Web Browser Grand Prix 5: Opera 11.50, Firefox 5, And Chrome 12

By Adam Overa
published

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?

Performance Benchmarks: HTML5 Hardware Acceleration And WebGL

HTML5 Hardware Acceleration

Psychedelic Browsing

First-place finisher Firefox 5 manages to slide past IE9 in Microsoft's own Psychedelic Browsing benchmark. Far behind in third place is Chrome with a score of only 24 points. Opera and Safari take fourth and fifth, with scores of 13 and 8, respectively.

Hardware Acceleration Stress Test

Firefox 5 again ties with IE9 for first place in Mozilla's Hardware Acceleration Stress Test, both earning the maximum score of 60+ frames per second. Chrome barely comes in third at 19 FPS, with Opera closely following at 18 FPS. Safari flounders in last place with a score of only four frames per second.

The slight edge in HTML5 hardware acceleration goes to Firefox 5 over IE9.

Khronos Particles

Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are in a near-tie for first place with scores of 59.2 FPS and 58.9 FPS, respectively.

WebGL Aquarium

Chrome 12 hits 60 frames per second in the WebGL Aquarium demo, while Firefox 5 only manages to reach 32 FPS.

Google's Web browser appears to handle WebGL measurably better than Mozilla's.

Adam Overa
102 Comments Comment from the forums
  • adampower
    Wow, it seems like I upgrade my browsers every week.
    Reply
  • somehow it seems that firefox is focussing more on benchmarks rather than actual real world usage.
    Reply
  • opera keeps impressing me throughout the WBGP
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    Now if just Google would release a 64-bit Chrome browser.
    Reply
  • Tamz_msc
    First of all, this is the most thorough WBGP yet.
    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.
    Reply
  • 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
    9516697 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.
    That's easy: FF+AdBlock Plus+ NoScript+Ghostery+BrowserProtect
    Reply
  • 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
  • ChiefTexas_82
    I don't like how Nvidia's GPU auto-detect doesn't work on chrome.
    Reply
  • thartist
    Damn, Opera has it's flaws but it's nonetheless the one that does one thing best: browsing.
    Reply