Web Browser Grand Prix 2: The Top 5 Tested And Ranked
Table of contents
Since the time our first Web Browser Grand Prix debuted, the already-raging browser wars have become heated indeed. In case you haven't been keeping tabs on the browser news, let's begin by getting up to speed on the latest:
March 16th- Microsoft releases a developer preview of the upcoming Internet Explorer 9, along with promises of substantial improvements to speed and compliance with the latest Web standards.
March 22nd - Opera 10.51 is released, further blurring the line between 1st and 2nd place with Google's Chrome.
May 5th - Google releases a beta of their upcoming Chrome 5, proclaiming it to be faster than sound, lightning, and...a flying potato.
- May 25th - Google releases Chrome 5 stable.
May 28th - Opera releases its own viral video that clearly rips on Google's promo.
June 7th - Apple releases Safari 5, claiming it's “The world's fastest browser”.
June 23rd - In Firefox 3.6.4, Mozilla introduces crash protection for Adobe Flash.
June 26th - Firefox is yet again updated to 3.6.6.
July 1st- Opera finally drops version 10.60, boasting that “The fastest browser on Earth is even faster”.
Once again, we find ourselves in a situation where multiple parties are claiming the speed crown. Obviously, all of these claims can't be true. The fact is, it's easy enough to produce favorable results supporting ANY browser. You can even do this for IE6 if you try hard enough. Simply pick a single benchmark or a group of potato-oriented tests and viola, there's the fastest browser ever! That is why we run all of them. If we find a valid benchmark that runs on every browser, we use it.
While this is a follow-up to our original Web Browser Grand Prix, we have also included some standards compliance testing along with enhanced memory benchmarks. We feel that even though these tests do not directly affect speed, they are crucial to overall performance. But don't worry, we'll separate those benchmarks from our speed tests in the conclusion, so you'll still get to find out which Web browser is the fastest when judged purely on raw speed. Without further adieu, let's get to the testing!
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Reported
*sigh*
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Anyway, I think that one of FireFox's main elements aside from speed has to be its extensive add-on base and the hundreds of themes for it. In my opinion, Chrome is a pain to look at, no matter what you do to it. Maybe they changed something since I last tried it, but absolutely nothing can match the number of beautiful themes made for the Fox. Plus, they have add-ons like AdBlock, which is much more useful than any built-in blocker due to the fact that it cleans absolutely everything - popups, banners... heck, I blocked a guy's annoying profile picture on Facebook with it.
Aside from the ranting, I'm wondering what the IE9 release will bring to the table... poor old Microsoft really needs a home run in order for IE to become something useful. I'll be watching for the next update on this article; maybe it can become something like the 'Best Video Cards for the Money' articles that are being made.
ff 4ever
or until some other browser has such an open support.
You will barely notice any difference in any of these browsers when its between 50, 60 , 70 milliseconds. There is no clear winner in my opinion.
Fact is they are all good browsers these days, I use chrome, FF and IE 8 and would not mind which one I had to use.
Firefox deserves a mention in the Startup Times conclusion table, surely? If not winner, then at least "also strong" - it was the fastest to open a single tab by a significant margin!
Personally, I launch my browser to about:blank and decide where to go from there, so startup speed with 0 tabs is relevant to me - but this wasn't tested.
Also, if you're talking about speed during actual day-to-day use, websites tend to go a *lot* faster with NoScript and AdBlock installed :-)
It's surprising how few scripts are actually for your benefit, rather than the website owner's.
In the last article, there looked to be some rather odd results on the start-up times page and there were quite a few comments on it - were those addressed this time or just hidden by not giving as many details?
re the loading up tests... both IE and Opera have some sort of technology enabled out of a box (don't remember how are they called) that try to access 3rd party service before fetching the actual content... For IE the reason for it is to check whether there are any "html/css" compatibility problems reported and for Opera to fetch the compressed and cached version of the page from faster Opera's servers rather than from the original source. This supposedly helps for low-band connections. So if you're on over 512kb service... you should disable that feature for Opera. As for the IE - I doubt switching it off would help anyway - so I've mentioned it just to be fair...
Opera has every tab that is closed ready to ne opened again with lesser time than a new one. Try it!
ff 4ever or until some other browser has such an open support.
Chrome does.
@tinnerdxp: Opera turbo wouldn't be enabled in speed tests, it disables lots of JS functionality.
Also, Opera is fast, I use it everywhere. Alas, it has had some crippling bugs due to the rush to finish Opera 10.5.
Time to change
"Without further adieu"
WTF?!
ado you mean!
How about testing them on security? I find Chrome to be VERY vulnerable as opposed Firefox... ahven't played with the others and don't use IE... Would be interesting to see these tests rounded out with a security test and also the final charts made a hell of a lot more user friendly... they are a mess as they stand.
Very little surprises in this Grand Prix.
- Safari promised heaven and earth and delivered nothing (at least not for PC). It is slower than most competitors, lacks features and offers absolutely nothing that other browsers don't have. Even its much praised Reader option is available for all browsers through the Readability Project.
- IE8 continues to be the pathetic mockery of a browser that it has been for years. IE9 is a huge improvement, but not nearly enough. Its speed will come on par with FF, but is still miles behind Chrome and Opera. And worse still, it doesn't have the ad-ons of FF and Chrome nor the vast set of features of Opera.
- FF has a huge amount of customizations, but Opera supports most of them natively (even filter list based ad blocking) and Chrome has most of FF's ad-ons.
For me, the only real question is: Chrome or Opera? Both have an immense feature set (one natively, the other through ad-ons) and the speed difference between both is not subjectively noticeable. Both are fully compliant with today's web standards. So basically it boils down to which one looks and feels best...
Isn't it odd that the two smaller kids are the best ones around?
strange opera page load time not good as other things ?
Chrome and opera is good browsers others s****
I think it is worth mentioning that of all these browsers only Safari is ICC 4 colour profile enabled. See http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter for more details!
strange opera page load time not good as other things ?
Found that strange too, especially since other browser benchmarks I saw don't replicate this. IE8 also scores somewhat better here than in other reviews, especially as for page loading times.
Also do keep in mind most pages are written with IE and increasingly also FF in mind, not with web standards. If every site would be written according to present day web standards, Chrome and Opera would have an even larger lead.
I think it is worth mentioning that of all these browsers only Safari is ICC 4 colour profile enabled. See http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter for more details!
A nice benefit, but ICC isn't exactly a common specification... I can't really think of a situation where I or most other users would come into contact with it. Still, it does give Safari a nice edge. But so do many of Opera's built-in features or Chrome/FF's ad-ons.
If we would all start pointing out minor advantages of each browser, we'd have a very long list. Hell, even IE would look good in that way.
Adam Overa it's ado not Adieu you silly flying potato! "Adieu" is french for farewell.