Browser Battle: Nine Browsers of Today and Tomorrow Compared

Posted 03/05/2009 at 10:30am | by Paul Lilly

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Start Your Rendering Engines

IE7 (Trident V and JScript 5.7)
Microsoft has been using the closed-source Trident framework dating all the way back to IE4 (Trident I). Since that time, Trident has been tweaked for each new version of Internet Explorer, receiving significant changes starting with IE7 (Trident V). A greater focus was put on standards compliance, and at long last, IE finally brought support for transparent PNG images. Trident's main advantage is IE's marketshare, so even though other rendering engines are far more compliant with web standards, the overwhelming majority of users are surfing the net with Trident. Anyone else suddenly craving some gum?

IE8 (Trident 4.0 and JScript 5.8)
Another IE release means another version of Microsoft's core layout engine. Now in version 4.0, the latest Trident iteration finally manages to pass the Acid2 test, but still scores low on the updated Acid3 test. But even more concerning for Microsoft is that this newest version just might 'break the web'. There has been so much tweaking under the hood that thousands of popular websites (2,400 and climbing) that formerly ran fine on IE no longer render correctly with IE8. Even Microsoft.com appears on MS's Compatibility View list, which is a list of websites known to render improperly on IE8 and are automatically rendered in IE7 compatibility mode. But what about the rest? A 'Compatibility View' button promptly 'fixes' borked sites that haven't been identified as such.

JavaScript is still handled by the JScript engine in IE8, now in version 5.8. Performance has been cited as a the number one goal for optimizations made to JScript, one of which includes the introduction of native JavaScript Object Notation (JSON).

(Image Credit: Microsoft)

Firefox 3 (Gecko 1.9.0 and SpiderMonkey)
Netscape may have died an untimely death at the hands of Microsoft, but its soul lives on. We're talking about the open-source Gecko rendering engine, which started life at Netscape in 1997 and has been used with every version of Firefox. Gecko's main advantage is that it was built specifically to support open internet standards, but is also adept at rendering most web pages built for IE. The cross-platform engine also boasts support for a wide range of operating systems.

Also starting life at Netscape is Firefox's SpiderMonkey Javascript engine written in C. It's the same engine Yahoo uses for its Widgets, and can also be found in various other applications.

Firefox 3.1 (Gecko 1.9.1 and TraceMonkey)
This latest version of Firefox upgrades the Gecko engine from 1.9.0 to 1.9.1, bringing with it a few key changes that bely the incremental naming scheme. As expected, compliance with web standards is improved, but the update also ushers in support for border images, a private browsing mode, and enhancements to the AwesomeBar.

Garnering a lot of attention on the web is Mozilla's new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. Mozilla essentially supercharged SpiderMonkey by adding native-code compilation and optimizations called "Trace Trees" (PDF). In TraceMonkey, frequenly executed code is traced and compiled, and the next time that same code is called upon, the compiled version is used. This tracing technique has already shown impressive performance gains and it looks to get even better over time.

Opera 9.6 (Presto 2.1.1 and Futhark)
The second youngest of all the major rendering engines, Opera 9.6 continues to use the closed-source Presto platform first released in November 2002. Because it's not freely distributed, Opera is the only desktop browser to use the Presto engine, although it can also be found on a number of licensed third-party apps and devices, most notably the Nintendo DS and DSi, Wii Internet Channel, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and above, and Adobe CS2 and above.

Both Opera 9.6 and 10 also use an ECMAScript/JavaScript engine called Futhark. Futhark balances speed with memory usage, which has allowed other next-gen browsers to catch up and leap ahead in terms of raw performance. However, the Opera team is already working on a new JavaScript engine called Carakan (pronounced Tsharakan). Citing internal testing, Opera Software claims the new engine is already two and a half times faster than Futhark, and has the potential to be 50 times as fast.

Opera 10 (Presto 2.2 and Futhark)
The next version of Opera sees an upgrade from Presto 2.1.1 to 2.2, and with it a claimed 30 percent performance boost on the web over the previous version. But it gets even better. Presto has always done exceptionally well with web standards, and the Presto 2.2 engine is one of the first ever to score a perfect 100/100 on the unforgiving Acid3 test (Apple claims it beat Opera to the punch, but we're content to call it a tie).

(Image Credit: Opera)

Chrome 1.0 (WebKit and V8)
The future looks bright for WebKit, the open-source rendering engined used by Google's Chrome browser. The WebKit platform has already found a home on Google's mobille platform Android, Palm webOS, and Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. There's even been talk of both Microsoft and Mozilla switching to WebKit in future versions of IE and Firefox, respectively. While not as standards compliant as Presto, the WebKit framework is considered fast and highly versatile.

For JavaScript duties, Google developed the open-source V8 engine written in C++. Not only has V8 been tuned for speed, but according to Google, the JavaScript engine handles resource management exceptionally well by reclaiming memory used by objects that are no longer required in a process.

(Image Credit: Google)

Safari 3 (WebKit and JavaScriptCore)
Many PC users never even heard of Safari until 2007, even though the browser had been in existence since 2003. That's because up until just two years ago, Safari was only available on the Mac, and only people with cooties own Macs. A series of security threats and vulnerabilities immediately following Safari's Windows debut meant PC users were at a high risk of getting cooties too.

Safari 4 (WebKit and Nitro)
Apple's newest browser is built aroud the WebKit platform, but to lay claim as the fastest browser on the planet, Apple also developed a new JavaScript engined called Nitro, which is Apple's version of WebKit's Squirrelfish engine. According to Apple, this helps Safari execute JavaScript code up to 30 times faster than IE7 and more than three times as fast as Firefox 3. A new look and a bevy of features has given Safari a new outlook in life.