Web Browser Grand Prix VI: Firefox 6, Chrome 13, Mac OS X Lion

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Chrome 13, Firefox 6, Safari 5.1, and Mac OS X Lion (10.7) have all emerged since our last Web Browser Grand Prix. Today, we test the latest browsers on both major platforms. How do the Mac-based browsers stack up against their Windows 7 counterparts?

Placing Tables

Windows 7 Placing Tables

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Performance Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Chrome 5 2 5 4 1
Firefox 5 4 1 2 4
Internet Explorer 4 6 2 3 2
Opera 3 2 6 3 3
Safari 1 3 3 5 6

When we only take raw placing in the performance tests into account, Chrome 13 appears to have a slight lead over Firefox 6 and IE9.

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WebGL Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd
Chrome 2 1
Firefox 1 2

The WebGL testing on Windows 7 gives the edge to Google Chrome 13 over Mozilla Firefox 6.

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Efficiency Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Chrome 2 1 Row 1 - Cell 3 Row 1 - Cell 4 1
Firefox Row 2 - Cell 1 1 1 2 Row 2 - Cell 5
Internet Explorer 1 2 Row 3 - Cell 3 1 Row 3 - Cell 5
Opera Row 4 - Cell 1 Row 4 - Cell 2 1 Row 4 - Cell 4 3
Safari 1 Row 5 - Cell 2 2 1 Row 5 - Cell 5

Chrome appears to win here, followed closely by IE9, then Safari, Firefox, and Opera.

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Reliability Placing
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Opera Safari Firefox Chrome Internet Explorer

With a single test, the reliability placing is pretty straightforward.

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Conformance Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Chrome 3 Row 1 - Cell 2 1 Row 1 - Cell 4 Row 1 - Cell 5
Firefox 2 2 Row 2 - Cell 3 Row 2 - Cell 4 Row 2 - Cell 5
Internet Explorer 1 1 1 Row 3 - Cell 4 1
Opera 2 Row 4 - Cell 2 1 Row 4 - Cell 4 1
Safari 2 Row 5 - Cell 2 Row 5 - Cell 3 2 Row 5 - Cell 5

The overall conformance placing skews the results of our composite score. Despite the placing table, Chrome 13 sweeps the conformance testing in Windows 7, followed closely by Firefox 6. Safari 5.1 earns third, Opera drops to fourth, and IE9 come in last.

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Total Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Chrome 10 3 6 5 2
Firefox 7 7 3 4 4
Internet Explorer 6 9 3 4 4
Opera 6 2 8 3 7
Safari 4 4 5 8 6

The total placing clearly has Chrome in the lead, followed by Firefox. Internet Explorer grabs third, while Opera takes fourth, and Safari for Windows places last.

Mac OS X Lion Placing Tables

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Performance Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Chrome 3 5 4 5
Firefox 3 2 6 6
Opera 5 2 5 5
Safari 6 8 2 1

The Mac OS X Lion-based performance results offer a stark contrast to the Windows 7 table. In OS X, Safari holds a clear advantage, followed by Opera. Windows 7-winner Chrome only places third on the Apple platform, while Firefox takes fourth.

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WebGL Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd
Chrome 1 2
Firefox 2 1

The WebGL placing is also reversed in OS X, with Firefox beating Chrome.

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Reliability Placing
1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Opera Firefox Chrome Safari

Strangely, Safari falls short of its Windows 7 numbers in reliability placing for OS X.

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Conformance Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Chrome 3 1 Row 1 - Cell 3 Row 1 - Cell 4
Firefox 2 2 Row 2 - Cell 3 Row 2 - Cell 4
Opera 2 Row 3 - Cell 2 Row 3 - Cell 3 2
Safari 2 Row 4 - Cell 2 2 Row 4 - Cell 4

Conformance placing in Lion is nearly the same as in Windows 7, just with one less browser.

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Total Placing
Row 0 - Cell 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Chrome 8 6 6 6
Firefox 5 5 7 9
Opera 9 5 5 7
Safari 9 9 6 2

The OS X total placing shows Safari to be the clear winner, with Opera and Chrome duking it out for second. Firefox is most definitely the last-place finisher.

92 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ne0nguy
    The first chart says "higher is better" for the load time
    Reply
  • adamovera
    ne0nguyThe first chart says "higher is better" for the load timethank you, workin' on it
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    Chrome is the best browser out there right now. While FireFox maybe more popular then Chrome is, Chrome has shown why it is the best browser out today. If you haven't used Chrome yet it's def worth a look.
    Reply
  • soccerdocks
    The reader function in safari actually looks really nice. Although I'd never use Safari on principle. I hope other browsers implement a similar function.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    why does firefox(6/8/9) performa so horribly on the IE9 maze solover test?
    chrome13 completely obliterats it.

    and firefox 8/9 are still a memory hog.
    not really surprised by poor show of ie9. moat updates it gets are "security updates".
    Reply
  • tofu2go
    Being on a Macbook with only 3GB of memory, memory is the most important factor for me. I open a LOT of tabs and I keep them open for long periods. For awhile I used Chrome, but recently switched to Firefox 6 and saw my memory utilization drop by well over 1GB. Granted with Firefox I was able to do something I am not able to do in any other browser, I could group my tabs into tab groups. I believe this allows for more efficient memory management, i.e. only the current group uses much memory. Not having done any tests, this is pure speculation. All I know is that I'm seeing MUCH lower memory usage with Firefox on OSX. Despite what this article would suggest.
    Reply
  • @soccerdocks

    Yeah? And exactly what principle would that be?
    Reply
  • andy5174
    @Google:
    Bring back the Google Dictionary, otherwise I will use Bing Search, Firefox and Facebook instead of Google Search, Chrome and G+.
    Reply
  • kartu
    Firefox 6 comes in third for both OSes, representing a major drop from Firefox 5.
    According to the graphic on "Reliability Benchmarks: Proper Page Loads" on MacOS Firefox is actually second, not third.
    Reply
  • LaloFG
    I keep Opera, more memory used and time to load pages is nothing when it load pages correctly; and the feeling in its interface is the greater.
    Reply