Web Browser Grand Prix: Chrome 25, Firefox 19, And IE10

Read more: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/web-browser-chrome-25-firefox-19,3459.html

 

tl;dr:

Chrome wins performance.

Chrome wins overall.

Firefox was a close second for performance.

 

Yeah, but you've got to look at things like test system specs and other variables in my own opinion. There's a hefty graphics card on that system which will help with hardware acceleration. Also, I guarantee you that I can get page load times below Chrome with Firefox and NoScript, even ABP. I'm not trying to start a Firefox fan fest here by saying that, I'm only saying the pretty charts and graphs don't always tell the full story. Chrome has its benefits, there's no denying that.

 

Those articles are so damn biased. Again the performance of each browser depends on 1) what you mean by performance 2) what computer you are running.

For example for me, "performance" doesn't mean how long it takes to render a web page but how long does it take to open the browser, how much CPU does the browser suck up and how stable it runs. I don't care about it's RAM usage because I got plenty of RAM.
Opera beats all of the above browsers in CPU usage. It has a 64 bit version which also means that it beats Chrome and Firefox when playing high definition videos on my tiny CPU.
For someone who is running a quad core desktop, the 64 bit native programming and CPU usage become much more irrelevant. For others on the other hand who have 256mb Opera might not run that well at all.
Those tests should be made not on one system but several diffeerent systems from low powered 1 core CPUs to powerful 8 core desktops. Also from as little as 256mb of RAM to those that have over 16GB, from those with 4200RPM Hard Drives to newest SSDs, etc...
Just my $0.02...

 

And what do these numbers tell us? Nothing.
Mrk

 

True. Speed does not influence my browser choice. In every day usage there are many other factors that affect it anyway. Features (to me) more than outweigh any microscopic speed increases of one browser vs another.

 

I do have to say thou that FF has become really slow when rendering youtube videos. I am running 1.5 Ghz core sole AMD and I can't even render 320kb videos without stuttering. Not sure if the addons have to do something with it or not. Same video can be rendered at 780kb without a single problem on 64 bit IE 10 or Opera.

 

Might be a Flash Player issue. You might want to look into disabling hardware acceleration for it to see if that helps.

 

A good and exhaustive test like this (made by a website aimed at computer enthusiasts), should assume that no hardware piece will be the bottleneck.

That's the only way to safely measure what browser performs better under preferred conditions - without depending on whatever weird thing could happen under the myriad of possible suboptimal hardware conditions.

This is exactly what Tom's Hardware (a website with a focus on what's hot in the hardware world, after all!) did here IMO. The message is simply to indicate, basically, what browser will most likely perform better in that new powerful machine you have or are considering to buy.

 

Perform better? Synthentic tests.
Meaningless when you throw in ISP, user setup, network latency, etc.
Mrk

 

I agree. These tests are just a form of marketing exercise. They only impress the gullible.

 

Clearly, this is a test about browsers. Not about "universal performance" considering all the possible aspects.

What's your point? If you want to measure ISP speed, there are other tests, same for network latency and user setup.

Test x for aspect x, test y for aspect y, etc.

 

I've used both Chrome and Firefox extensively over the last year, settling recently on Firefox, and I have a really hard time noticing performance benefits of one to the other, and whatever one may have over the other in this category means nothing to me in the grand scheme of things

 

The browsers were not tested. What was tested was some nebulous multi-threaded JS engine capability or something that has no relevance to real life. In real life, you have so many factors layered one on top of the other. The information is meaningless to your typical user in their choice of the browser, based on the data you got. It is about as relevant as testing Porsche 911 on a race track and then selling it to people in New York. For speed.
Mrk

 

So they shouldn't bother testing at all, because they can't test every possible combination of factors?

 

the only test that matters to me is how fast it feels.

if it feels fast enough then it's good to go.

i have done many tests using the top 4 browsers with a stopwatch.
the speed was close enough that speed alone was not the major deciding factor for me.

of course, YMMV

 

No, they should be tested, but those factors need to be kept in mind when reading the results of these tests. They almost never are, instead, too many just look at the charts and zero in on Javascript. But of course if everyone stopped paying attention simply to Javascript speed, there wouldn't be nearly as many "browser war" articles and threads...and where is the fun in that?

 

So true, here it comes

 

LOL yeah the two latest AFP version have been so bad when it comes to resource usage, it's crazy. Though I am talking about the plugin version. I don't know how the IE version is since I don't use IE 8 that much.

 

lol, what? Not sure if you read the tests at all, so I'll be posting the description of the benchmark suite that they used for this latest Web Browser Grand Prix here:

Benchmark Suite
Startup Time
Cold Start Time (Google SERP, Cached)
Hot Start Time (Google SERP, Cached)
Cold Start Time (Eight Tabs, Cached)
Hot Start Time (Eight Tabs, Cached)
Page Load Time
EEMBC BrowsingBench
JavaScript RIABench JavaScript (Eight Tests)
Futuremark Peacekeeper v2.0
Rightware Browsermark v2.0
DOM Mozilla Dromaeo DOM (Core)
HTML5
Principled Technologies WebXPRT CP1
Impact HTML5 Benchmark
Hardware Acceleration
Facebook JSGameBench v0.4.1
HTML HWA
WebVizBench
Psychedelic Browsing
WebGL Airtight Interactive WebGL Demo
Scirra WebGL Performance Test
Memory Efficiency
Memory Usage (Single Tab)
Memory Usage (40 Tabs)
Memory Management (-39 Tabs)
Memory Management (-39 Tabs, Two Additional Minutes)
Reliability
Proper Page Loads
Security Browserscope Security
Standards Conformance HTML5Test.com
The CSS3 Test
Ecmascript Language test262

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/web-browser-chrome-25-firefox-19,3459-3.html

 

Yes, that's the stupidity some people want us to believe to be the right thing to do. But we aren't that foolish, are we?

 

Well, I think the concern is that some will read those tests and take the "winner" to be an endorsement of that browser, when they're really only measuring performance in benchmarks. When choosing a browser these days, performance should be a minor factor compared to security, stability, features, etc.

I find them interesting, although with some of them I wonder if you'd even notice in real-world usage.

 

Exactly... I seriously doubt some of the differences would even be noticeable at all.

 

All this means diddly squat to an average user, who have their computers underoptimized, slow, used inefficiencly, ISP bottlenecks, router problems, downloads in the background, casual use, etc.

What they want is something that works, opens pages.
What you posted is a nerdotron agenda.

Mrk

 

Heck, this isn't about "average users". This is Tom's Hardware testing browsers on hot hardware.