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

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This comparison test is great reference for users who want to use an efficient browser. Sadly, I believe that STILL most users would actually prefer a browser that is most user friendly, it is all about preference and acceptability.
Most people, especially busy business people that have MS readily available due to Windows automatically having IE on their OS would also use the default since they dont have time to download or even care to download something called "chrome", or "Firefox". The computer is just a tool for the internet or document processing and this is a true fact that there is still a large portion of the market. Although kids and teens are now avidly using newer browers and software, there are adults who dont have the time or could care less. Thus 60% of IE users. Small benchmarks in terms of seconds dont matter when you have a family and are making alot of money, heck some of these ppl probably have underlings or secretaries doing the email and deciding which browser to use. That is essentially what makes up of the 60% of the market share of genuine OS users....
Its like comparing a Mercedes Benz that has grown pretty well with age but the market around it has come up and most younger ppl accept that there is change and buy a hybrid or a Lexus which is supposed to be comfy enough at a cheap/er price. Merc is still around much like IE and kicking but market share is still high in terms of target audience while Lexus is catching up as a “luxury” brand…. Specs wise it may be better in some aspects, but it will never have the significance and decadence that Mercedes has brought in history, hence Microsoft and how they were the ones who ousted Netscape and is still alive and kicking….. This is 60% of the Microsoft IE users still….. they(I use both IE and Firefox as well) just don’t care about chrome or safari….. its there but Ill just use IE coz I know it, its easy, and they (MS) may perhaps be the fastest to come up with a patch.
Also, How does connection speed also factor for this test as well....
 
There will be a day where almost every single person with a computer will care about which OS and which Browser should be used. Whether it be in 20 years or even in the next few years, this is actually pretty scary.... I dont want my kids to rely on PCs or rely on computers as much...
 
Weird thing is I have IE8 and FireFox 3.6 and did a test on loading speeds. IE8 loads faster by about 2x than Firefox. Not sure why. I do use Firefox for a streaming video site due to better compatability but IE8 for most everything else since it seems faster.

I guess its all user based in the end.
 

I'm a bit disappointed that you are using the V8 benchmark. I thought it was common knowledge that this benchmark leaves out the specific parts of the test that Chrome is slow at. This means that the test falsely gives the impression that Chrome is much faster than the rest.

If you include the parts Google specicically left out, Chrome no longer wins.
 

I'm not sure what this has to do with performance, though (not that I have seen the problems you are referring to).


Opera has been around for more than 15 years, long before any benchmarks. Opera is also the only one of these browser vendors without their own benchmark suite.

Opera is actually very fast at real world browsing.
 
I'm surprised how nobody is ripping apart the methodology used here. Take for example the ACID 3 test. Chrome cannot possible win this test since both Safari and Opera passed it even before Chrome ever shipped. It's furthermore not a speed test, but a Web standard test and since Chrome is "just" another skin to Webkit (used in Safari) it cannot actually beat Safari on it (it can potentially only fail). The selection of JavaScript tests is also completely strange (compared to ALL other test I've seen). You could also test for other things that would play to for examples Opera's strength like slow connection speed and the advanced graphics (both areas were Opera is at least 60-70% faster than Chrome). Summing up it's hard to find data to support you conclusion (which looks very opinionated and not _uhm_ that professional). Also interesting to see that there are this many comments from people, seems like it's a hot topic.
 
I've been using three browsers constantly but I really prefer chrome's simple interface and the speed I expect for broadband connection. Using it since came out with a non-beta version and recently installed it in all computers here at home, friends, and friends of friends machines (deleted the IE shortcuts and configured IE to the highest security).

Its just simple and only a few uses it making it more secure in my experience.
 

So a multi-billion dollar corporation needs your support? 😉

I would rather support Mozilla, because they don't have the kind of power Google does.
 
The conclusion of the article is badly written. You cannot make all subjective evaluations on multiple tests and then claim Chrome is better than Opera when they have more or less the same score. You conclusion looks like an ad for Chrome. Hard to take you seriously.

BTW: Opera changed their icon in 2009. Perhaps time to update it as well?
 
Doesn't Safari and all the webkit browsers have a bug where the PageLoaded event is fired before the page is loaded, making the page load timings of Webkit browsers misleading?
 

That, and the V8 benchmark is designed to be fast in Chrome.
 
@omnimodis78: also citing Wikipedia, "scenarii" is the archaic Italian plural for scenario. Archaic italian spawns rather directly from latin, where you'd swap the last vowel with a 'i' - thus the archaic form.

Ah man. That'll teach me no to write in older scripts.
 
Okay try this for a test. Download a nifty little program called CrapCleaner aka CCleaner. Now install all of your browsers. No open up CCleaner and make sure all the little boxes have a tick on them , do this only for the browsers and leave everything else at ddefault.

Go into options and then advanced uncheck the box which says something about temp files and 24 hours.

Now run CCleaner. After running it load up the same webpage on all of your browsers and then go run CCleaner again. Record how much data each browser downloads and how much CCleaner is deleting.

I found the worst browser IE only downloaded 25kb when loading up www.google.com the rest were over the 1mb margin and chrome had downloaded 7mb of data.

Some of us pay for the amount of data we use, uploading and downloading. So speed is not an issue but I'm curious as to why other browesers download so much data when its just a simple webpage.
 
As someone who works with an average of 50-60 tabs open I can vouch that Opera's edge remains at that intensive usage (and it's my mail client also, with 12 accounts running and 150,000 messages stored).
An interesting test is how long it takes to switch back to a browser after working in a different application.
For me, Opera take 0.5 - 1s, Firefox 2-4 seconds, and Chrome anywhere from 10 - 20 seconds. And that is with a tenth the number of tabs open in Chrome as in Opera. That one result makes chrome unbearable.

Lastly, none of the browsers has, by default, as fast a command interface in Opera. If you want to check out half a dozen links from a search results page, shift+ctrl+click (Opera) wins hands down, as does shift+click for closing tabs.
 
In the Acid3 Test you get more results if you click on the A in the result picture.
And there only Chrome has no problems.
 
Ah... so many responses with browsers, we are so passionate about them, eh?

Try out Opera 10.5, not just for speed but in function. Its a very clean design and its tab system total smokes IE. PUll off tabs, re-arrange tabs. You can stretch the tab bar and they become thumb-nails.

Pressing . = toggles Text find bar that does real time. But as a long time Opera user, I have it standard at the bottom of the browser. Destroys other browsers in this function.

Very customizable.

Oh the memory issue... I think I know why. When you shut down Opera and bring it back up, lets say after turning off the computer for the night. Opera remembers your back history... so your back buttons still work. Its a theory.
 
Opera's memory "issue" is that it actively keeps previously browsed pages and tabs directly loaded in the memory - the result being if you press the back button (or the forward button) the previous page loads instantly, no need for reloading. (Unlike all other browsers). Same with re-opening a tab you've just closed, whether is be by accident or what not. This greatly improves the speed of your browsing and makes the browser feel faster.

Also, if you tests it on a netbook, opera does manage quite admirably - its one of the first applications to let go of its RAM usage by design.

Also, I don't think a 5 second JSBenchmark test is a good enough tests to be used to represent overall speed of javascript processing - afterall, we can't exactly be testing much in those 5 seconds can we?! 😱
 
Worth doing a power usage test. I remember seeing some stuff before saying different browsers radically affected laptop battery life.
 
adamovera: Some of the tests seems really slow. For instance the Sunspider test is known for running such a small time that the CPU will never run on highest frequency if "Power saver" or "Balanced" is chosen as power plan in Windows. What power plan where you using when running these tests?
 
[citation][nom]babamomo[/nom]adamovera: Some of the tests seems really slow. For instance the Sunspider test is known for running such a small time that the CPU will never run on highest frequency if "Power saver" or "Balanced" is chosen as power plan in Windows. What power plan where you using when running these tests?[/citation]
Not sure what they call it, but I shut off all power management - everything set to 'never' I believe.
 
Now run a test of Firefox/Chrome/Safari/IE versus Opera, installing all plugins that give the same functionality Opera has out of the box. Oh wait...
 
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