Hi guys, I really need to buy a new hard drive -- but I am torn between the choice of a WD Black 4TB which is currently $309 on PC Case Gear or a Toshiba 4TB, which unfortunately they have stopped selling but other sites I think still do. However Toshiba also have the X300 series but I haven't found any reviews on them. I was wondering if possible if you could do a comparison on them regarding performance and their pricing?

Windows 8 is out with a new version of Internet Explorer, Firefox has boosted its JavaScript power and memory usage, and Chrome has been slowly improving its speed. How do the new versions stack up against each other? We found out in our latest round of browser speed tests.

Lifehacker regularly runs browser speed tests to see which browser runs the fastest in real-world situations. This is how we currently test browser performance.

Firefox 7 is set to be released today, and with a big focus on performance, we thought it time for another round of browser speed testing. We pitted the four most popular Windows browsers against each other in a battle of startup times, tab-loading times, JavaScript powers and memory usage, with some surprising results.

One of the many nice things about Android is that you can install your own essential apps, like a browser, as your better default option. But do third-party alternatives like Firefox, Opera or Dolphin actually deliver a better browser? In many cases, yes. Here's how.

It turns out that Internet Explorer 9, in its 64-bit version, apparently has a different, slower JavaScript engine than its 32-bit counterpart. We didn't know that when starting our browser tests, but we've now updated our tests with IE9 32-bit results, at least in the JavaScript and CSS categories. Doing so gave IE 9 32-bit an edge in at least one category. Thanks to commenters and Twitter correspondents who pointed this out.

It has been quite a month for browsers, with Internet Explorer and Firefox both dropping big new versions, and Chrome and Opera continuing their regular improvements. We tested all these browsers' startup and tab-loading times, JavaScript powers, and memory use for your fast-minded enjoyment. Update: With 32-versus-64-bit IE 9 results.

Google's got a new "Crankshaft" in its bleeding-edge Chrome, Internet Explorer 9 is out to prove its modern mettle, Firefox 4 is nearly complete, and Opera's adding extensions. It's a good time to put these browsers head to head.

We ran our own Mac-based performance tests last week with Firefox's pre-beta release candidate, and found Firefox 4 an improvement, but not quite catching up to other browsers in raw speed.

Many readers have asked us to replicate our browser speed tests on a Mac, to see the difference in platforms and performance. So we snagged a new MacBook Pro when nobody was looking and tested the latest browsers on it.

Apple's stepped up with Safari 5, Firefox has brought forth a more crash-proof 3.6 and Opera's continuing to push forward in betas. Let's break out the timer and testing software to see how the latest browsers run on real hardware.

Download Squad's Sebastian Anthony pits developer versions of IE9, Firefox, Chrome and Opera against each other in an HTML5 benchmark in the video above. The results: Currently the hardware acceleration available in IE9 and Firefox 3.7 take the performance cake.

The TechRadar site decided to settle the matter of media player performance in definitive fashion, loading up a few test files in different formats in 16 different media players, including Lifehacker favourites VLC Media Player, Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player, the built-in app we've recently learned to love. The results?

This morning Apple surprised everyone by approving the Opera Mini web browser for the iPhone and iPod touch, bringing one of the most popular mobile browsers to the most popular smartphone. So how does it stack up?

Flash has taken quite a beating lately by everyone from Apple (no Flash on iPad or iPhones) to YouTube (transitioning to HTML5 video) to users sick of security exploits and sluggish browsers. Everyone's looking for the silver bullet that kills Flash, but is HTML5 it?

Firefox 3.6 is out, Chrome's stable version got a big upgrade, and Opera 10.5 is inching toward release. It's a great time for us to break out the timer, process manager and code tracker for some up-to-date browser speed tests.

Linux Live: If you want to put your computer through the paces and get some feedback and benchmarks, you'll be hard pressed to find a tool more packed with tests than the Phoronix Test Suite Live CD.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 1, like every other browser, makes a claim to being "faster". We took Firefox and all the other latest browsers, put them on Windows 7, and ran them through our human-measured speed tests to vet the bragging.