Browser speed test by Lifehacker

http://lifehacker.com/5976082/brows...irefox-18-internet-explorer-10-and-opera-1212

 

Not really surprising for me but I'll make a prediction here. Soon enough there'll be a list of "ooohs and aaahs" by fanboys and "nays and yikes" by haters.

 

flawed tests for one simple reason. all of these were done on one computer.

 

I could care less abut speed at this point. I choose my browser on features alone.

 

i agree, especially with SSD's these days, all browsers are fast enough

 

Well, when aren't they done on one system for these "battles"? That's all I ever see at least for these articles, unless it's at a place like Toms Hardware. At least this article didn't spend half its time running several different javascript benchmarks like most do. It put a little more thought into actually using the browsers. Memory usage, hmm, I don't know. My last FF outing showed that memory was still an issue. Chrome memory usage has gone up, even though I'm well aware of why it always used more to begin with (security model).

It was a decent test and article.

 

Not sure what you mean...

Hardly decent test. First of all each browser has different CPU, I/O and RAM usage. Chrome might do better on high performace computers, those with dual or quadruple cores while Opera might do better on single core computers. Yet Firefox might do even better on 8 or 16 core computers. Now thrown in SSD vs HD and the amount of RAM your computer has and now again each browser will perform differently. To make this test decent, they should have measured not speed but CPU usage, I/O usage and RAM usage. They should have tested these browsers on several computers from the newest and the greatest desktops to 10 year old laptops. I own a 6 month old 1.5 single core AMD and I can tell you that Opera beats Chrome, FF and IE any time of the day. Chrome is actually the slowest one on my set up.

 

Precisely what I wrote out, that the majority of these browser tests you find on every general tech website is done on one system. Toms Hardware is one of the few exceptions, since they deal with much more thorough testing.

You just gave a great example of why all of these tests that get done every month or two by everyone and their brother are damn near bulls**t and don't matter. Nice job Also, if you can manage to get these tests and the people who link them and obsessively argue over them to care about something besides speed, more power to you. The test was decent because LifeHacker didn't just focus on Javascript. No one has yet to beat Chrome in speed because, beyond the security model, speed is all Chrome has to offer really.

 

The fact is, Chrome/Chromium - on ANY machine will be faster, this is a well established fact, and millions of benchmarks substantiate this. Chrome is so far ahead of the pack right now, I don't see much of a future for browsers like Opera and Firefox unless they can step up to the plate quickly.

Opera is atrocious when it comes to speed, even on ultra fast machines, with a ram-disk/SSD cache. It just cannot measure up anymore. Either they work on fixing this, or Opera may not last enough year or two. I have put Chromium on very low end notebooks, and found the notebook magically 'snappy' in browsing when all other browsers essentially trickled when put on it.

 

Chrome is atrocious when it comes to speed on low end CPU machines.

 

Opera is one of the fastest browsers on my box. 'Nuff said.

 

The results are similar on my machine, which is one of the reasons I switched to Chrome.

 

I own three computers, one of them is 64 bit, Chrome doesn't seem any faster than Opera x64 or Firefox to me. So it can't be a 'well established fact'.

I've been hearing about the demise of Opera & Firefox for years, they're still here & still thriving.

Again, not in my experience. I wouldn't use it so much if it was atrociously slow. If I were you, I would have a good look at your own system, it sounds like you may have some conflict problems.

Maybe in the 'Twilight Zone', but in reality I will bet good money that Opera will still be here this time next year, the year after that & even the year after that.

I find, on my slightly underpowered notebook, that there is very little difference between Chrome, Firefox or Opera. I can't speak for Chromium. IMO SRWare Iron was faster than Chrome, but unfortunately Iron has always had more bugs than a rainforest.

 

I can only say that on my machine, Chrome is definitely the fastest, with Firefox close behind, and Opera x64 slowest of all.

One thing is sure: Everyone has a different story.

 

Where the heck are these "millions" of benchmarks? The thing has only been around for a bit over 4 years? Chrome being faster on any machine, at any point a fact? Okay, which benchmark, Sunspider, Octane, Kraken? What about Psychedelic Browsing? I can tell you about Psychedelic Browsing..IE 10 kicks Chrome to the curb. On that subject, under what CPU, what GPU, mechanical or SSD drive? Which websites? What browser version? All this stuff matters, not just "I saw a benchmark/I loaded up my favorite website". Given all of Opera's issues and market share, one would think it would be dead and gone..but it isn't. Given Firefox overall performance going backward and not forward, one would think its market share would drop like a rock..it hasn't.

I don't know about your usage, but Opera x64 is quite fast enough, give or take the occasional heavy website or normal heavy traffic. Firefox is also quite capable of great speed..where it fails is memory use and stability, and even that depends on things such as websites.

 

I've got to have another look at Opera x64 and use it for a while. Don't know why, but it seemed slower to me, which doesn't really make any sense.

 

Well, as I said, it can vary depending on system and websites just like any browser. On benchmarks Opera falls flat on its butt. In real world wandering around the net, the heaviest sites hurt the most but for the most part Opera speeds along just fine on my rather blah machine.

 

I think that was always the original attraction of Opera. It was lighter than the other browsers. I never pay any real attention to these benchmark 'statistics'.

 

I want to love Opera, really. But between crashes, stalls, incompatibilities with some websites, and the overall 'slowness' of it, I just don't see it viable any longer. Sadly. No 'conflicts' because I can quite easily test it on a totally clean snapshot that is identical to a freshly installed windows - it's still slow.

I am no fanboy of Chrome/Chromium, but I cannot deny it's stability, compatibility and speed. Essentially it is the only viable browser these days for me. If you check the benchmark sites where you can see hundreds of thousands of runs by users, Chrome universally wins them. I have been saying Google made 'amazing' speed tweaks in Chromium since v23, and v26x will prove to be even faster, I would say the later versions of 26 pushing into 27 are another 10-15% faster then the 24X tested by that link. I run Dev26x version and it is blazingly fast. The reality is I am installing Chromium on every machine I own, and work on because I can be assured that it will be stable, and speedy.

When I run benches Opera and FF are between 30-60% slower, fully tweaked. Those numbers are hard to deny when test sites are starting to report the same thing.

 

It seems that you appear to be in the minority with your opinion of Opera.

 

Considering several in this thread said the same thing, hardly.. Also note, Opera forums have quite a large amount of 'Opera is Slow' threads. I think part of the problem is - people are becoming used to the speed of Chrome/Chromium, then demand this in other browsers which quite frankly - can't keep up any longer.

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1591862

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1439922

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1501852

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1481942

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1302802

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1591642

 

Maybe they have borked systems. All I can say is that on three separate computers Opera seems no slower than Chrome for me.

I doubt that I'm in the minority about this either.

 

Chrome has a couple of things on its side, V8 and Webkit.

 

i do my own speed test with a stopwatch.

there really isn't that much difference in speed between the top 4 browsers in real-life test

 

Nice article, thanks for the update.