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

[azone]

The test is flawed if it takes safari that much longer to open 5 tabs than 8 TABS.

 

[pcworm]

really everyone,why even consider IE? if you start saving a tab, you can not switch tabs until the saving is completed, pair that with a slow connection, and voila , u are sc...ed! also, the default saving format is ridiculous..and why no Ctrl + s support?
I love Google and fire fox, Google for speed and Firefox for versatility, I use them both, mostly Firefox...
opera has strange problems with non English pages (Farsi, anyone)?..
as for safari, I generally hate apple, just personal opinion and I'd rather not use it

 

[Computer_Lots]

Why are the 8 tab startup times less than the 5-tab. That doesn't make sense.

 

[Onus]

I feel the pain of those like MonkeySweat who are limited to IE by work, as I am also in that boat.
BUT...
That did allow me to discover that copying a reference chart (like the GPU heirarchy) into Wordpad works perfectly in IE, but the formating fails when I do it at home in Firefox. I'm hoping it's just a setting I haven't found/fixed yet, but I still need to use IE a couple of times a month.
I've noticed that FF has slowed down some, but it really isn't enough to make me think I need to switch, and I really like AdBlock+ (note to incessant advertisers: go die in a fire).

 

[Gulli]

[citation][nom]manwell999[/nom]Chrome has a clumsy system to open bookmarks. Instead of a pull down menu you have to click a spanner then select bookmark manager which opens up a bookmark browser so you can then click the frequently used site.[/citation]

Strange, I just have a pull down menu and some room on the taskbar for my most important bookmarks...

 

[Miharu]

I don't really understand your spec on this test.
In your 1 tab test, I use IE because he take less than 2 seconds and no don't Firefox because he take up to 10 seconds.
I read "randomizer and mitch074" note, and I think Firefox have some serious issue with some hardware.
I juse Win7 64bits, this could be the source.

I also see Firefox reserve 1GB of RAM on start, when you have 8gb of RAM (this also resume to a slow start). This make Firefox the worst in all your test.

Settings, hardware and OS seem change everything about this benchmark result.

 

[akula2]

I am not bothered with this review.

My cross platform usage: Firefox on Windows and Linux. On Mac I use Safari and Firefox.

Internet Explorer's really a failure, just sucks for many reasons. So I've reserved it only for Windows updates!

 

[mitch074]

@adamoreva: Opera was not exactly different, it merely packed so many features in a small UI that one could actually call it "Netscape Communicator/Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey done right". At a time where most browsers tried to pack as many shortcuts to their features as possible on their taskbar (remember IE 6) or the rest of their chrome, it didn't actually depart from the lot. It's when Firefox, the first "bare" modern browser out there, arrived, with a UI that saved on screen real estate, that we actually got a sight of a different paradigm: the browser that just Plain Browse(tm).

Fact is, "vanilla" Firefox 3.6 is still pretty bare (but got beaten by Chrome) and lacks built-in features (that's what extensions are about), while Opera remains a "suite": download client, email client, (limited) developer tools, etc. These require a "complex" interface, and Opera provides just that. Opera looks unique because it is unique - that's why some love it and others can't stand it.

Opera 10.50 hasn't been ported to Linux 64-bit yet, it would seem; latest is 10.10, and its UI really reminds me of a 'modern' Netscape 6. It is VERY tempting; but so is Chromium 5.

About the Acid3 test: a perfect score isn't 100. A perfect score is when the result is pixel-perfect (matches the reference rendering) and no warning appears when clicking the 'A' of Acid.

Last, about Open Source browsers: Firefox and Chromium results vary wildly depending on how and with what they're built. When possible, use their editor's build for best performance, at the cost of integration with your Linux distro of choice.

 

[mitch074]

@Miharu: have you tried the 64-bit build of Firefox on your Vista machine? Firefox allocates as much RAM as it can on Windows depending on how much available RAM you have; but will actually commit only what it needs, letting the OS swap empty pages to virtual memory (meaning it does nothing), leaving the RAM available for other applications. On the other hand, on the same machine, Chromium will allocate more than 800 Mb across its processes, and Opera will ask for 350 Mb.

Thus, you can't really compare memory consumption through allocated RAM. It's how fast a browser is compared with how much RAM there is, that you can draw an idea.

As an aside, IE 8 is PAINFUL to use with less than 800 Mb of RAM. I know, I tried.

On Linux, my 64-bit Firefox build allocates 560 Mb out of my 2 Gb (it's an old rig) but actually reserves 'only' 160 Mb - that's the RAM it actually needs and uses, and if I boot with less RAM (say, 512 Mb) the allocation falls to 200 Mb and Firefox uses barely more than 100 Mb, while remaining quite snappy. The memory manager is rather aggressive, as you can see - it sure ain't the worst here.

 

[lotri]

Pretty much the only reason I stay with Firefox is the add-ons/extensions. Sure, they're not really necessary, but they make my browsing experience better.

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]azone[/nom]The test is flawed if it takes safari that much longer to open 5 tabs than 8 TABS.[/citation]
[citation][nom]Computer_Lots[/nom]Why are the 8 tab startup times less than the 5-tab. That doesn't make sense.[/citation]
I just finished re-running the 5 and 8 Tab Startup Time tests for Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. I ran two new iterations and looked at my unused '10 Tab' numbers. It appears that I have made a mistake – I input the '5 Tab' results in the '8 Tab' chart for those three browsers, and vice versa. Internet Explorer is correct because I had to do that browser in a different session than the other three (due to discovering the 8 home tab limit after beginning the '10 Tab' tests). Opera's score is also correct, I input those figures yesterday, again, in a different benching session. With three major changes to the story due to new releases (Firefox 3.6, Chrome 4.0, and Opera 10.50) I'm not exactly surprised that this happened. But I do apologize for not catching that earlier – my bad. Though Opera still remains the winner in the Startup Time benchmarks, and Chrome is still the overall winner of the entire suite, the placing of Firefox, Safari, and IE has been altered in these two tests. I have updated the table in the conclusion to reflect this. I am currently working on getting some new charts put up. Right now there are going to be some ugly temporary ones until I can make proper copies. Again, I apologize, that shouldn't have slipped past me.

 

[mgillespie]

A little misleading of course, in that Chrome is JUST a browser (and a VERY basic one at that). Opera basically matches it for performance, but contains a darn sight more, like a full email/RSS/news reader, IRC chat, BitTorrent, Unite and so forth...

 

[mgillespie]

A little misleading of course, in that Chrome is JUST a browser (and a VERY basic one at that). Opera basically matches it for performance, but contains a darn sight more, like a full email/RSS/news reader, IRC chat, BitTorrent, Unite and so forth...

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]mgillespie[/nom]A little misleading of course, in that Chrome is JUST a browser (and a VERY basic one at that). Opera basically matches it for performance, but contains a darn sight more, like a full email/RSS/news reader, IRC chat, BitTorrent, Unite and so forth...[/citation]
It's just a benchmarking of the speed of the browser function. Though I'll gladly debate featureset, that can be very subjective so I stayed away from doing that on this article.

 

[Guest]

After using Chrome every other browser feels noticeably slow. Including Firefox (my previous Windows browser of choice) and Safari (though I still use Safari on my Macbook). Never been a fan of the Opera interface and IE is an adequate browser that's bundled with Windows (hence, it dominates market share).

My order of browsers is like this:

1. Chrome
2. Firefox
3. Safari
4. Internet Explorer
5. Opera

Obviously, this is just personal tastes. As all of these are perfectly capable browers for 99.9% of people.

 

[adamovera]

@mitch074: I've been using Kubuntu 9.10 64-bit since around XMas, with the latest Beta version of Chrome (and Firefox occasionally). Very happy with it

 

[Guest]

well, I'm currently using Firefox, Opera and IE as my web browsers (Firefox is my main browsers) and I'm not a fan of IE ... but I lived in China for 4 years and there are so many Chinese websites that can only be opened by IE, there are so many extensions that must be run on IE (my Firefox and Opera could not find the plug-ins or what you call it).

 

[mgillespie]

I have a problem with the memory usage measurements, as clearly unused RAM is wasted RAM. Sure loading a page may consume memory, but does it hand it back if something else needs it?

Also did the testing consider that Opera keeps deleted tabs and tab history? it only frees up memory for this, when the tab bin is emptied...

 

[obarthelemy]

Wow. a review that doesn't even look past performance. Quick question to everyone: when was the last time performance actually was a problem for you ? wouldn't you care more about features, ergonomics, reliability, compatibility... ?

 

[Kewlx25]

Interesting article. As for the "big brother" remarks about Google/Chrome. Either you guys don't understand statistics or your benefiting from people who are willing to give up statistical data while not contributing any yourself. AKA, leeches

Anyway, Slashdot had an interesting article about privacy and the web as it is today. It's nearly impossible to not leave a unique fingerprint w/o breaking webpage functionality or using a proxy.

If you feel like using a proxy and want some random 3rd party person sniffing all of your data instead of Google, be my guest.

 

[steiner666]

firefox is fastest w/ what i care about most, webpage loading times. the extensions and customization make it faster for me to navigate and get things done in, and the security keeps me from having to waste time cleaning off infections.

Chrome and IE are like open doors for malware it seems, especially chrome. I've give it a chance, and while the boot time might be really fast, its not that important and doesnt compensate for the lack of customization and security.

I'd also like to see these tests run after a week or two of average computer user usage. i think certain browsers would be incredibly bogged down at that point (will probably a dozen different unknowingly installed search/toolbars in IE) while some would be pretty close to how they perform on a fresh install, esp w/ the right extension installed (noscript, adblock, web of trust, etc)

 

[atippey]

Opera's memory use is hardly surprising for a browser who's developers see speed as its defining feature. The space-time trade-off is a well know principle in computer science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-time_tradeoff

 

[biometricsguy]

I think that the biggest reason internet explorer continues to have such a large chuck of market share is due to the fact that it is the most non-compliant browser in known history.

IE was dominant for so long that they knew that they could write their own set of standards that would force people to use their browser. It's all just marketing. They've established such a huge customer base that there are entire websites that won't even come up in anything but IE. Since the site was written in IE, the developers & users would quickly realize that the site completely violates all web-standards and will only ever work with IE.

As much as I hate IE, to this day I'm still stuck using it occasionally. I work for a large company and unfortunately, every last one of their websites fall in this category. I use several of them on a daily basis. In fact, some of the sites only work with specific legacy versions of IE.

Stop the madness!!

 

[Guest]

I would like to see a Linux comparison. I'm sure that Firefox is faster since 3.6.

I would also like to see the startup time for Konqueror (if running in KDE) as its the fastest I have seen in any os.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

So for low-memory machines, FF looks like the clear winner. If they can hold on to at least that level of memory management while developing the next release for improved rendering performance, I think the picture for FF could look a lot better in the future. I just don't see how Chrome or IE have much room to squeeze more RAM savings with their fully-sandboxed processes model; then again Mozilla may be moving in that direction too.
At any rate, seems like it's hard to go right by sticking with Internet Explorer. Every other browsers does better by almost any measure, unless you're a habitual Facebooker, and even FF ties it in Silverlight. And that's with their best browser version to date, on their own OS where you'd expect them to have a home field advantage. I am so glad Opera and FF started innovating, spurring real competition for browser quality and new web tech.

[citation][nom]adamovera[/nom]Yeah, as much as I'd like to use it sometimes, being a web writer puts AdBlock in my 'do not use' pile. I mean, hey, that's my bread and butter Honestly, I don't even see the ads anymore unless they pop out at you and block content (that's just mean). Now if I could remove them from video sites like Hulu (2 ads for The Larry Sanders Show, really?) then I might give it a try.[/citation]
I had to use AdBlock+ heavily on Linux because of the strain so many Flash-based ads put on my poor laptop's hardware. It's not even terrible hardware, it was damn good when I bought it at the tail end of 2007! But the fans kept ramping up to levels I'd never even heard before, my C2D would swap maxed out cores back and forth, pages would tear and lag when scrolling, loading a new page would sometimes take forever. Blocking sites heavy with Flash content was like night and day.
Now that I'm on a Windows desktop most of the time, it's a different story. The speed differences between the two machines hardware-wise isn't even that great. Flash is just much less horrible on Windows. It's even... tolerable.

But anyway, I wonder what the difference in performance among the browsers would be with their best respective adblocker plugins or settings enabled. I bet Firefox's rendering speed would go up compared to Chrome, since AB+ actually stops ads from loading in FF.