Web Browser Grand Prix: The Top Five, Tested And Ranked

[Guest]

I love Safari in Mac OS X, but Safari in Windows suffers some majorly poor porting code. Not the rendering engine, WebKit, it holds fast, but the UI framework is horrid.

Were the time to startup tests done with blank pages, search engine pages, or in Safari's case with the "Top Sites" window open? The "Top Sites" window slows things down hugely, moreso in Windows than on the Mac. Even on my beast of a Xeon Mac Pro with loads of ram Safari can be a little slower in loading the Top Sites window. But that's because it fires off a process to update the thumbnails of all 24 sites I have pinned to the window.

I used to always develop in Firefox but find Safari lighter weight. Chrome with its WebKit internals and nice extension framework is slowly grabbing my attention. I use it exclusively on Windows unless of course I need to test in IE.

Thanks for this article.

 

[yannifb]

Hey guys i have a problem with chrome that i need help with (I dont want to switch cause i love chrome). Sometimes when loading any webpage, chrome never loads it (the circle thing keeps spinning). This happens randomly, it can happen early on when i begin browsing or after ten minutes. This gets annoying cause the only way to fix this is for me to close all the google chrome windows and open again. When this happens, i noticed it holds back all other internet apps as well (IE, Firefox, even steam downloads).

 

[Guest]

Firefox vs Chromium (bbc and blank are JavaScript filters).
Tests on a 20K row table (9.3MB) with a JS filter hiding/showing rows.

Chromium can be orders of magnitude faster

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100301 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Firefox/3.6 - Build ID: 20100301023113

3.7 - load :36.40 bbc :24.97 blank :55.30

3.6 - load :38.74 bbc 1:50.61 blank 5:02.44 dimmed out.

3.6c- load :34.11 bbc 1:47.28 blank 4:30.40 dimmed out.

Chr - load :04.95 bbc :02.74 blank :04.81

Firefox needs the chromium code to be incorporated quickly.

Notes: 3.7 is alpha3 3.6c is using a new clean profile. 3.6 in my normal day-today profile. chr is the newest chromium daily.

 

[justjc]

@yannifb I would consider if it couldn't be a hardware issue, probably your RAM. Try running a RAM test.

 

[digitalerebos]

Hi TH good article the one thing that was not covered was CPU usage, more importent than RAM usage I would say. I.E although it is good to have a small RAM footprint if your not low on RAM wouldn't you rather have something in RAM then have it in slow HDD cache? CPU utilization on the other hand 20 open tabs in one browser may use 20% CPU where as another like firefox may grind the rest of you system to a halt. I think real world tests would reval a bigger gap between results, as most of the world are on way slower computers and have other programs open etc.
Cheers NZ

 

[digitalerebos]

?

 

[pyrestriker]

This leaves me wondering how Avant Browser and Seamonkey stack up. For the longest time I used Avant (being completely IE compatible, but ran faster at the time). However, I switched to Seamonkey because of its inclusion with Puppy Linux (meaning it was small and fast) and also from Mozilla. I'm on Windows 7 now, but my specs make it almost unbearable to run Firefox or IE on it.

 

[Guest]

I think this is a biased "test" and a publicity stunt by google to make it's browser more popular. I've tried Chrome. It was much worse than Firefox. Firefox is a much more complete browser with better security and it's a lot more customizable. If you think a bicycle is "better" than a car cause it doesn't need fuel, than that's YOUR PERSONAL OPINION.

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]ilpr[/nom]I think this is a biased "test" and a publicity stunt by google to make it's browser more popular. I've tried Chrome. It was much worse than Firefox. Firefox is a much more complete browser with better security and it's a lot more customizable. If you think a bicycle is "better" than a car cause it doesn't need fuel, than that's YOUR PERSONAL OPINION.[/citation]
Your whole post is your personal opinion and does not state any evidence to support its claims. The article has data for evidence. Therefore the article is more useful than your rant about what you think is a better browser. Obviously you didn't read the Editorial Leaning section, nor did you read the whole conclusion.

 

[Guest]

Safari? Opera? Is this a joke? These are 2 of the worst browsers out there. Safari = Mac = Not an ounce of security, pure asthetics = The Apple Way.

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]digitalerebos[/nom]?[/citation]
I heard ya. No problem, a CPU test is easy enough to pull off. I can grab those numbers during the memory test(s). Thanks.

 

[blackmancer]

While Opera may not have taken out the winning position in your performance testing, it's functionality and ease of use set it apart from other flavours. I used to use IE like a champ, then went to firefox and dropped that when they went to 3.6 (reason - poor performance) and have been using Opera ever since. I don't know why I haven't been using it for longer, its great!!!

 

[Tomtompiper]

[citation][nom]randomizer[/nom]Your whole post is your personal opinion and does not state any evidence to support its claims. The article has data for evidence. Therefore the article is more useful than your rant about what you think is a better browser. Obviously you didn't read the Editorial Leaning section, nor did you read the whole conclusion.[/citation]


I have read the Editorial Leaning section, and the fact that the most important influencing factor was left out is deplorable.

 

[Guest]

Why did you load web pages from the hard-drive? Usually Internet connection is slower than hard-drive (even yours old 40GB) and fetching objects from the Internet differs from fetching from hard-drive. So didn't it make good test to limit connection speed e.g. to 1mb/s and check which browser opens sites faster, which one fetches content more effectively?
Plus you have quite slow CPU for today..

 

[Guest]

one of the best articles present here..very detailed analysis given by Toms hardware

Shailendra

 

[quadibloc]

I liked the illustration with the five browser symbols in a circle... but it inspired me to think of rearranging their order.

Let's see now: Internet Explorer would be "black", since Microsoft is the company we love to hate. Firefox would get to be "red", and Google Chrome could be "green", since there is a chrome green pigment. The compass symbol for Safari is almost all blue, so we make that "blue"... leaving "white" for Opera, which seems reasonable enough.

Yes, it reminded me of a symbol associated with a famous CCG.

 

[ubercake]

Read this article and thought I'd give Opera a try. I am all about competition in the marketplace, but I can't run a lot of apps on my intranet with Opera.

I get the "must use Internet Explorer version x or higher" message even when using the "Identify as Internet Explorer" option in Opera for a particular site.

Also, is there a place in Opera to specify you want to pass your network credentials to intranet sites like you can in IE?

 

[the_man]

@adamovera
The tests are very comprehensive, which is great. Here are some wishes for the next test round:
1. Avoid tests that use the Onload event for timing. The OnLoad event is fired to early on WebKit (before all content is loaded). Then the test ends up comparing apples and pears.
2. Load the tests from a network - even a local one. Browsers may behave different when loading from disk.
3. As far as possible, avoid test suites written for a given browser. (It is a no-brainer that Chrome wins the V8 suite ;-) )
4. If you can, stress the browsers more to simulate the load of real-life usage.
Thanks again for the time you have taken to run these test.

 

[Guest]

The Wolf

 

[Guest]

I am glad Tom's Hardware also finds Tom's Hardware pages slow to load. Sometimes I have time to make coffee between pages. Perhaps these results might give the page designers a hint; we love the site but it's ultra slow using any browser.

 

[isamuelson]

I've been using Chrome. And where Chrome doesn't work well (or in the rare instance, not at all), I then use the IE Tab extension for Chrome.

The only complaint I've had is that Chrome does seem to crash sometimes with Flash. However, what is really nice is it just closes out the flash session on the browser window it occurred in and doesn't crash the entire browser, so if I have other tabs up and running, they stay there. BAM! Take THAT IE!

 

[Guest]

Great Article. Thank you Adam

İ just wonder one thing. What is your İnternet Speed? İ'm asking this because İ want to compare it my system.

 

[Guest]

I cam here looking for a FAIR review of the three most popular web browsers for the P.C., and I am cool with making the same comparisons for other operating systems and Macs too- no prob.

My issue is we are comparing Apples to Oranges when we compare Free Open Source software to Retail software.

I am one of the millions caught up in this depression and my computer is often used for spell checking resumes (as you can see, I am in great need of this) and in seeing IE was free with the computer I have no plans on replacing it with a web-browser that costs me $$. AM I MISTAKE HERE? Are ALL OF THESE BROWSERS FREE, OR IS AT LEAST ONE PRODUCT (THE LEADER) A RETAIL PRODUCT??

My computer helps keep me in the job market, and is also used for my passion, which is my hobby of recording music I write. Like most music writers I am dirt poor, even worst now the economy has set in for a longer than average stay. So why on earth is this review constructed in a manner as if cost does not matter to us? The #1 important thing in ANY software I get is it's price. Yes it may be easy to pirate for free, I sort of doubt it though in considering you must let internet allow the product online which means a phone-call to HQ is easy done and ZAPP - no more free service- Time To Maybe Pay Up! I dearly hope I misunderstood something.

In no other case can I imagine a reviewer of products comparing two that are free and one that costs $$. I am joblless, this computer and internet payments belong to my relatives- I hear of more and more adults like me everyday.

I am forced to ignore any software product that cost even $1.00 when the other 2 seem to be FREE. It's only fair you compare apples to apples on your reviews, it is not fair to mix freebies (open source code) with private/closed RETAIL software.

I am getting pretty sick of reviews of everything from cars to cat-food being done with the dead last priority being PRICE. I personally feel PRICE of any product needs to be placed in the top 5 comparisons on any retail product, and we should NEVER have to read reviews that actually mix free products with retail products. - Gee can ya guess which one won? The RETAIL VERSION- DUU?

Please use some common sense.

Thank You.

 

[randomizer]

I don't think you can actually pay for a web browser any more (nobody would buy it), where did you get the idea that any of these are not free?

 

[adamovera]

@Digital_Freedom
I honestly don't know where to begin... how about some links:
Google Chrome free download
Opera free download
Apple Safari
Mozilla Firefox free download
Microsoft Internet Explorer free download

AM I MISTAKE HERE? Are ALL OF THESE BROWSERS FREE

YOU ARE MISTAKE HERE. ALL OF THESE BROWSERS ARE FREE. None of these browsers will cost you money to use or download. There are no trial periods or 'pro' editions. If someone has attempted to charge you money for ANY of these browsers, you are either paying for their time to set it up for you (labor), or you are the victim of a scam.

Please use a search engine to do some research before posting a rant.

You're Welcome.