RoboHornet: The Next Big Thing In Browser Benchmarking

By Adam Overa
published

Today, Google and GitHub unveil the mysterious project RoboHornet. This ambitious all-in-one Web browser performance benchmark is like no other seen before, and we have early access! Will RoboHornet become the one browser benchmark to rule them all?

RoboHornet Results: Windows 7 And 8

Windows 7

Chrome 21 proves too much for its competition under Windows 7, achieving nearly 78% above baseline. IE9 places second, just 27% behind the front-runner. For those of you who've been asking, we're including the 64-bit version of IE9 as well, though it's about 11% behind its 32-bit counterpart. Third-place finisher Opera 12 nearly ties with the 64-bit IE9 at 38% over baseline. Firefox 15 pulls up the rear, just 16% over the baseline.

Drill Down

Image 1 of 5
Chrome 21

Windows 8

Breaking out Windows 8 RTM for the first time in a browser comparison yields some very surprising results. Internet Explorer 10 smashes the competition, performing 37% better than even the latest version of Google's Chrome and earning the only score in this test to double the baseline. Still no slouch, Chrome 21 is far ahead of third-place finisher Opera 12, at 71% and 33% above baseline (respectively). Firefox 15 again places last.

Drill Down

Image 1 of 4
Chrome 21

So far RoboHornet has been terrible to Mozilla and great for Microsoft. Incredible results, not at all expected.

Adam Overa
26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • aicom
    Nice to see that IE10 has got some fight in it. I haven't really used it much on Win8 after installing Chrome though. If IE can get that plugin ecosystem that Firefox and Chrome have plus some of the nice cloud syncing stuff with Win8/RT/Phone that Safari and Chrome do with their mobile brethren, I'd definitely consider IE.

    They've got to quit bundling OS updates and IE together though. Otherwise, they get left behind when all the other browsers get updated, but IE doesn't. When IE 9 came out, it was quite the monster too, but 3 years is a long time for other browsers to catch and easily overtake it.
    Reply
  • puddleglum
    Good to see the browsers broken out by OS. Not everyone runs MS.
    Reply
  • How about firefox on android ?
    Reply
  • adamovera
    hheexxHow about firefox on android ?Didn't work. It may eventually finish but it spent way too long on the first test, pretty much the same story with Maxthon, Opera, and Sleipnir on Android. Same deal on iOS. They specifically mentioned that mobile was not yet supported, but it will be a priority in the future. Maxthon took a very long time on Windows, OS X, and Android, so I aborted it, but I have a feeling that it would finish eventually (could literally be hours though, and I didn't have time to wait). If anyone reports Maxthon, Sleipnir or Camino actually finishing the test, I'll give them another go and update the article accordingly.
    Reply
  • aaab
    RH-A1:0092.97
    2 out of 17 benchmark(s) failed.

    My poor work PC :(
    Reply
  • What an awful collection of microbenchmarks. Go read Hennessy and Patterson; the best benchmarks are real apps, not tiny little tests that measure a single thing.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    IE10's win on Win8 makes me wonder if the benchmark makes use of specialised data arrays, which are supported in IE10 only.

    In normal use, IE10 performs worse than FF15, so i dont see how it scored that much better.
    Reply
  • alikum
    mayankleoboy1IE10's win on Win8 makes me wonder if the benchmark makes use of specialised data arrays, which are supported in IE10 only.In normal use, IE10 performs worse than FF15, so i dont see how it scored that much better.How exactly? I'm using IE10 for work and home and it's been superb thus far, with 0 crashes. Can't say the same for FF. It's a memory hog.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    ^ to each his own :)

    FWIW, the actual mozilla developers had no clue about this benchmark prior to this article. Infact, they have started working on this benchmark after someone reported this article. So IMO, the presence of Mozilla is marginal at best in the overseeing member committee

    And, mozila has only one representative. More than half of the committee members are google people. Makes me wonder if there is some unintentional bias....
    Reply
  • freggo
    Win 7 with Firefox 15.0.1

    typed robohornet.com as the URL and get a friendly 404 error.
    Actually have to use www.robohornet.com !

    Now isn't that kinda sad ? :-)

    Reply