the code and 10 times the documentation reading that you'd need on linux. and I'm a graduate computer scientist - how tf can a regular programmer get ANYTHING done on it without a framework that gives you a posix-like API!?
and why would you write things on a bloated, slow OS and pay for (dozens-hundreds of licenses for) a framework which kills your performance even more, just to get to a level that you can have MUCH cheaper and with far better performance? oh, because the users are f*cking idiots and thus demand this nonsense, i see...

Dear bad parents,
a ban of violent video games does NOT free you from nurturing your children.