Browser speed compared

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by tlu, Sep 5, 2008.

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  1. tlu

    tlu Guest

    A lot has been discussed about the speed of various browsers since Firefox 3 and, recently, Google Chrome beta came out. Now the most respected German computer magazine, c't, has published a comprehensive speed test. It's available - unfortunately only in German - here.

    They tested Javascript performance with several benchmarks, loading and rendering performance and RAM usage. The results for these three categories can be seen from the spreadsheet at the end of the article in the lines below "Bewertung". The ranking goes from [++] = "very good" to [--] = "very bad". The browsers were tested without any extensions and plugins with the exception of Firefox - see below. The numbers in the table are milliseconds.

    Some highlights:
    • Internet Explorer performed worst. For IE 7, Javascript performance was very bad, the two other categories only satisfying. Interestingly, IE 8 beta was even worse overall.
    • Firefox was tested in version 2.0.0.16 and 3.0.1. Javascript performance improved considerably in v. 3 compared to v. 2. They tested 3.0.1 also with 12 extensions ("Firefox 3.0.1 erweitert") - but that had hardly any effect on the performance. RAM usage was not evaluated in this case.
    • A very high Javascript performance showed Safari 4 Developer Preview.
    • Google Chrome wasn't included in the test. However, in a follow-up posting c't said that this browser tested considerably faster even than Safari 4 in nearly all benchmarks.
    In the meantime, Mozilla published benchmark tests where they compared the coming Firefox 3.1 version with Google Chrome. According to these tests FF 3.1 performs much faster than FF 3.0 and outplayed even Google Chrome in several benchmarks. Moreover, in FF 4 the SpiderMonkey Javascript engine will be replaced by the Adobe ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) from FlashPlayer 9 which is said to be much faster.

    All in all, the browser race remains exciting.;)
     
  2. tradetime

    tradetime Registered Member

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    I always crack a smile when I see them talking about browser speed comparisons. I have never noticed any appreciable difference between the borwsers I have used, namely Opera, Firefox, and IE all flavours. Obviously I don't perform the detail tests these people do, but my rule of thumb is that unless I can notice a significantly marked difference then it is of no consequence to me.
     
  3. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    The results they get in the lab on these Browser tests are fine when compaired to other browsers on the same machine in the same lab. but in the real world on all of the different computers with all of the different configurations and different internet connection speeds these results don't mean anything at all. A complete waste of time. And who do you know that can actually tell the difference in a couple of miliseconds in boot time or page rendering.

    bigc
     
  4. Franklin

    Franklin Registered Member

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    Same here.Can't notice any speed difference between FF, Opera, IE or Chrome.

    Opera and Chrome were installed virtually and couldn't offer me anything of signifance over FF.

    In fact surfing just didn't seem the same without my half dozen or so FF addons.

    Have tweaked FF as much as possible with the usual about:config entries along with turning off any site checking under security.

    No av is used here either which usually check web sites as well, unless you turn that part off, which can slow browsing.

    Also allocated 8 meg of ram to the LAN IRQ channel and FF works in a blink.
     
  5. mantra

    mantra Registered Member

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    where can find a good guide to teak firefox like your ?
     
  6. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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  7. mantra

    mantra Registered Member

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  8. tlu

    tlu Guest

    Well, I agree if it comes to websites that are mainly text-based. But it makes a difference, IMHO, for sites with lots of dynamic content (keywords: AJAX, Web 2.0).

    BTW: An interesting article about the future of Javascript can be found on www.heise-online.co.uk
     
  9. Arup

    Arup Guest

  10. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    I did notice a difference when I had Google Chrome aboard a couple of night's ago in ShadowDefender. It was substantially quicker opening every site I tried in my bookmarks, some fairly graphic intensive.

    All things taken into consideration, the difference is irrelevant. I spend more time opening bookmarks and clicking on the site than it takes for most sites to open.
     
  11. jrmhng

    jrmhng Registered Member

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    I hardly notice a difference too as we tend to be comparing in the order of milliseconds. However what is important is that browser developers recognise speed and performance is important to users.
     
  12. Bensec

    Bensec Registered Member

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    Really I hope they can use PII CPU and 256M Ram powered machines to challenge these fast browser and test their limits. IMO that would be a lot of fun. and If it can still run nasty fast, that is magic.
     
  13. Bensec

    Bensec Registered Member

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    thanks for the link, tlu.
    Javascript will one day have power to replace Flash.
    woow, Great Idea.
     
  14. emperordarius

    emperordarius Registered Member

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    Chrome has V8. Safari SquirrelFish. Firefox TraceMonkey. What about Operao_O?
     
  15. Kees1958

    Kees1958 Registered Member

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    TLU thanks for the articles. BigC has a point that speed is also configuration bound, so it is not a garantee that on a specific PC the outcome will be the same. All and all I have noticed over different PC's that general outcome of such speed tests is in at least 80% of the cases also applicable on any machine.

    Opera is faster on slower machines than IE or FF or Maxthon/Slim Browser or . . .

    On faster (dual/quad cores) machines IE (and in less occasions FF) is as fast as Opera. So on fast machines why not use IE (the much bashed Microsoft Product) in protected mode?

    Newcomer Chrome feels faster on dual/quad cores than any other browser at the moment. On single cores I do not see much difference with Opera.
     
  16. tlu

    tlu Guest

    Because of security considerations. Although actually OT in this thread just a few remarks: IE is tightly integrated in Windows. A couple of other system applications (like Help and Desktop) use IE. To make this possible Microsoft extended the abilities of Javascript by creating JScript. JScript is as powerful as VBS: via FileSystemObject it can open or delete files, start applications, communicate with other processes etc. Thus, it's obvious that a security flaw affects very often many other aspects of the OS. Javascript (as used in, e.g, Firefox) is much more limited as it doesn't have a FileSystemObject and therefore no direct access to your local files. And, of course, Firefox (or any other browser) is not used for other system applications - a security flaw consequently won't affect other functionalities of the OS. - Another aspect which is even more important for me: I block Javascript and any active content by default. In IE that means you'd have to disable everything in the Internet Zone and manually add trustworthy sites to the Trusted Zone. That's extremely inconvenient while it's a breeze with FF and Noscript.
     
  17. mantra

    mantra Registered Member

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    i know firefox 3.1 has a cache bug
    is there a way to fix it
     
  18. tlu

    tlu Guest

    You are aware that FF 3.1 is still alpha?
     
  19. TairikuOkami

    TairikuOkami Registered Member

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    Exactly, if the browser does not meet user's requirements, it does not really matter how fast it is. Firefox with multiple addons may load much more longer, but since those addons make the browsing more convenient, it is not such a problem at all. As for CPU and RAM usage, it matters only for those with ancient PCs. :rolleyes:
     
  20. PROROOTECT

    PROROOTECT Registered Member

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    ___________________COMPARATIVE LIST____________________
    by PROROOTECT ( Beta )


    Internet Explorer v7.00.6000.16705 -
    - Google Chrome ( Beta ) v0.2.149.29 Build 1798


    I look on Windows Task Manager ...

    ( Approximate values ; Kb )

    Page without web-site :

    ................... iexplore.exe : Use Memory 20824, VM Memory 14744, Handles 382, Threads 12, GDI objects 303
    chrome.exe ( Own Process ) : Use Memory 23688, VM Memory 19296, Handles 271, Threads 21, GDI objects 46
    ...and ... chrome.exe ( Job ) : Use Memory 9848, VM Memory 5120, Handles 47, Threads 2, GDI objects 13

    Page with web-site ( Widexplorer.com , black Page ) :

    ..................... iexplore.exe : Use Memory 29212, VM Memory 21596, Handles 443, Threads 14, GDI objects 353
    chrome.exe ( Own Process ) : Use Memory 23760, VM Memory 19384, Handles 277, Threads 21, GDI objects 46
    ... and ... chrome.exe ( Job ) : Use Memory 8208, VM Memory 5756, Handles 47, Threads 2, GDI objects 17

    Your comments, please ...
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2008
  21. GrailVanGogh

    GrailVanGogh Registered Member

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    I have never gone for the browser speed tests outside of development.
    What IMO is more important is how I perceive the speed to be.

    Is one browser rendering faster then another that I visually notice?
    Is the faster browser rendering correctly?

    Numbers are fine but if I do not notice any difference then those speed tests do not amount to much for me.

    YMMV
     
  22. tetsuo55

    tetsuo55 Registered Member

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    I definatly notice a speed difference on my system (Celeron mobile 2,4ghz)

    Chrome is the fastest when it opens a site that works in it. Opera comes in a close second.

    I'm glad the speed-wars have started because it has always annoyed me how slow browsers are. Most people might not notice it much. But at work all we see are web-apps. Run those in another browser than IE and be impressed by their speed.

    I use a website daily that is almost 100% javascript and CSS and the site is slowwwwww, on IE some actions could take over 10 minutes. In Chrome its a split-second.

    ------------

    Also most of those benchmarks are completely unreliable.

    Only trust benchmarks that use the following:
    1.Latest Official release
    2.Latest SVN snapshot\build
    3.All big browsers

    They should measure:
    1. Local and remote page-loading
    2. Local and remote benchmarking
    3. Memory usage on startup and after a benchmark run(opening and closing several websites in a specific order)
    4. Installed Size
    5. Uninstaller left overs
    6. Cache management/Size
    7. Startup time, cold and warm
    8. Startuptime with open tabs cold and warm

    All of the above should be done:
    -Without any plugins/addons
    -With the 10 most popular plugins/addons for that particular browser/version
    -On a new multicore system
    -On a old (at most sse2) single core system
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2008
  23. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    My laptop is normally fast, but after the last update, Chrome is a racing car: In most websites pages are rendered instantly (there is no perception of change or time lag). This goes beyond the usual slight differences between Firefox and Opera.
     
  24. Long View

    Long View Registered Member

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    Chrome seems fast to me as well - I wonder why ? what is it not doing ? Does it have any security ? If I could use it with No Scripts, Ad Black Plus, CS lite and if it worked with Roboform .... then I would use it. Until then I can live with a slightly slower FF.
     
  25. PROROOTECT

    PROROOTECT Registered Member

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