Benchmark Results: Startup Times
Our startup time tests were completely overhauled for Web Browser Grand Prix 7. We're no longer using live Web sites and a stop watch. The test pages are now hosted on the local Web server along with JSGameBench and the page load time tests. In fact, the new startup time tests are a heavily modified version of our page load time scripts.
Single Tab
Google.com still serves as our single-tab startup time test page.
Apple Safari takes the lead for single-tab startup time. Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 takes second place, followed by Mozilla Firefox 7 in third. Opera 11.51 pulls into a fourth place finish with Google Chrome 14 coming in last.
This is the first and last time we'll bother with a single-tab startup time using our new timing method. All the scores are at a tenth of a second or less on this test system, which is too fast to matter. You see, what we didn't realize when we were using a stopwatch and looking for visual cues was that the animation of the browser opening actually takes longer to complete than the page load itself! Hopefully, the eight-tab startup test proves to be more meaningful.
Eight Tabs
Since the new startup time tests are based on our page load timers, we decided to use those pages for this initial exercise. The test sites include Google, YouTube, Yahoo!, Amazon, Wikipedia, eBay, Craigslist, and The Huffington Post.
Chrome is the startup time leader when it comes to opening eight tabs, finishing in just over two seconds. Opera takes second place with a time of 2.7 seconds. IE9 places third at just over three seconds, while the new Firefox 7 takes fourth at 4.6 seconds. Safari rounds out the line-up far behind the rest at nearly nine seconds.
The single-tab startup times are so insignificant that they're not even worth counting, so obviously we have to give this one to Google.
