[NOTE: You can read the more exhaustive report on this topic on the website, across two parts --- Part I is here and it talks in detail about the tests we picked. Part II can be found here and it talks about each browser's performance under these tests and also offers a lengthier conclusion.]
After the recent funeral party for Internet Explorer 6, the hottest news in the world of web browsers has been Opera's claim that its latest is also the greatest - Opera 10.50 was claimed to be THE fastest browser on Earth.
Opera has long played the role of best supporting actor in the browser theater for the past 14 years. The past few years have seen relative upstarts - Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome - steal market share and mind share from this browser of yore. Popularity notwithstanding, Opera has always been the melting pot for new ideas and features, of which Turbo, and Unite are some of the latest additions. Opera's newest weapon - its brand new JavaScript compiling engine called "Carakan" (pronounced 'Jarakan') is claimed to sprint seven times faster than its previous "Futhark" engine. This definitely makes the browser faster than its predecessors.
But when Opera proclaims something as bold as "Earth's Fastest Browser", we had take a closer look and check the validity of this claim. Its competition is surely not sitting idle: Google Chrome's V8 engine is critically acclaimed, performance-wise; Mozilla is constantly polishing their SpiderMonkey engine, and Safari is tweaking its SquirrelFish engine - all giving their all, and squeezing every drop from their JavaScript engines. With that in mind, we felt that the browsers needed to go against each other and show us what they've really got.
Here's the list of the tests that we put the browser through:
The list of browsers we tested:
We ran all the tests on the same test machine, under the same test conditions.
Acid 3 Test Results :
Dromaeo Test Results :
FutureMark PeaceKeeper Test :
JSNES Rendering Speed Test :
From these benchmarks one thing is clear - Google Chrome is the most consistent competitor of them all. Opera 10.50 definitely outperforms in some areas and the latest enhancement introduced through its 'Carakan' engine is working wonders for Opera's speed. Amazingly we found that Safari isn't that bad at performance (it does share Webkit with Chrome, after all)... Firefox though, seemed to lag behind the pack (if we count Internet Explorer 8 out).
A point to note before we move on: If we had taken a note of performance against resource utilization, the result might vary significantly. Google Chrome is a behemoth in terms of runtime footprint and even Safari doesn't play well at this. Opera 10.50 is a more balanced proposition here: it comes with moderate processor and memory usage (comparable to Firefox) but gave good results (comparable to Chrome). Internet Explorer 8 may be the most resource-friendly browser of them all - but we've all seen how it performs. As it stands, Internet Explorer 8 is the best tool to download another browser...
We didn't count exactly how many times a browser crashed during our tests - but surely, stability makes for an interesting aspect too. Being just a preview build, Minefield & Chrome [Dev] didn't crash as many times that we felt the need to remove them from a test (Minefield only crashed whenever we ran the JSNES test). On the contrary, despite being a stable release, Opera 10.50 crashed a few times; more than a stable release ought to. Rigorous usage of Internet Explorer 8, Safari and Chrome ended up in an odd crashed session or two, but Firefox didn't crash even once throughout the test period. Nice!
So the winner is...
These tests were just the start of a discussion. The real debate begins now. You, the Digit Community should be the one to give this debate an actual verdict. After all, speed is only a small aspect of a person's experience with a browser. We here at Digit would love to hear from you. Post your thoughts, comments and share your personal user experience with the browser(s) of your choice. If you wish to know more about the tests we ran, so as to try them yourselves, at home, click here.
After the recent funeral party for Internet Explorer 6, the hottest news in the world of web browsers has been Opera's claim that its latest is also the greatest - Opera 10.50 was claimed to be THE fastest browser on Earth.
Opera has long played the role of best supporting actor in the browser theater for the past 14 years. The past few years have seen relative upstarts - Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome - steal market share and mind share from this browser of yore. Popularity notwithstanding, Opera has always been the melting pot for new ideas and features, of which Turbo, and Unite are some of the latest additions. Opera's newest weapon - its brand new JavaScript compiling engine called "Carakan" (pronounced 'Jarakan') is claimed to sprint seven times faster than its previous "Futhark" engine. This definitely makes the browser faster than its predecessors.
But when Opera proclaims something as bold as "Earth's Fastest Browser", we had take a closer look and check the validity of this claim. Its competition is surely not sitting idle: Google Chrome's V8 engine is critically acclaimed, performance-wise; Mozilla is constantly polishing their SpiderMonkey engine, and Safari is tweaking its SquirrelFish engine - all giving their all, and squeezing every drop from their JavaScript engines. With that in mind, we felt that the browsers needed to go against each other and show us what they've really got.
Here's the list of the tests that we put the browser through:
- Acid 3 Test
- Dromaeo Test
- PeaceKeeper Test
- JSNES Speed Test
The list of browsers we tested:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 8
- Apple Safari 4
- Opera 10.50
- Google Chrome 4 Stable
- Google Chrome 5 Developer*
- Mozilla Firefox 3.6
- Mozilla Firefox 3.7a3pre Nightly*
We ran all the tests on the same test machine, under the same test conditions.
Acid 3 Test Results :
- IE - 20
- Safari - 100
- Opera - 100
- Chrome - 100
- Chrome [Dev] - 100
- Firefox - 94
- Minefield - 96
Dromaeo Test Results :
- Comparison Sheets : Dromaeo, SunSpider, V8, CSS Selector,
- Safari : Dromaeo - 118.56, SunSpider - 177.95, V8 - 55.44, CSS Selector - 1259.35
- Opera : Dromaeo - 1282.28 (!), SunSpider - 271.64, V8 - 74.38, CSS Selector - 1147.89
- Chrome : Dromaeo - 170.71, SunSpider - 222.95, V8 - 86.60, CSS Selector - 1412.99
- Chrome [Dev] : Dromaeo - 193.32, SunSpider - 274.51, V8 - 114.41, CSS Selector - 1578.19
- Firefox : Dromaeo - 56.42, SunSpider - 106.04, V8 - 12.47, CSS Selector - 933.71
- Minefield : Dromaeo - 86.79, SunSpider - 135.26, V8 - 13.99, CSS Selector - 1076.95
FutureMark PeaceKeeper Test :
- IE - 460
- Safari - 2004
- Opera - 2368
- Chrome - 2159
- Chrome [Dev] - 2839
- Firefox - 1806
- Minefield - 1903
JSNES Rendering Speed Test :
- IE - Incapable
- Safari - 52.94
- Opera - 55.34
- Chrome - 56.45
- Chrome [Dev] - 56.97
- Firefox - 10.55
- Minefield - Crashed
From these benchmarks one thing is clear - Google Chrome is the most consistent competitor of them all. Opera 10.50 definitely outperforms in some areas and the latest enhancement introduced through its 'Carakan' engine is working wonders for Opera's speed. Amazingly we found that Safari isn't that bad at performance (it does share Webkit with Chrome, after all)... Firefox though, seemed to lag behind the pack (if we count Internet Explorer 8 out).
A point to note before we move on: If we had taken a note of performance against resource utilization, the result might vary significantly. Google Chrome is a behemoth in terms of runtime footprint and even Safari doesn't play well at this. Opera 10.50 is a more balanced proposition here: it comes with moderate processor and memory usage (comparable to Firefox) but gave good results (comparable to Chrome). Internet Explorer 8 may be the most resource-friendly browser of them all - but we've all seen how it performs. As it stands, Internet Explorer 8 is the best tool to download another browser...
We didn't count exactly how many times a browser crashed during our tests - but surely, stability makes for an interesting aspect too. Being just a preview build, Minefield & Chrome [Dev] didn't crash as many times that we felt the need to remove them from a test (Minefield only crashed whenever we ran the JSNES test). On the contrary, despite being a stable release, Opera 10.50 crashed a few times; more than a stable release ought to. Rigorous usage of Internet Explorer 8, Safari and Chrome ended up in an odd crashed session or two, but Firefox didn't crash even once throughout the test period. Nice!
So the winner is...
These tests were just the start of a discussion. The real debate begins now. You, the Digit Community should be the one to give this debate an actual verdict. After all, speed is only a small aspect of a person's experience with a browser. We here at Digit would love to hear from you. Post your thoughts, comments and share your personal user experience with the browser(s) of your choice. If you wish to know more about the tests we ran, so as to try them yourselves, at home, click here.
