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

[Marcus52]

Firefox at this time. Reason? NoScript, which won't yet run on anything non-Mozilla. Imo NoScript's added security benefit is worth the price of aging Firefox performance.

I used Opera prior to Firefox. When I built a new computer, I decided to give Firefox a try, and it was all good, so stuck with it. However, it didn't greatly impress me as being better than Opera at the time, just it was good enough that I couldn't be bothered to switch back.

Imo IE is mostly a good browser - just like Firefox is mostly a good browser. There is one reason I don't use it - non-standard web practices. For whatever reason, I can't print out a UPS shipping label when I go to return something to newegg (rare, but happens), I have to use another browser. This is the kind of thing that stopped me using IE to begin with, years ago. Will MS ever learn, in the browser dept? I'm beginning to doubt it.

 

[randomizer]

This is not a fair test. Your run 32-bit application on a 64-bit OS. What about WOW performance issues.

Every browser is under the same conditions. Therefore it is perfectly fair.

 

[rigu]

Been using Google Chrome as my main browser since it was released.
Currently using ChromePlus since it doesn't send your browsing info to Google.

 

[tygrus]

You would have to use a much larger browser history as a test. Check each browser's lastest build each month. Summarise average time, compare first & last test. If they are all better than 12 months ago, anyone who updates existing browser is a winner.

 

[Guest]

When I started using opera, I stopped having problem whit malware and other unwanted ad-ware. Multiple tabs management is best, most important is possibility to place tabs on right side on screen. It helps a lot because nowadays screens are so annoyingly wide and low. I have constantly open 60-90 tabs. Still usable, and even faster than ie with single tab. I can not imagine going back to any other browser. Only some non w3c pages have problem loading and some failed flash sites.

 

[aford10]

I'm pretty happy with FF + Adblock. IE8 seems to be glitchy. Chrome is going to be my next experiment.

 

[bob_vicktor]

I admit I didn't read through all 15 pages of comments before posting this, but after reading 4 of them I decided that there is probably little risk of me being entirely redundant.

I would love to see a cross OS test for the browsers that support it. I use both a Mac and PC everyday, and have used all of the browsers on both, but I admit that my software know-how is a little lacking compared to my hardware skills, so I have never run a full gamut of tests. Besides, if you did the test more people would benefit then me. Anyway, I would like to see official results because I have noticed a few things that I would like to be able to quantify, and have a solid source to point to. First off, I know for a fact these results would be extremely different on a Mac. I first started using Safari on my PC because of how blistering fast it is on my admittedly outdated Dual 1GHz G4 tower, and even on my 'obsolete' 400 MHz G3 Powerbook, but on the PC it lags a bit behind (especially on Facebook, and speed isn't the only issue there). This can easily be attributed to the fact that Apple makes OSX and Safari, so they will work better together, and everybody else has more experience programming for the PC due to its market share, so the opposite is true as well. What I would like to see is how each browser compares directly to its counterpart on the other system PC Opera v. Mac Opera, PC Safari v. Mac Safari, etc. Not just a, "Chrome is the fastest on the PC, but Safari is the fastest on the Mac.", but "Safari edges out Chrome on the Mac, but Chrome for the PC is still faster then Safari is on the Mac." (Of course I could make the comparisons myself by looking at the numbers, and I am perfectly willing to, but I think that there are a number of other people that would enjoy seeing those comparisons that wouldn't think to make them on their own.)

Next, it amazes me how many people get all fussy when someone else simply states that they prefer a different browser over their favorite (and this relates to the OS wars too!). Some people prefer one browser (or OS) because they feel more comfortable using it, or maybe there is one key feature they can't live without. In many cases, the wizz-bang features of one browser (or, you guessed it, OS) are more then a certain person needs, and they might be driven away by them. Especially when fanboys constantly hound them about the features the already know they don't need, or want! Which then leads to contention, and of course, flame wars. Everybody should have something to be proud of; they should have something in their life they can stand by, but a piece of software isn't that important! The computing community, especially these online forums, would be so much better if we could all learn to give up a little bit of our pride and learn to accept that each of us are different, and are free to choose whatever piece of software (or hardware, since this is Tom's Hardware, as yoy0yo pointed out) that best fits our needs. I, for example, have every last of the five browsers tested installed on my PC. I use them all (except IE, that is installed only for rare uses) for one feature or another that makes some particular task easier or more enjoyable. Each serves its purpose, each purpose is served, and none is left behind as the work is done.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox. Thank you Adam for the excellent article, and all of the hard work keeping it up to date as all new versions of the browsers came out. Cheers!

 

[edilee]

Something sparks interest here for me and I use IE8,FF, and Chrome but IE8 is my main.

Something is amiss with the 7.89 sec single tab startup time for IE because even with cleared cache and google home page set I get between 3-4 seconds. Maybe my internet speed is higher than what you guys tested on.

EDIT: Just looked at the test system specs and to my disbelief they are way lower than my system so that explains alot.

 

[Guest]

the blatant mentioning of the iPad when it really isn't relevant at all to the article could not be overlooked here...engadget really is becoming applegadget

 

[Guest]

For the linux users i have XP pro and linux mint as duel boot and i find FF slower on XP and mint than chrome, but i find chrome much much faster with mint than XP.... FF seams the same.. i use FF for listing on ebay as chrome will not display all the text and fields correctly
Dave

 

[majorgeek]

I totally agree Chrome is the real deal!!! It took some time adjusting to a new browser but now I am sold. Unless this new IE completely rocks as far as security, speed, interface, they will not get my business.

 

[Guest]

Chrome has no sidebar for bookmarks - a real annoyance. And there is no reasonably easy way to block ads. I cannot tolerate these two glaring omissions, and Tom's gives it an award??? Safari is crippled in the same two areas.

Firefox has the best ad blocking, and its a no brainer to set up and keep up to date. Ad blocking in Opera is a matter of downloading two files, and putting them in a certain folder. I can live with that, and it works very well.

I've been running Firefox for years, but I'm switching to Opera, and giving it the time to prove itself.

 

[Guest]

Chrome has no sidebar for bookmarks - a real annoyance. And there is no reasonably easy way to block ads. I cannot tolerate these two glaring omissions, and Tom's gives it an award??? Safari is crippled in the same two areas.

Firefox has the best ad blocking, and its a no brainer to set up and keep up to date. Ad blocking in Opera is a matter of downloading two files, and putting them in a certain folder. I can live with that, and it works very well.

I've been running Firefox for years, but I'm switching to Opera, and giving it the time to prove itself.

 

[Cy-Kill]

A question, why is it, when I am using IE, and no extra tabs open, that it keeps going up in memory usage?

 

[Guest]

internet explorer browser came out the best...yep and one day it will take over the galaxy,you heard it here folks

 

[shurcooL]

This "performance" test doesn't capture the time needed to browse already visited sites.

In Opera, when you click the back/forward buttons, the web pages appear almost instantly.

In Chrome and Internet Explorer, they have to be gotten from the web again, so it takes a second or two.

This is the one feature of Opera I _really_ like and wish Chrome would get it.

Of course, it probably comes with extra memory cost, but it could always be toggleable.

 

[salsan]

Great Article. Get support for internet explorer

 

[Guest]

Are you going to rereview? Opera 10.51 just got another 20-30% faster than Opera 10.50

 

[Guest]

Well, 10.51 at least is better now than 10.50

 

[Onyx3173]

I run Firefox and will most likely continue to do so. However I have been testing our Chrome, and while it's suitably fast I just can't get used to the layout... You really can't compare it to how Firefox works. Chrome might win in a flatout sprint to the finish but I like something that has more substance to it.

And as for Opera, I used that for about two months before I started using Firefox (which was around February or March of last year) and while it looks good and even performs well, I had to switch to Firefox due to the constant crashing of Opera when I had multiple tabs open.

 

[Guest]

Looking at the comments some people are bashing on safari without ever having tried it.
They make some completely false statements and then defend themselves saying "firefox looks faster to me" (which is a VERY accurate way of testing browsers).

Also, I'd love to see mac and linux being tested, safari is optimized for mac, while firefox is probably better than the competition in linux (with it's open source roots).

 

[Guest]

Unless someone elsa has commented it ther is a version of crome that does'nt send all your life to Google.
It's called SRWAre Iron and uses the same source code (open source remember) but has all the spying ripped out.
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php

 

[mfreesto]

Although Chrome came up well in the compatibility tests, it does have issues with many websites, particularly our corporate intranet which uses Vignette. Any ideas on whether google plan to fix these compatability issues?

 

[Guest]

OK so I ran a couple of these benchmarks, just for reference.
On my ancient Acer laptop with a Celeron M 430 (single core, no HT, no 64bit) running 32 bit OpenSUSE 11.2 and SwiftFox 3.6 I got:
JSBenchmark: 85
V8 v5: 218

What I get from this is:
- IE still sucks BADLY.
- SwiftFox on Linux rocks.
- I DO want to see Linux benchmarks, including SwiftFox.

Tachyon

 

[Guest]

Can't say I understand why there's a memory usage test in a speed trial. To continue the Grand Prix analogy, it seems rather like penalising F1 cars for lack of fuel efficiency. Almost, in fact, as if the test was added so that chrome could appear to beat Opera by a significant margin.

Also, benchmarks: most pointless pieces of software since the MS Office Assistant. Possibly they tell someone something, sometimes, but not me, ever. Back to the car analogy: 0-60 times and top speeds are great for top trumps, but in actual use on a road or a track, handling characteristics can't really be reduced to numbers and still mean anything.

Wouldn't a better test be: give five people access to each browser (and only that one) for one day, changing browser daily across a working week, recording their impressions on the browser in normal daily use, then publish the impressions?