RoboHornet: The Next Big Thing In Browser Benchmarking

Features
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: OS X Mountain Lion

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

After receiving numerous conflicting results from readers with genuine Macs, it has come to our attention that our current cross-platform test system provides unusually low browser scores under OS X. After several different networking driver swaps, the scores remain quite low 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 other environments in this test. Our previous Core i5 (Lynnfield)-based cross-platform test system did not exhibit this behavior, but actually showed browsers under OS X performing better than Windows 7-based browsers on the Hackintosh than on a genuine MacBook Air. So, until we can track down the culprit, please view the OS X results as if they were obtained on different hardware than the other OSes.

Safari 6 takes first place with ease on OS X, maintaining a cool 14% lead over second-place finisher Google Chrome. Trailing an appropriate 21% behind Chrome 21 is Firefox 15. Opera 12 places last in RoboHornet on OS X, another 15 percentage points behind Firefox, roughly half of Safari's winning score.

Things are looking good for RoboHornet on OS X; this finishing order closely mirrors our results from Web Browser Grand Prix: Firefox 15, Safari 6, OS X Mountain Lion.

Drill Down

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Chrome 21
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