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Upon the release of the Safari 4 Beta, Apple was boasting some mighty impressive speeds. Now, thanks to some extensive testing, it looks like the boys down in Cupertino deserve a pat on the back, with their browser clocking in at a staggering 42 times faster than Internet Explorer 7.
Most surprising, is that Apple’s latest addition was able to beat out Google’s Chrome (the proclaimed “Speed King”) in testing, along with Firefox 3, Opera 9.6 and Mozilla’s developmental Minefield. The tests were conducted on both a PC running XP SP2, and a Mac running OS X 10.6 with all of the latest updates applied.
If you’re looking to check out the full results of the speed testing, check them out here.
Image Credit: CNET
Comments are closed on this article
archangelx
February 26, 2009 at 8:37am
I like Safari 4 beta but will continue to use Firefox until security is improved. The Top Sites page is awesome!
Trever
February 25, 2009 at 7:52pm
Sorry but i had safari for a month I HATED IT, B/c it was so SLOW !!!!
nsk chaos
February 25, 2009 at 8:48pm
hmm...maybe it was due to ur low ram? but its definately faster now. loads pages in a jiffy (i have 760MB of ram on my computer - 512MB @ 333 and 256MB @ 400.....idk why....lol)
Carbon
February 25, 2009 at 5:25pm
who did these tests?
It was probably loading www.apple.com.......hehewe've seen apple pad and lie about benchmarks in the past.
Safari crashes non-stop on my osx rig and is far from perfect for loading pages.
Not much point being fast if you are not accurate.FF is still king of the happy middle ground
dankers
February 26, 2009 at 8:32pm
Minefield is like a Firefox beta, I've used it before since it comes in a 64-bit variety. To be honest I don't remember why I stopped using it. I do know a lot of my favorite plug-ins weren't compatible if that makes a difference to you, in addition to still no sign of a 64-bit flash plugin for windows(only for Linux). I agree with Keith, we needs some Acid3 tests in addition to speed to make any worthwhile judgements. Update:
-Sunspider Javascript Benchmark-
Safari 4 beta: 1495.8ms +/- 8.6%
IE7 64-bit: 67265.8ms +/- 1.1%
IE7 32-bit: 73901.8ms +/- 1.3%
Google Chrome: 1421.2ms +/- 1.0%
Opera 9.63: 5466.4ms +/- 0.8%
K-Meleon: 15067.6ms +/- 0.5%
-Acid 3 test-
Firefox 3.0.6: 71
Google Chrome: 79 (linktest failed)
Safari 4 beta: 100
IE7 32-bit: Garbage
IE7 64-bit: Garbage
Opera 9.63: 85
K-Meleon: 53
These are the numbers I got (sorry forgot to do FF sunspider test). Results are from Vista x64 sp1 w/all updates and a dual core pc w/ 4 gigs ram.
nsk chaos
February 25, 2009 at 3:50pm
can anyone tell me what is minefield? i personaly have never heard of it before. it looks more promising than ie so i wanna try it out =). thx!!!
BlackieChan
February 25, 2009 at 3:23pm
horrible
Microsoft needs to step up they are supose to be faster then apple
i use chrome and firefox and Opera
horzo
February 25, 2009 at 3:23pm
Sorry, but functionality and security are far more important to me than 5000ms. FF wins that contest easily.
Keith E. Whisman
February 25, 2009 at 2:52pm
What is important here is what is the accuracy? Can it draw websites accurately?
Goolashe
February 25, 2009 at 2:45pm
The benchmarks are nice, but the picture says IE 8, while they talk about IE 7 in the article.
bicyclist
February 25, 2009 at 2:38pm
I was under the impression that the current level of Windows XP was SP3...
What about: how if performs w/Vista or 7???
