Web Browser Grand Prix 7: Firefox 7, Chrome 14, Opera 11.51

[cookoy]

Kudos to FF for a flimsy win over very worthy opponents.

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]UsernameThatDoesentYetExist[/nom]How on earth can Firefox be winner in memory manaegment? Chrome and IE are much better....[/citation]
Firefox wins in overall 'efficiency' which takes management AND usage into account.


@anon2011anon:
There is no aggregate scoring done between different types of performance testing. The only aggregates there are among the performance tests are contained within the same type of test (THE same tests most of the time): page load times, the SunSpiders, the Krakens, WebGL tests, GUIMark2 HTML5, and GUIMark2 Flash. There is no blanket 'performance' aggregate or composite score. So, I don't know what you're talking about there.

What's wrong with the 'standards compliance' aggregate? Conformance testing is pass/fail - run a conformance test one hundred times, the result will be the same every time (on any hardware). All conformance tests also have defined top and bottom scores, and can therefore be cleanly converted into a common scale. I take out tests as soon as all 5 browsers pass 100% - no more point in continuing to parade that around. If you return all of the tests that are no longer relevant, you'll end up obscuring the differences between how the browsers score in the current, pertinent tests.

There is nothing arbitrary about the weighting system, in fact, there is no weighting system. Each type of test (e.g. CSS, Flash, page load times) are given equal weight. The scale of victory is somewhat taken into account with the analysis table, but nothing is weighted. Nowhere do we say anything like "Flash performance is more important than HTML5 and Silverlight." This all depends on individual usage scenarios. Again I don't know what you are talking about.

Waiting around for HTML5 to be properly 'drawn up' is a probably not a good idea. HTML5 is very much an evolving standard that has been in the works for a comparative eon, with no believable end in sight. We're going to see plenty of websites (tons of them) using various parts of the spec long before it ever reaches 'final' - already seeing it happen. Web developers aren't waiting around for the W3C. So the browser makers are jumping the gun on the 'official standards' and implementing features anyway. By then it's already in the hands of the end-user. At this point whatever level of readiness some consortium labels that spec means quite little.

The linked news story pretty much summed up the Acid3 issue when it happened. As to whether or not SVG fonts 'should' be tested for, well, the test has now changed and there's nothing I can do about that. That portion of Acid3 was removed from the test, all 5 browsers now earn a perfect score, comparison is useless, Acid3 is no longer in the WBGP. Case closed - no going back now.

[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]Firefox 7 as the winner of Grand Prix!?! I gotta go check if hell has frozen over right now!But on a more serious tone, I honestly thought Chrome had this one again. Looking at the charts my impression was that Firefox never really won anything by significant margins.Also, I hope Internet Explorer 10 will arrive soon. My short experience with IE10 under Windows 8 was very pleasant, even better than that of IE9.[/citation]
LOL, don't bother checking, it has. If you go back to charts, look for scale as well as margin. You'll see that in many of the tests where Chrome wins substantially, the scale of the test is super small (e.g. milliseconds). Whereas many of the Firefox wins are in tests where the scale is easily noticeable (FPS for instance). The BIG exceptions here being Maze Solver and Asteroids. I've been checking Chrome for updates feverishly. Google can probably overtake Mozilla at pretty much any time with one of their famous game changing 00.0.000.00x updates, LOL. Haven't had any free hard drives to spend more than a day with Win8 🙁 Will probably spend a lot more time with it when MS releases a beta.

 

[leandrodafontoura]

God, its about time this site stop making the same article every month...

 

[void_pointer]

[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]what good does that do if you can't even see the page properly...most web pages are for 32bit not 64bit[/citation]
What the ... this is a troll, right?

 

[mikeangs2004]

All of these three browsers have weaknesses in them that prevent me from using them: The only problem w/FF is that it does NOT update itself on enterprise machines. Chrome updates itself on enterprise machines but Sync is not very good on them. No 64-bit version for Chrome planned. Chrome availability on enterprise Ubuntu and other Linux is also an issue. IE is not good w/o Live Mesh which is a problem on enterprise machines.

 

[tipoo]

I know its hard to keep up with every browser relase as they come so often, but FF7 now includes Memshrink by default and Mozilla has been hyping it saying it could cut memory use by a lot, its already one of the more efficient browsers out there but I wonder how it would compare now.

 

[Guest]

If you just HAVE to write an entire article every time a company releases a browser update then at least have the good sense of including the results of the previous version, y'know, for the sake of comparison. *knock, knock*... hellooo, anybody?

 

[tipoo]

[citation][nom]makaveli316[/nom]"Until another browser beats Chrome in the speed/performance benchmarks I'm sticking with it."lol people still think they can feel the difference in terms of speed in real world performance and there's still people that doesn't use a browser for their needs and preferences, but just because they have seen some silly benchmark.Ridiculous. I bet those are the same people that are always complaining in the forums about crashes, viruses and blue screens.[/citation]


Performance doesn't have to mean benchmarks. Chrome's UI is almost always responsive and reacts much quicker than Firefox. Even if Firefox started beating it in every benchmark, its the feel that matters most to me.

 

[ohim]

"Proper Page Loads Opera" ... so technicaly doesn`t this makes Opera the winner ? since you have to reload for a proper page load on the other browser thus even if they are faster in one segment they lose to page reload ?

 

[Guest]

Chrome 15 is already out... REMATCH 🙂

 

[pc elitist]

I really love Chrome being around. It caused the Mozilla's awakening. They implement faster the ideas and plans they had in their closet for years.

And it's the beginning. Fx 9/10 will be the best in every aspect, clearly.

 

[BlackHawk91]

I use both Opera and Chrome in my old pentium M/ 1GB ram laptop at my work, but Opera is much faster in slow systems than the other browsers.

 

[Guest]

Even though Chrome had less strong finishes, it had more wins so surely that would clinch it for Chrome? I am really urging Google to release an update for their Chrome 14, and fast! Like how fast Chrome is on my Windows 7 computer!
Firefox is NOT for me, anyone who uses Firefox clearly does not know what browser is best for them, so they pick the worst one out there. Better luck next time, Im supporting Google Chrome 100%!!!

 

[phate]

Man IE looks to have had significantly more problems loading pages correctly. I thought IE9 was supposed to solve all that. I'm having IE6 deja-vu all over again.

What the heck does it matter how fast your browser is if it doesn't do it correctly. If I've got a calculator that's really fast, but doesn't give me the right answers, then it's worthless.

 

[lockhrt999]

Firefox 7 as the winner of Grand Prix!?! I gotta go check if hell has frozen over right now!

But on a more serious tone, I honestly thought Chrome had this one again. Looking at the charts my impression was that Firefox never really won anything by significant margins.

Where's hardware acceleration in Chrome? They kinda missed it. My laptop lasts half an hour more with firefox.

 

[Repelsteeltje]

If Safari fares much better on OSX, I'd be curious to know how large the advantage of IE on Windows is. After all, most libraries and widgets are probably already loaded and cached by the system. I'm expecting IE to have an advantage on some of these tests, which it might not have on a theoretical "neutral" platform.

 

[alcalde]

[citation][nom]anon2011anon[/nom]This article (as well as the preceding series of articles) is a great example of how amateur journalism can be misleading, or just downright wrong. On the surface, everything looks good - the author sets out a methodology, clearly presents the results, and draws conclusions based on them. Unfortunately, in doing so he reveals his severely lacking knowledge of testing methodology, the browsers themselves, as well as how one interprets the results of benchmarks.To aggregate across criteria such as "performance" and "standards compliance" (never mind the fact that HTML5 hasn't yet been drawn up), using an arbitrary weighting system, and then conclude that one browser beats other "overall" is nonsensical.Nowhere has the author talked about relevance (this is critical) or statistical significance of his tests.[/citation]

I don't know what article you read, but this article explained all of the tests, why they're there, and even classified the status of the tests into one of four different categories. Statistical significance?!? There are WEB BROWSERS, not a smallpox vaccine! Total size of sample: 5. What are you talking about, statistical significance?

It sounds like you're disappointed that your favorite browser didn't win. The review tested performance in a variety of areas in an objective and quantifiable manner and awarded a winner. What's the problem? The SVG issue was covered long ago, and there was a response from Firefox about why they never planned on implementing that part of ACID3.

You made lots of subjective comments about the quality of the tests, yet you failed to really raise any specific objections. Regarding HTML5, as Wikipedia states, "The specification is an ongoing work, and is expected to remain so for many years, although parts of HTML5 are going to be finished and implemented in browsers before the whole specification reaches final Recommendation status." Do you remember when "draft N" wireless routers came out years ago? Should Tom's simply have not tested any of them until the specification was finally ratified?

 

[PreferLinux]

[citation][nom]Repelsteeltje[/nom]If Safari fares much better on OSX, I'd be curious to know how large the advantage of IE on Windows is. After all, most libraries and widgets are probably already loaded and cached by the system. I'm expecting IE to have an advantage on some of these tests, which it might not have on a theoretical "neutral" platform.[/citation]
IE only runs on Windows...

 

[mmirsm]

Opera on Memory Efficiency: I wonder if "Remember content of visited pages" in Preferences is unticked, and that after closing the 39 tabs, the "Clear List of Closed Tabs" is performed. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[nukem950]

The comment system for tomshardware is terrible. I just lost my comment because I logged in.

Sorry that my comment does not relate, it is now lost and I cannot get it back.

 

[andy5174]

[citation][nom]mmirsm[/nom]Opera on Memory Efficiency: I wonder if "Remember content of visited pages" in Preferences is unticked, and that after closing the 39 tabs, the "Clear List of Closed Tabs" is performed. Can anyone confirm this?[/citation]
Can you cut this crap?

It is really silly to keep stating "Opera is disadvantaged in memory efficiency benchmark", while many users had told *YOU* that both Chrome and Firefox have this feature too!

 

[Why_Me]

After looking at the benchmarks I feel good about being a Chrome user.

 

[igimax]

Hi

. Thanks for your great tests and good article. But, I do not know why at all these tests, we always forget very important parameter!!??(or should I say Parameters!?) "capabilities/features" and you know these parameter(s) do not come within browser only! but they come with Browser Add-ons. (or Extensions or plugin or .... anything you like to call it!)

. Well! Speed is important parameter but frankly, in the real world we need more capabilities and features! for our internet browser. Any Applications without or have less of these two parameters their speed will be not noticeable against other ones that have those, unless our goal of using them are only speed!!!

. Look! let me write some examples:
1) you wanna download some files. some from fileserve.com some from 4Shared.com and some from Download.com . Also, you are not premium user at both first sites! So, probably you know, some File-host do not allow you to use download managers. in this case you cannot use your DL. Man. for those sites. At Firefox, FlashGot Add-ons let you to choose which download method do you wanna select for each site!

2) About managing Tabs, you like multi-row TABs OR Remember Undo closed TAB lists OR Change the way they open OR One close tab button OR .... you can use all these features and more with TabMix Plus Add-ons at Firefox and some different extensions with less features at chrome!

3) You wanna change Proxy setting at your browser, You can done it at Firefox with a very great way and somehow in automated way with FoxyProxy Add-ons or Manually but in fast and easy way with Proxy Selector. (I have A question over here! Why Chrome use or relay on OS proxy setting and do not have its own way to set proxy?! Like Firefox or Opera!?)

4) for some security maters or speed up page loading or .... you can use NoScript for first issue and Flash Block/Adblock Plus for second issue add-ons at Firefox.

5) and more examples ...

. At the end, My point is, Speed is important parameter but it is not important as capabilities/features that can add to our Browser with some Add-ons. Firefox have huge Add-ons which let us customize our browser depend on our needs and Chrome is second in this matter but with very less extensions.

@jtt283

Some add-in crash issues in FF a couple months ago forced me to use IE again for a while...

. You can use Add-on Compatibility Reporter Add-ons to enable or disable or report OLD or Not compatible Add-ons. I'm using it to enable Google Toolbar and some other Add-ons even at FF6 and 7 without any problem!

Good Luck
IgImAx

 

[pro-gamer]

opera is best cause of its turbo function

 

[soccerdocks]

[citation][nom]makaveli316[/nom]"Until another browser beats Chrome in the speed/performance benchmarks I'm sticking with it."lol people still think they can feel the difference in terms of speed in real world performance and there's still people that doesn't use a browser for their needs and preferences, but just because they have seen some silly benchmark.Ridiculous. I bet those are the same people that are always complaining in the forums about crashes, viruses and blue screens.[/citation]

No, I was not even referring to the benchmarks. I don't really care about those. I have done some personal testing on my computer and chrome is by far the fastest in a number of areas.

1. Startup time: It is approximately 4-5 seconds faster than FF7 after a reboot and 1-2 seconds faster on any later startups. This is with google.com as my homepage.

2. Switching tabs: I experience a noticeable lag on FF and IE when I click on a different tab. This lag is significantly less than the lag in chrome which is almost imperceptible.

3. Scrolling: FF seems to have horrible scrolling. Whenever I try to scroll down by large amounts it go slowly and jumps around. Much like trying to play an FPS with 10 FPS. This is not an issue of me having a slow computer. It does this on computers with an i7 2600.

These are just the issues I can think of off the top of my head. I know there are more. So you see, I'm not really even talking about these benchmarks tested, but the fact is Chrome runs SIGNIFICANTLY faster on my computer and most other computers I've used.