Web Browser Grand Prix 5: Opera 11.50, Firefox 5, And Chrome 12
Three major released have landed since our last impromptu Web Browser Grand Prix (WBGP4): Chrome 12, Firefox 5, and Opera 11.50. Can Chrome or Opera regain the WBGP championship? Will Mozilla Firefox ever overtake Microsoft's IE9 in the rankings?
Web Browser Grand Prix Setup
Test System Specs
| 64-bit Desktop Test System | |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-750 @ 2.8 GHz (Quad Core) |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD7 (F7 BIOS) |
| Memory | 8 GB Crucial DDR3 @ 1333 MT/s (2 x 4 GB) |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 4870 Reference Board 512 MB GDDR5 (PCEe 2.0) |
| Storage | Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500 GB SATA 3Gb/s, 7200 RPM |
| Optical | Asus DRW-241ST/BLK/B/AS |
| Power Supply | Corsair TX750W (750 W) |
| Chassis | Zalman MS1000-HS2 |
| CPU Cooler | Scythe Mugen 2 Revision B |
Starting with this article, we're adding a battery life benchmark to the WBGP. Obviously, the desktop test system doesn't work for this type of metric, so we pulled out the old first-gen Dell Inspiron Mini 10v for this new test.
| 32-bit Netbook Test System | |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit) |
| Model | Dell Inspiron Mini 10v (first-generation) |
| Processor | Intel Atom N270 @ 1.6 GHz |
| Memory | 1 GB DDR2-533 |
| Graphics | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950 |
| Storage | 120 GB HDD 2.5-inch 5400 RPM SATA 3Gb/s |
Both our page load time tests and the new Facebook JSGameBench are server/client benchmarks and require a local Web server. For this, we polished up one of our finest old beige boxen, installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server, and connected it to our LAN.
| Local Server Specs | |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx Server Edition (32-bit) |
| Processor | AMD Athlon @ 1150 MHZ |
| Motherboard | Soyo Dragon Platinum |
| Memory | 512 MB DDR |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon 9550 256 MB DDR |
| Storage | 40 GB Western Digital HDD WD400BB |
| Optical | Samsung DVD-ROM SD-616T |
| Additional Packages | Apache2, MySQL Client, MySQL Server, PHP5, PHP-GD, PHP5-MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, SSH, node.jes, NPM, socket.io |
Setup
Before testing, Windows 7 was fully updated to Service Pack 1 on 6/20/11 for the 64-bit desktop test system, and on 6/25/2011 for the 32-bit netbook test system. On both test systems, power management was set to never engage and all Action Center notifications were disabled. The table below lists all the additional software installed onto the test systems, including drivers, plug-ins, and the Web browsers:
| Additional Software | Version |
|---|---|
| AMD Catalyst | 11.6 |
| Adobe Flash | 10.3.181.26 |
| Microsoft Silverlight | 4.0.60531.0 |
| Oracle Java | 6.0.260 |
| Apple Safari | 5.05 (7533.21.1) |
| Google Chrome | 12.0.742.112 |
| Microsoft Internet Explorer | 9.0.8112.16421 |
| Mozilla Firefox | 5.0 |
| Opera | 11.50 (build 1074) |
Methodology
The computer was restarted and allowed to warm-up before benchmarking the next browser. Other than the conformance benchmarks, all of our final scores are an average of several iterations. More iterations were run on tests that have short durations, lower scales, and/or higher variations. The table below lists all of the 37 benchmarks in the current WBGP test suite, along with the number of iterations performed for each test.
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| Test | Iterations |
|---|---|
| Performance Benchmarks (27) | |
| Startup Time (1 Tab and 8 Tabs) | 5 |
| Page Load Time (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo!, MSN) | 5 |
| Peacekeeper | 3 |
| Kraken v1.1 | 3 |
| SunSpider v0.9.1 | 3 |
| Dromaeo DOM | 3 |
| Maze Solver | 3 |
| Flash Benchmark 2008 v1.09.1 | 3 |
| GUIMark2 Flash (Vector Charting, Bitmap Gaming, Text Columns) | 5 |
| GUIMark Java 5 Swing | 5 |
| Encog Silverlight Benchmark | 5 |
| Facebook JSGameBench v4.1 | 3 |
| GUIMark2 HTML5 (Vector Charting 1 pixel, Bitmap Gaming, Text Columns) | 5 |
| Asteroids HTML5 Canvas And JavaScript 2D | 3 |
| Psychedelic Browsing | 3 |
| Hardware Acceleration Stress Test | 3 |
| Khronos Particles | 5 |
| WebGL Aquarium | 5 |
| Efficiency Benchmarks (5) | |
| Memory Usage (1 Tab, 40 Tabs) | 3 |
| Memory Management (-39 Tabs 5 minutes, -39 Tabs 10 minutes) | 3 |
| Battery Life | 3 |
| Reliability Benchmarks (1) | |
| Proper Page Loads | 3 |
| Conformance Benchmarks (4) | |
| Sputnik v2 | 1 |
| Acid3 | 1 |
| CSS3 Selectors Test | 1 |
| HTML5Test.com | 1 |
Additional details about a specific benchmark can be found on the corresponding benchmark results page.
Current page: Web Browser Grand Prix Setup
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somehow it seems that firefox is focussing more on benchmarks rather than actual real world usage.Reply
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Tamz_msc First of all, this is the most thorough WBGP yet.Reply
somehow it seems that firefox is focussing more on benchmarks rather than actual real world usage.
I don't think so - proper page loads and battery life are important considerations.
I agree that Mozilla did not do a right thing in copying Chrome's release cycle, but at least they're trying - for example, they're trying hard in bringing down memory usage by increasing the garbage collection frequency(check this out in the Aurora and Nightly builds).
WBGP is basically a test of speed, and Chrome may have won in that, but Firefox is not far behind. I can wait for two or three seconds for my page to load. You can easily bring down the page load times by using addons like AdBlock Plus.
Even with the faster release cycle, this article clearly states that Firefox is still the most stable browser. Many people say that they've had numerous crashes, but its something wrong with their drivers or OS - I have not had a single crash since FF 4.0 beta 5 (or 7?), when they introduced hardware acceleration for the first time.
Firefox remains the most customizable browser, while Opera has the most number of features out-of-the-box.
So overall, according to me Firefox>=Opera>Chrome>IE 9> Safari. -
cadder Will you guys please investigate the SECURITY of each browser? I would use the one that is most secure even if it is slowest.Reply -
Tamz_msc Reply
That's easy: FF+AdBlock Plus+ NoScript+Ghostery+BrowserProtect9516697 said:Will you guys please investigate the SECURITY of each browser? I would use the one that is most secure even if it is slowest. -
ChiefTexas_82 IE 9 is a speed demon? I droped IE because it started running like ****. I blame loading too many side programs after years on the web. So I wanted to try Chrome or Firefox. Being a Google fan already, I tried Chrome. So far it leaves my old IE8 in the dust. Except for a certain bug, I would say it has been an improvement in almost every way.Reply -
thartist Damn, Opera has it's flaws but it's nonetheless the one that does one thing best: browsing.Reply