Audaxium Blog

Just what is the best browser for use in NetSuite?

The other day a customer asked me this question and I gave my usual response based on the feeling I get while using various NetSuite instances.  Normally I feel Chrome is fastest, and Internet Explorer slowest with others falling in between.  Firefox is my usual choice as Chrome has some known issues (we won’t call them bugs) with NetSuite.  Safari also seems to hold up well in the speed department as a few NetSuite users I follow on twitter keep raving about it and I found it fairly snappy as well.

Just for kicks I decided to do a rather unscientific test of 4 different browsers and use the built in NetSuite performance reporting to figure out which were fastest and which were slowest.  The results were surprising.  In fact, I re-ran my scenario multiple times to see if there had been some mistake.

The Scenario

My test was very simple, mainly because I don’t know how to automate the testing and get page load times for multiple browsers using some kind of super plugin.  I ran the test 3 or 4 times and used the times I got most frequently, as opposed to averaging.  This to ensure that my connection wasn’t the issue.  In all cases I got 3 results that were very close for each page.  All tests were done on my Windows XP SP3 Desktop.

I admit that this is rather unscientific and I haven’t removed certain variables and I encourage others to try the same thing and report on the results here.

My Scenario was:

• Open the Browser, go to www.netsuite.com log in then sign out.  Perform a full browser refresh.
• Login (to a default role)
• Switch Roles
• Drill Down on a Dashboard Report
• Click on a Transaction on the Detailed Report
• Load the Customer Record
• Edit and then save the Customer  Record

The Browsers

• Chrome 2.0.172.33
• Firefox 3.5
• Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13
• Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702
• Safari 4.0 (530.17)

The Results

The Results below are the summary of the test, in seconds, for the Client Load Time as reported by NetSuite, and the Total, which includes the server and the network components of the load time.

• Browser          Client         Total
• Chrome           9.0              16.0
• Firefox           7.8              19.1
• Safari                17.7           26.3
• IE 8                   10.1            32.6
• IE7                    11.2            34.4

Chrome

Google’s Chrome had the fastest total load times, and the second fastest client response.  I like Chrome but there are a few bugs to be aware of in NetSuite (as of the post date) that prevent it’s wider use in a company.  Mainly in the filling out of text boxes, which occasionally go wonky, and sending emails out of NetSuite with tags such as <nlsignature>

Firefox 3.5

Firefox is my preferred browser due to it’s support for plugins.  It also plays well with NetSuite as you can see from the results.  I’ve had very few problems with it rendering the NetSuite pages properly. This is the browser I recommend companies to use on a daily basis.  I have had some speed issues with certain versions of Firefox.

Safari

I had expected Safari to fair much better in my little test.  It feels much faster than it reports.  In fact, my first couple of tests with it were even slower than the numbers I have up here and it was dead last.  I then spent a bit more time with Safari looking for some consistent results that I felt comfortable with.   Something wacky is going on here and I don’t know what it is and it would be great if someone could verify or dispute my results. Safari also renders some of the buttons in NetSuite only halfway which makes for a strange look.  (Buttons with pulldowns)

Internet Explorer 8

IE8 is better than IE7 for NetSuite but not by much.  While it seems to be very solid in terms of the look and feel of NetSuite, it does load the pages more slowly.  Unfortunately it’s the default in most offices.  That being said.  If I ever want to ensure that it’s not my browser that’s causing the problem with NetSuite I’ll switch to IE as it’s the most trouble free in my opinion.  I really don’t use it that much however.

(Edit.  I just went through a long call with a customer regarding a problem using NLTags in case messages.  The problem turned out to be the IE8 Browser.)  Buyer Beware.

Internet Explorer 7

IE7 is slow.  Stable but slow.  I’ve only heard one person who says they like it for NetSuite and I suspect it’s because they haven’t used anything else.  If you’re on IE6 or 7 I recommend that you upgrade to something more modern.

Conclusion

For me, I’ll be sticking with Firefox and Chrome when I’m feeling the need to be speedy.  IE8 will be there if I need to troubleshoot problems.

I’ve obviously left out a few controls, and this test could be improved by expanding to different browser versions, operating systems, and even internet connections.  And, it may be useful to simulate a full day for an average user.

If you do some testing yourself please let me know in the comments.  I’ll post updates in the future as NetSuite and browsers get updated.