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

Features
By Adam Overa
published

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?

Performance Benchmarks: JavaScript, DOM, And CSS

Peacekeeper

The placing in Windows 7 for Peacekeeper is: Chrome, Opera, Safari, IE, and Firefox. Safari 5.10 for Windows surges ahead of its 5.05 score by nearly 1700 points. Other than Safari, the Peacekeeper scores from Windows are virtually the same as we saw in WBGP5, with minor improvements favoring the other four browsers.

The placing in OS X is slightly different, with the number two spot going to Safari, and Opera taking third.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
JavaScript

Kraken

The Kraken results are nearly the same as what we saw in WBGP5, only Chrome shows significant improvement, shaving 450 milliseconds off its already-winning time. Firefox again places second, with Opera in third, IE9 in fourth, and Safari picking up the rear.

The story changes in OS X. Safari earns third place on its native platform, beating Opera and shaving 5000 milliseconds off its Windows 7 score.

SunSpider

The finishing order is again the same as it was in WBGP5, with IE9 taking the gold, followed by Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and then Safari. The only notable change is that Safari 5.10 takes an additional 40 milliseconds over version 5.05.

The order completely changes in OS X. Firefox takes first place, followed by Safari and Chrome in a near-tie for third, with Opera coming in last.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
DOM

Dromeao DOM

As usual, Opera beats everyone with ease in DOM testing. Firefox 6 earns second place with a score 100 runs per second higher than Firefox 5. Safari 5.10 adds about 100 runs over Safari 5.05, jumping from fourth up to third. Chrome 13 finishes fourth, with a score 200 runs less than Chrome 12. Internet Explorer 9 again winds up in last place, scoring only half of what Opera did.

All is not well for Opera on Mac OS X. The Norwegian Web browser that had been tearing up the competition in DOM benchmarks falls to nearly half of its Windows 7 score, barely taking third place.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
CSS

Maze Solver

We tweaked the methodology for testing Maze Solver. The maze is now cleared and re-created for each iteration of this test, and more iterations are used for generating results.

Chrome still holds the lead, but Safari jumps from fourth place to second. Opera drops to third, and IE9 drops to fourth due to Safari 5.1's higher score. Firefox is again far behind the competition in this test, with miserable scores exceeding one minute. All of the Web browsers perform noticeably worse in Mac OS X than in Windows 7.

Adam Overa
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