Web Browser Grand Prix: Chrome 18, Firefox 11, Windows XP

Features
By Adam Overa
published

Over the past two years, we've tested the top five Web browsers using modern PC hardware. But today, going against all that is sacred to the enthusiast crowd, we're breaking out an old beige box to bring you Web Browser Grand Prix: Windows XP Edition!

Standards Conformance Benchmarks

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JavaScript

Ecma test262

Chrome takes the lead in the latest version of test262, beating Opera by just 19 points. Firefox claims third place, 102 points behind Opera. Safari places last, while IE8 does not run.

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HTML5

HTML5Test.com

Chrome also leads in the HTML5Test.com benchmark, earning nearly 50 points more than second-place finisher Opera. Firefox takes third place with a score of 320 out of 475, followed by Safari in fourth place. IE8 is decisively in last place, scoring less than one-tenth of the possible points.

FutureMark Peacekeeper HTML5 Capabilities

Chrome again takes the lead with a perfect score of seven out of seven in the HTML5 Capabilities portion of Peacekeeper. Firefox and Opera tie for second place, earning five out of seven possible points. Safari only earns a single point, while IE8 doesn't get any points, putting it in last place.

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Conformance Composite Grade

Chrome earns an A grade in standards conformance, followed by Opera and Firefox with unbelievably close B- and C+ grades (respectively). Safari earns a high failure, and IE8 gets as close to not even showing up to take the test as you can be.

But keep in mind, this conformance grade only takes into account tests in which modern browsers do not earn 100%. IE8 would still be eligible for scores in many of the conformance tests that we've retired from the WBGP. Including those metrics would raise the scores of all contenders, but their positions relative to IE8 wouldn't change.

Adam Overa
61 Comments Comment from the forums
  • wheredahoodat
    "Both Opera and Chrome feltmuch smoother on our old PC than Firefox"

    I do kinda feel the difference with Firefox's responsive going from my main modern desktop to my older labtop that has regulated to a makeshift HTC. I believe Firefox XUL interface is the culprit; it was a big enough problem for Firefox mobile to abandon it in favor of native Android GUI, but who knows at this point. I guess might actually give Opera a chance.
    Reply
  • agnickolov
    How come only a single reader requested numerical composite scoring, that's the most logical way of scoring after all! With that said, I'd have liked if you didn't use the rankings but the raw scores after a more intelligent transformation as the input for weighted averaging...
    For example, for each category you could subtract the lowest-placed score from all scores and then normalize in the range by dividing all adjusted scores by the topmost adjusted score. This way the top perfomer always has 1 and the worst performer always has 0 modified score (you'd need to invert them for tests where lower is better of course, e.g. subtract these from 1). Then apply your ranks to these scores and you get the composite score. It's not a perfect transformation, but it certainly has more fairly distributed weight (pun intended) than what you have used here.
    Reply
  • gwiz1987
    Why is IE8 being benched and not IE9?
    Reply
  • aznjoka
    Thats my Opera, for those who have never tried Opera. It's an amazing piece of software, it does the job, and it does it better then most.
    Reply
  • confish21
    Interesting move to make this article. Well done! Don't waste your time on a vista run though... Im so close my release date. xD
    Reply
  • csbeer
    aznjokaThats my Opera, for those who have never tried Opera. It's an amazing piece of software, it does the job, and it does it better then most.
    XP can't run 9. Need to upgrade OS in order to get higher IE.
    Reply
  • dameon51
    gwiz1987Why is IE8 being benched and not IE9?XP doesn't support 9, only 8.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    excellent review!
    some points:

    1.A lot of corporates still use IE7. maybe you should include that too in your benchmarks

    2.if you remove HTML5 (with and without H/W acceleration), i think Opera's victory margin will be quite huge.

    3.Regarding smoothness, i beleive FF is quite poor in this. But the developers know about it and are very activle working on it. I thik FF13 will be the release when smoothness will improve. look at "Firefox Snappy".

    4. i would like to have a subjective recommendation at the end of the article, something you subjectively felt was the best amongst all the browsers, even though it may be trailing in numbers.
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    Why did you use the AGP? I bet 99.99% of those Pentium4 era computers use the onboard Intel IGP.
    Also that would definitely disable the H/W acceleration of browsers.

    Reply
  • Anyone who is still stuck using Windows 2000, Opera supports you.

    Reply