RoboHornet Pro: Microsoft Snubs Google, Mozilla Concurs!

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Last week we broke the story of RoboHornet, a new Web browser performance benchmark. Today, we chronicle the fallout of what is perhaps the worst-received benchmark launch in history, plus add the results of Microsoft's counter-move: RoboHornet Pro.

RoboHornet Pro Results: OS X And iOS

OS X Mountain Lion

Our current cross-platform test system provides unusually low Web results under OS X Mountain Lion compared to other operating systems. While the OS X browser scores appear to be accurate in relation to each other, none of the OS X scores should be used to draw conclusions about OS X versus the other desktop environments in this test. Until we can pin down the culprit, please view the OS X results as if they were obtained on an entirely different test system.

With a perfectly smooth background animation, Apple Safari manages to pass Microsoft's new benchmark with flying colors on OS X. Believe it or not, minor-league browser Sleipnir also does quite well. Although not perfectly fluid like Safari or IE10, Sleipnir is a long way from the chop-fest presented by Chrome, Firefox, and Maxthon. Like its Windows counterpart, the OS X version of Opera does not display the animated background at all.

The following video contains a sample iteration of all six OS X browsers:

iOS 6

The original RoboHornet would not run on iOS, but Microsoft's version does. And how!

This is no mistake. Each and every iOS-based browser can flawlessly run RoboHornet Pro. Since Apple mandates that all third-party Web browsers distributed through the App Store must use Safari's rendering and JavaScript engine, if Safari passes, they all will. Among the iOS browsers, stock Safari is the leader, completing the test in 86 seconds. Safari is followed by Dolphin at 89 seconds, with Yahoo! Axis, Maxthon, and Sleipnir all tying for third place at 91 seconds. Chrome brings up the rear at almost 93 seconds.

Each of these third-party iOS browsers are essentially just a new GUI and additional functionality added to Safari, so it makes perfect sense that vanilla Safari is the quickest of the bunch.

Opera Mini, and ostensibly any of the "Mini" browsers (such as Skyfire) that perform browser workloads on a remote server cannot run RoboHornet Pro, and therefore could not be included.

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27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • techcurious
    A little off topic, but something just occurred to me.. that we had Safari on Windows, but not IE on OSX..
    Now that OSX market share is increasing, I wonder if Microsoft will ever release Internet Explorer for OSX, and I wonder if Apple will allow it..
    Reply
  • techcurious
    ... nevermind.. I would rate myself down if I could.. cause after further thought, I realized that anyone that chose to use OSX over Windows will never choose to use IE over Safari or Firefox.. Something I am sure Microsoft also realizes :)
    Reply
  • dalethepcman
    My one complaint about this article, was the contrast between the massive amount of iOS browsers, and the utter lack of Android browsers. You stated yourself.
    Each of these third-party iOS browsers are essentially just a new GUI and additional functionality added to Safari

    Why not also test firefox, dolphin, skyfire and stock browsers on android?
    Reply
  • dalethepcman
    techcurious... nevermind.. I would rate myself down if I could.. cause after further thought, I realized that anyone that chose to use OSX over Windows will never choose to use IE over Safari or Firefox.. Something I am sure Microsoft also realizes
    Actually I have many Mac users that would use IE in OSX just for the convenience of pass through authentication, but since its not available they all have a separately purchased copy of windows to run in a VM or access IE through Citrix for domain resources.
    Reply
  • adamovera
    dalethepcmanMy one complaint about this article, was the contrast between the massive amount of iOS browsers, and the utter lack of Android browsers. You stated yourself.Why not also test firefox, dolphin, skyfire and stock browsers on android?I attempted to, they either wouldn't run the test at all, or they hang indefinitely and are unable to complete it. Stay tuned for the Android Web Browser Grand Prix for the full benchmark results of browsers on that platform.
    Reply
  • tipoo
    I agree with Mozilla, perceived speed > benchmarks for browsers. And ironically that's exactly where they fail hardest. Chrome, Opera, heck sometimes even IE10 now always seem more responsive and stay more responsive than Firefox in my experience. I like its font rendering, I like its smooth scrolling (well, IE10 has those too, I think it has to do with DirectWrite more than the browser) but the small instances of UI lag bug me after using Chrome for so long.
    Reply
  • tipoo
    Once more I'm puzzled why browsers in OSX are consistently and significantly slower than Windows and Ubuntu, even the same browser cross platform.
    Reply
  • adamovera
    tipooOnce more I'm puzzled why browsers in OSX are consistently and significantly slower than Windows and Ubuntu, even the same browser cross platform.From page 4: "Our current cross-platform test system provides unusually low Web results under OS X Mountain Lion compared to other operating systems. While the OS X browser scores appear to be accurate in relation to each other, none of the OS X scores should be used to draw conclusions about OS X versus the other desktop environments in this test. Until we can pin down the culprit, please view the OS X results as if they were obtained on an entirely different test system."
    I have been unable to track down the cause of this problem - I tried every single network driver I could find, multiple re-installs, and different DSDT files. This is the only Hackintosh system we've ever used that has this issue - our older Lynnfield-based rig didn't. Hopefully, when I build a totally new Ivy Bridge-based rig this problem will just go away, if not, I guess I need an actual Mac - but that could leave Linux twisting in the wind since Bootcamp is just for Windows - on paper, anyway :(
    Reply
  • tipoo
    Got ya, I missed that part. Maybe a commenter with a mac can give it a quick run to see how it compares to the hackintosh.
    Reply
  • adamovera
    tipooGot ya, I missed that part. Maybe a commenter with a mac can give it a quick run to see how it compares to the hackintosh.They have, and they're all reporting Web-related scores are higher on Mac's with lower-end hardware than our test system. Also, our old Lynnfield-based system shows OS X browsers doing way better in relation to Windows browsers on that Hackintosh versus a genuine MacBook Air - so it's definitely our current Hackintosh configuration and not OS X to blame for the lower scores versus other OSes.
    Reply