Browser Battle: Nine Browsers of Today and Tomorrow Compared
Posted 03/05/09 at 11:30:00 AM by Paul Lilly
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Performance
SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark
According to Apple, Safari 4's new Nitro engine lives up to its name by running JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE7 and three times as fast as Firefox 3. We put these claims to the test with the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, which benchmarks only the core JavaScript language. When the dust settled, Safari 4 certainly lived up to the hype, but the situation turned much more competitive when throwing Firefox 3.1 and Chrome into the mix.
Celtic Kane JavaScript Benchmark
In addition to JavaScript performance, Celtic Kane's benchmark also sprinkles in a litte bit of DOM and rendering testing. and here again Apple's Safari 4 leads the pack, though the gap it put between itself and IE7 isn't as dramatic this time around. You might wonder why, at least according to this test, Safari 4 performs 50 percent better than Chrome when both are WebKit-based browsers. At least part of the difference can be attributed to using different JavaScript engines (V8=Chrome, Nitro=Safari 4).
V8 Benchmark Suite
Built by the V8 team (as in, Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine), take this one with a pound of salt. The V8 Benchmark Suite purports to test pure JavaScript performance while simulating other web application tasks a browser may have to contend with. We could have called this one from the outset, but Chrome comes out on top, however just barely edging out Safari 4.
Our Real World Impression
Running web benchmarks only tell a part of the story. So many variables are involved that it's impossible to come up with a completely reliable performance yardstick. Will your web browsing experience really be improved threefold (or more) on Safari 4 than IE7?
In our testing, the answer is no. However, we did notice a difference among browsers, just not as pronounced as the benchmarks indicate. Safari 4 and, to our surprise, Internet Explorer 8 felt the snappiest, though neither version of Firefox ever felt slow by comparison.
How They Stack Up
hate them all
Submitted by yamahog on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 9:27am
I havent found any browser that I really like yet, firefox crashes almost as much as IE7, chrome ? meybe some day. I just whant a simple fast browser that works on all web sites and has easy to organise favorites, kind of like what Netscape used to be, and I dont need fricken tabs thats what I use the links bar for doh!
Submitted by bigboehmboy on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 5:08pm
"The downside to Chrome's sandboxing approach is that it depends on Windows for its security, making it susceptible to vulnerabilities in the OS."
Not any more than any other browser is susceptible to these vulnerabilities...
"In addition, legacy file systems, like FAT32, don't support security descriptors, preventing some USB keys and other devices from being protected by the sandbox."
Chrome's "sandboxing" refers to the fact that separate tabs are in separate processes which means that a malicious script in one tab can't access the RAM segment owned by procecess for other tabs. It has nothing to do with NTFS file permissions.
opera
Submitted by mojosico on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 10:32pm
man i guess its ok to like firefox i used to be a big fan till vista wouldnt play nice with it . i recently downloaded firefox 3 to see how long it would take me to find all the extensions to equal what comes standard in opera . 4 FRICKIN HOURS !!!! wtf!!!!! and it still crashes i thought ff 3 was supposed to be soo much better . and chrome and safari , one tirck ponies . was not happy with ie 8 either . i guess different strokes for different folks . i really think people should give opera a chance since they are the real inavators . first to have most all of the important features that the other browsers copy off of . i resepct mozilla sticking it to microsoft but firefox users that wont try anthing else kinda sound like mac users oh dont dought steve jobs and yes we drank the kool-aid . lol !! ff 3 users say all the simalar things about mozilla oh everything is happy and shiny over here . man step outa the box try something new dont be a zombie .
Submitted by bob818 on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 11:07am
It would be nice to see Google and Firefox get together and produce 1 super-browser. (Firechrome?) Use the Firefox add-ins and the speed of Chrome...I think Microsoft would start to sweat, if they are not already. IE is just to slow and bulky.
Submitted by Naw-yi on Tue, 03/10/2009 - 9:47am
about:config is the best reason to use firefox. then the add-ons to personalize the browser to individual preferences.
Submitted by xinoy on Mon, 03/09/2009 - 1:27am
Greate test, i am going to use the safari now i guess.
Surf IT Webdesign Twente
www.surf-it.nl
Submitted by leifab on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 9:53am
Chrome 2.0 should have been included for completeness of the article. It passes the acid3 test with a 99.5 (see picture for what i mean about that)
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/193/acid3chrome2.png
Submitted by smashingpumpin on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 6:42am
If only Firefox would've fix "Bookmarks" folders to arrange itself alphabetically without using "Organize Bookmarks" I'd give it a 9/10. (Vista 32, Firefox 3.0.7). On previous versions, I could just right click under Bookmarks and click "sort by name/folder" and it does it automatically. I find this quite a hassle as I have tons of saved links (mostly social sites, Youtube vids and, obcourse, gulp, streaming porn and the like lol). Maybe its just my configuration and maybe there's an add-on out there that i'm too lazy to find out about. Hmm I wonder if upcoming 3.1's private browsing, err... "porn mode" is just a dumb-downed built in CCleaner, or just another name for "Clear Private data" hehehe.
_______________________________________________
...tab porn surfing FTW!
Submitted by master1121 on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 5:18am
Chrome does not treat each tab seaprately. There were many times where I opened over 20+ tabs and if one of the java or media format get screwed up all of the tabs get screwed up. Do not know if a updated fix it, been 3 months since I used chrome.
Submitted by somecomputernerd on Sat, 03/07/2009 - 7:48am
first off. Chrome 1.0 does NOT treat each tab seperately. However, Chrome 2.0 does. But we get back to memory. At about 4 tabs lower PCs start screaming. Each tab uses an average of 5000 k. Each tab with javascript, 20000 k. While I love how it will only lose one website, it is a memory hog.
Second. Memory. Chrome is great if you have a higher end PC. Chrome 1.0 hits the acid test with a 79, Chrome 2.0 hits 100, and Chrome Portable hits 100. But Firefox uses less memory. Hits acid with a 71. Firefox total uses about 20000 k memory. Chrome is obviously on the same direction as Internet Explorer. While Chrome 2.0 is currently available by the beta channel, (google Chrome 2.0 if you want to upgrade) portable can be found without changing channels.
Third. Chrome does not have a spellcheck implemented or a favorates icon. You can only get to favorates if you start a new tab or type it in. What a pain in the ass.
Fourth. While Chrome is stable, there is a annoying tab bug with 2.0... But while I have had it for about a day, I only know of that one so far. Javascript seems to mess with Chrome's code the most.
Fifth. Cool UI. But a browser is not on how it looks, how it performs.
Overall:
Firefox would be best for users who use 6 or 7 tabs and have a lower end PC. Firefox still loads pretty fast. But Chrome is really for users who are gonna operate two tabs at once. lol really, only then will you use less memory than Firefox. Firefox is more open to personality than Chrome IMO. For you morons complaining about the Awesome Bar, how often do you look at options? Wow. Safari has no chance against Firefox or Chrome. Considering about 10% of PC users use MAC, Linex, or whatever. Safari is a HUGE joke for Windows users. Internet Explorer is honestly a joke too. Opera is catching up in the wars.
IMO, the list of browsers are as follows.
1. Firefox
2. Chrome
3. Opera
4. Safari
5. Internet Explorer (omg Bill Gates give up and rewrite the damn thing)
Firefox scores 1 for memory conservation, speed, options, features, and stabibility.
Submitted by siimonscuttle on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 1:46am
Once they add 1-click RSS support to Chrome, then the battle's over as far as I'm concerned. Faster, more real estate, searching from the address bar just makes sense.
Submitted by MentalNotes on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 1:44am
Strictly speaking, Apple did not give "birth to the WebKit rendering engine". Webkit is a fork of KHTML, the rendering engine from KDE's Konqueror browser.
Submitted by Beatnink on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 12:13am
Just about all browsers fall foul of claiming valueable screen real estate with their fancy toolbars and prominent tabs. Few allow you to reposition your toolbars so that they can be squashed up. And apart from Google Chrome, all waste extra space with having a title bar.
I keep trying different new / updated browsers but so far I haven't found one browser that recognises that the most import aspect of the browser is to show as much as possible in the browser window itself.
In fact, I keep going back to Avant Browser because it gives me good flexibility over the toolbars, even if it does fall foul as well of having the title bar take up valueable screen real estate. I would have been tempted to switch over to Chrome, but its still too basic in that it does not support plugins like RoboForm.
Ron, Wellington, New Zealand
Submitted by Bishounen on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 9:08pm
The So-Called "Awesome Bar" is anything BUT Awesome. Not only is it's behavior non-intuitive, it breaks with expectations of what a URL bar SHOULD do, and you CANNOT CONTROL IT'S BEHAVIOR!
For example, it will AT RANDOM select items from your bookmarks and/or history to display when you are typing something in. (Always fun when you are trying to get to Maximum PC and the address for some porn site pops up in the search results on the drop-down, complete with boobie icon while your wife is looking over your shoulder! Now that's "Awesome"!) The algorithm it uses to determine results is horrendous, and it's nearly impossible to train properly. Oh yes, and the text and icons are so HUGE you can't see more than 10 entries before it scrolls off the bottom of your screen. HUGE WASTE OF SCREEN REAL ESTATE! Essentially, each and every function that Mozilla touts about it are PRECISELY the functions that make it a problem! In short, it STINKS.
Yet despite howls of protest from hundreds of people, the Mozilla devs continue to flip the user base the bird and FORCE people to use the Awful Bar rather than simply make the darn thing an extension that people can add on using the built-in add-ons functionality.
Thus, I (and many, many others) have been forced back to FF2 until somebody spends some time smacking the Mozilla devs around with the clue bat.
Not gonna use FF3 EVER, won't use IE (I LIKE my PC virus free, thank you!) Chrome is STILL a buggy mess, and Opera, while nice, has no extensibility built in, and is WAAAAAAY too strict with the way it renders pages, breaking most sites. And Safari? If I had a Mac, sure. The Win version stinks, and there is no Lin version.
Wahoo. :|
Submitted by HeartBurnKid on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 2:02pm
Install Oldbar to get rid of the "HUGE WASTE OF SCREEN REAL ESTATE!"
Go to about.config and set browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped to True to get rid of the bookmarks and history popping in "AT RANDOM".
As for your obviously dysfunctional Caps Lock key, you're on your own. :)
Personally, I like the AwesomeBar, I think the URL bar was long overdue for a rethink, and I wouldn't ever want to go back to the old way of doing things, but to each his own.
Submitted by gordonjc on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 7:50am
the link is here --
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/06/17/dont-think-the-firefox-3-awesome-bar-is-awesome-heres-how-t/
-- but, in short, go into about:config and set browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to zero (it's the number of items to show in the awesome bar drop down). setting it to zero will still show you ONE, but it's much better than 12. you can also get a FF2 URL bar with the "Oldbar" extension.
even if you keep awesome bar as is, you can prevent it from showing embarassing URLs by not bookmarking them, not tagging them and clearing your history - those are the three places it gets URLs from - if it's not in any of those lists, it can't display it.
Submitted by Bishounen on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 10:18am
You suggestion, while appreciated, does NOT fix the issue.
Trust me, I've done everything short of learning to code and rolling my own version. Extensions DO NOT WORK. Screwing around in about:config DOES NOT WORK. The problem is that the old behavior has been REMOVED from FF3! There is NO WAY to get it back.
So please don't waste my time spouting all the tired old pretend "fixes" when there isn't any practical method of getting the old url bar back without reverting to FF2.
Submitted by vrroom on Mon, 03/09/2009 - 4:04am
dude, take it easy hahaha. You're life really depends on it, doesn't it? It's not easy to try and take you serious haha. Learning about and dealing with CAPS might help.
Submitted by nuculerman on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 7:10pm
I think this is the real war. Safari and IE aren't going to keep up, and Opera has never had the number of users needed to really compete.
I currently spend my time between Chrome and Firefox. Firefox is more polished and thus is my default browser. Chrome, however, has a -lot- of potential. It's faster, and the google address bar is almost as good as the awesomebar already. However, Firefox is much less buggy and much more customizable, so it's currently winning the war, IMO. Currently, having used all the browsers listed here, I think the best to worst goes:
1. Firefox
2. Chrome
3. Saphari
4. Opera
5. Internet Explorer
This is all the stable releases, mind you. Except Chrome which I guess is still technically in beta.
For what it's worth, Opera
Submitted by willsmith on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 7:52am
For what it's worth, Opera is the third or fourth most popular browser on Maximum PC on any given day. It just passed IE6 with a total of about 10% of overall share year-to-date. Chrome is hovering around 4%.
We're an enthusiast site, but I would have expected Chrome to take that spot earlier. When Chrome adds extension support, that will change things, I think. However, until I can get mouse gestures and Greasemonkey, it'll be hard for me to use Chrome regularly.
Submitted by kingspatula on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 5:12pm
I have Chrome and IE and neither do it. Haven't tried opera and safari but yea it is nice to have not only an Awesome Bar, but a smart Awewsome Bar.
Submitted by amacieli on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:52am
and can someone explain to be in non-fanboi language why i should care about "wars" and what the "wars" are about anyway. so what if i use IE rather than FF. what revenue do the creators get from me using FF, for example? nothing, right? no adverts, no forced links to sites i don't want to see, nothing. so what's the big deal? for example, just because safari 4 might be good does not mean (at all!) that i will start using other apple products (frantically finds a scrap of wood to touch).
Submitted by wrobin on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 12:19pm
The reason the browser wars matter is because whoever controls the browser, controls the internet.
Microsoft figured out a long time ago that as the web gets more and more full featured, operating systems matter less and less.
So Microsoft's approach has been to try use it's huge OS install base to get people to use IE, which they could in turn build in features that would make it so that webpages that work with IE wouldn't work with Netscape (and later Firefox, Opera, etc).
If you can do everything you need to do on the web (which honestly most people who aren't either gaming or video encoding can do) then it doesn't really matter what OS you use. If it doesn't matter what OS you use, it's going to be pretty difficult for MS to sustain their OS prices.
The browser wars are essentially the fight for the future of computing.
Browser Revenue
Submitted by One4yu2c on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 12:18pm
"what revenue do the creators get from me using FF, for example? nothing, right?"
Actually, quite the contrary. You bring up a good point that's probably deserving of a more lenghty introduction, but to answer your question, there's big money involved in dominating the browser market. This primarily comes from the default search bar, for which Google and others shell out oodles of money.
To give you some hard numbers, Google paid $57 to Mozilla in 2006 to remain the browser's default search option, which accounted for 85 percent of Mozilla's total revenue. More recently, Google inked a 3-year deal with Mozilla that extends its contract to 2011, and ensures Mozilla will have enough funding to pay its staff, support its bandwidth and hardware infrastructure, and continue to distribute grants.
Make no mistake - browser makers have a vested interest in being your default browser that goes beyond just being a good samaritan.
Submitted by kwanbis on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 8:31pm
That is not correct.
Google pay that much to Mozilla, as per their search agreement.
Like,
each time you search using firefox with the google search bar, the same
for others, Mozilla gets a little of the revenue that Google has on
adsense.Is not much, but multiply it by the millions of users of Firefox, and the millions of search per day, and you have a big number.
Is the same principle that works for adSense.
"...Google paid $57 to
Submitted by Cadmium on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 1:20pm
"...Google paid $57 to Mozilla in 2006 to remain the browser's default
search option, which accounted for 85 percent of Mozilla's total
revenue."So Mozilla made around $70 in 2006?
Submitted by One4yu2c on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 2:40pm
Correct. According to the numbers floating around the web, Mozilla pulled in roughly $67 million in 2006, and about $75 million in 2007 (91 percent of which came from Google).
Clarification
Submitted by NeauxFear on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 5:04pm
I think he was trying to tell you that you wrote "$57" instead of "$57 million."
Submitted by amacieli on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:43am
so, well, i do like chrome and how fast it is (actually, srware iron, because i need a tin hat) but the damn thing crashes on every third site, including youtube and google maps. pdf files don't feel much love either. inevitably i use chrome for doing things like "300 gbp in usd" and leave website building for FF3 and IE8. and pretty much the only thing wrong with IE8 that i care about is the speed, which needs a serious boost.
Submitted by psabo on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:28am
I know webkit is getting a lot of love right now, but.. Mozilla ditching Gecko in favor of it, that's just not going to happen. Read this for a start.
Submitted by gilleshache on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 9:34am
The features are nice for most browser. Getting IE to comply more can only be good...But nobody seems to look at memory usage for all the browsers....
IE8 RC1...Each tab that you open is a separate process in the task manager...200Metg per tab for an empty tab!
IE7...Memory hog also. Hit almost 200Megs on the first page you open and each new tab doesn't make it better.
I tried Firefox...Hit the 100-150 also and has you add tab naturally gets a lot higher.
The one I prefer: Chrome. Each tab takes between 30-40megs depending. Even it is still high it is doing better than others. I did not try the other browser so won't say anything about thoses.
Personnaly 200 megs of memory just to open an applicaiton is ridiculuous. When I tried IE8 RC1 I open a couple of tab and notice memory usage. I pushed it open 20 tabs (all empty)....My machine went blue screen out of physical Memory!!!! And this was the release candidate which mean that it will pretty much it the market has is!!!
Gilles
Submitted by penguinboy on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 8:57pm
Minefield (the nightly trunk build of Firefox) is actually pretty good about memory usage. Here's how things went as opened a few tabs:
1 tab, maximumpc.com: 45MB
add Tom's Hardware: 50MB
add economist.com: 59MB
add ugent.be: 59MB
add weather.com: 68MB
...keep adding tabs until I reach 12: 95MB
So, Firefox is getting better about memory usage. In Minefied, the memory use really seems to depend on what the content of the websites is. When I opened ugent.be, I didn't even notice it; the memory used got lost in the fluctuations caused by whatever background stuff Minefield was doing.
Submitted by gamesfrager on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:38am
I think the reason why memory is not that big issue (in general) is because memory prices are very cheap, and almost no one talks about how much memory this or that program requires.
I bought 8 GB of memory and it didn't break the bank. My 32 windows only see 2.75 GB and my firefox takes sometimes 250 MB, so what! I'm still left with 2.5 GB, and if I REALLY need memory for a game I just quit firefox and everyone is happy. So if a browser is consuming 500 MB which is really extreme, it is still nothing.
regards
Submitted by urbanpt on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 4:54am
I don't agree. Memory is definitely a big issue. If you have a 1.5GHz+ cpu with 512MB of RAM it should be enough to give you a smooth web experience, but nowadays browsers eat memory as hell... Today a 4 year old PC struggles to have 5 or 6 tabs open, and I think it's only the browsers fault. If browsers swallow al the physical mem available, your PC will start swapping and everything will get extremelly slow.
Oh, and Flash is also accountable for this too.
PS: If you have 8GB RAM with a 32bit OS you might as well have tossed your money to the street. If you buy 4GB RAM (2x2GB) your 32bit Window$ should see it.
Submitted by gamesfrager on Sat, 03/07/2009 - 4:36pm
I bought 8 GB because I was thinking I will do a lot of 3D rendering. I already have 64 bit xp installed.
But a 4 year old computer (and I hope it is a laptop) is really OLD. beside; you can easily upgrade it's memory to 3 GB. They are cheap now. So what is left? You can have 2.75 GB and in some cases xp 32Bit will recognize 3GB (my brother's PC does), so really there is no excuse for not having more than 1.5 GB of RAM.
Submitted by MeTo on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 6:23am
The picture of the engine i think is a GM 2.0 litter 4 cylinder Ecotech Turbo.
Opera does the same thing
Submitted by Jeffredo on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 2:02am
Just typed in "Maxiumumpc" and hit enter. Went right to the website. Been using Opera for years - its just so polished and well thought out. The "issues" it has with some websites are slowly getting ironed out, but are frustrating enough I split my time between it and Firefox.
Submitted by carickw on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 10:37am
Opera has the best feature around: Identify As...
There is a dropdown menu that allows you to Identify as Opera, Firefox, or IE, and unlike firefox, you don't need IE installed to use it, aka Linux. I have not had a problem with any sites that say they don't recognize my browser by simply changing that to Firefox (or IE for IE Specific sites). Check out autotrader.com and see for yourself and get that slow browser off your system :)
Submitted by HeartBurnKid on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 12:55pm
User Agent Switcher: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59
Submitted by samduhman on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 6:03am
I also love Opera BUT not all the time until I try to post a comment at shacknews. It fails everytime. I click post and it just sits there spinning its wheels.
Submitted by willsmith on Fri, 03/06/2009 - 7:56am
Yeah, but I think we have to blame that on haiku & pup., not Opera.
Submitted by gamesfrager on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 11:42pm
I hope modern browsers will FORCE IE to be more..well..modern :) especially for webdevelopers and designer. If we can escape hacking CSS for the sake of internet explorer then this will be almost like going to heaven.
Submitted by kingspatula on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 11:12pm
One of the biggest things that keeps me loyal to Firefox is that when you type just a name of a site like maximumpc in the address bar without a .com or http or anything, just maximumpc and hit enter, it goes straight to maximumpc. It doesn't go to the results of a search a la windows live search or google, it just goes straight to the page itself. I find this to be very useful and a noteable feature not available in ohter browsers as far as I know. Firefox ftw!
Submitted by Keumpatala on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:59pm
ctrl+enter does the same thing in ie
Submitted by amacieli on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:44am
think chrome does this too
Submitted by One4yu2c on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 5:52am
Firefox, Safari, and Opera all have this feature.
Yes, but Firefox gave it the
Submitted by chaos.13037 on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 6:08am
Yes, but Firefox gave it the best name: "The Awesome Bar". :P
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