Legit Reviews

Which Internet Browser is Fastest for Windows?

Futuremark Corporation today unveiled Peacekeeper, a free online benchmarking tool for measuring and comparing the performance of common internet browsers. We ran the benchmark on 11 browsers to see which one is the fastest and we even included Firefox 3.1 beta 3, which just came out today!

Using a resolution of 1920x1200 and no other applications open we fired up the brand new Peacemaker benchmark to see which was the fastest browser. After the dust settled Apple's Safari 4.0 beta was clearly in the lead and was found to be over six times faster than the slowest browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7.0. It should be pointed out that SeaMonkey 2.0 Alpha 3 did very well and offers significant improvements over SeaMonkey 1.1.14. Firefox 3.1 beta 3 was just released this afternoon and it offers better performance than the previous beta.

Article Title: Which Internet Browser is Fastest for Windows?
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/929/1/
DIGG IT: http://digg.com/microsoft/Which_Interne ... or_Windows

Amazing how much slower that is than a Core i7.

Core i7 920 @3.2GHz

Safari: 1897
Chrome: 1672
Opera: 882

Something just isn't right with Opera, I'm still loving chrome!!

i might have to try out safari on my wifes netbook.

pwcmed wrote:i might have to try out safari on my wifes netbook.

I tried it and switched back to Chrome/Firefox

Zertz wrote:

pwcmed wrote:i might have to try out safari on my wifes netbook.

I tried it and switched back to Chrome/Firefox

Just remember this script tests what is being used on sites like YouTube, Facebook, GMail and Meebo. If you are going to try it you should notice a difference on those pages...

Firefox 3.1 beta 3 is nice ;)

Very interesting benchmark... On Intel Q9550 and Geforce 9600GSO

IE7 32-bit -> 232
IE7 64-bit -> 302
FF 3.0.7 -> 551
Chrome 1.0.154.48 -> 1208
Safari 4.0 -> 1484

Any of these other browsers (non-FF) have ad block capabilities? Chrome is fast but I can't stand the ads. If I didn't need IE to update my XP machine it would be uninstalled.

OK, after reading this article I've kinda snapped it, and did some browser testing myself. REAL testing, not something like "we'll choose these few java scripts and test only them"..

So a friend and me sat on the same computers, inside same LAN, and he tried out latest non-beta Opera, Chrome and FF, and I was playing with my beloved Maxthon2+IE8 RC1.

OK, I've had some problems when opening 100+ pages all at once, with no ad-blocking or script/activex blocking. Site list was pretty long, and included real sites like IT news/review sites (legitreviews, ananadtech, inquirer, tomshardware, tgdaily, fudzilla,..) bunch of forums (pcekspert, xtremesystems, guru3d, ...), facebook, gamespot, youtube, microsoft, google, gmail, several map-sites, several local (croatian) news sites, and so on and so on.. Like I've said, 100+ of them. His FF had no problems, and opened them all in 2 minutes and 10 seconds without pre-caching and in 1:50 the second time (partly cached content). I had to open them in 2 separate groups, but when opening second right after first one I was too around 2:10 time (with cacheced content).. So than he enabled all ad-blockers and turned off all scripting (flash/java/javascript) and had it opened a bit faster, but not by much, he was still over one and a half minutes there (with cached content). Than I've just enabled ad-blocking (my own hand-made filters which block just ADS) and I've opened those 100 pages in 50 seconds (again, without cleaning cache), and had no problems whatsoever because browsers memory footprint fell from ~1GB to ~400MB. By turning everything off (activex/flash/javascript/java) I've shaved several more seconds off that result, but indeed not much. Btw, FF with nothing disabled had around 550MB memory size, so this is one thing which it does much better than IE+Maxthon.

So in the end, if we compare the setup which I always use (activex/flash/scripts ENABLED, but Ad-blocker ENABLED) and setup he always uses (everything disabled+FF ad-blocker) I'm still somewhat in front of him with IE8+Maxthon2. But it's not huge difference, as I doubt many people open 100 pages AT ONCE. And on the sample of 10 pages, he'd have them opened in let's say 8 seconds, and me in 6. Does it matter much? Nope. Because some other 10 pages I'll be loading in 15 seconds, and he'll load them in 10. But we won't die because of those few seconds, or <1s per page.

Oh, and I'v mentioned Opera and Chrome in the start. Opera was more or less the same as FF, and Chrome was slow as hell, cos it was opening 5 pages at a time, and paused between them a bit. So it took a while.

I'd say there was certainly no loosers there, not in speed. And certainly not a 6:1 ratio.

And we tested REAL websites, in REAL user scenario. No benchmarks, just pure browser power.

So please, if you have a way, test those 11 browsers as they should be tested. Pick some of the top most visited sites, forums, news sites, webmails and so on, and try opening them in those browsers and just measure the time. Don't bother with some futuremark tests, or javascript-only test.

Especialy not javascript-only tests. People forget that FLASH CONTENT kills any browsing 10x more than any JavaScript-heavy page. This is the reason why I've dropped browsers memory usage by 600MB, just by eliminating flash advertisments.

Well, enough of my rants, there won't be much point anyway, as I doubt either FutureMark, Microsoft or FF Foundation will listen to this :/

I totally agree that there is a lot more to browser performance than what these few benchmark tests show but for the sake of this article, it's not an exhaustive, definitive test, but just running a new benchmark 'suite' on a hot product right now. I'm glad you added who you were aiming your rant at on the last line, as I was wondering if it was aimed at LR

Dan

Yeah, well, you guys did your part of work, since you DID ask FutureMark what this 6:1 performance means, so you did your part of work :D But I trully hope there WILL be an extensive bench of these browsres, at least after IE8 final is out ;) If you do decide to do an article like that, pls msg me, as I do have few suggestions I do some home-made browser testing all the time.. and it all started about 7-8 years ago, when I've discovered IE shells for the first time :D Testing "pure" browsers is fine, but most of people that do care about speed don't use just default install, there are always addons, plugins, shells and such included in their builds, and probably 100% of those people do include ad-blockers and such. I know, not to your likings since you live from ads, but that's the harsh truth anyway :/ So there's really material for a 10-page article in the "browser world"

Major_A wrote:Any of these other browsers (non-FF) have ad block capabilities? Chrome is fast but I can't stand the ads. If I didn't need IE to update my XP machine it would be uninstalled.

I'd say use proxomitron or privoxy. much faster and more efficient.

lol thats a load of bunk when you realize hust how many ACCELERATION programs there are in firefox. with firefox related tools and optimizations firefox curbstomps the other browsers by far. just USING firefox makes the internet a better place. not to mention that firefox is practically a lockbox for security with addons that can clear your your Super cookies as well as your regular cookies.. and pile of other stuff i bet to all of you is foreign english! and theres even EXTERNAL addons for firefox that will easily allow firefox to preform memory intensive applications flawlessly.

apart from that. i wouldnt trust that java based application as far as i can THROW it until i see the sourcecode. for instance if u use speedguide.nets 's free testing service... when it recieves a referall from your current isp its design to be BIASED , meaning that the test is swayed by whoever pays more for their results.

final note:: windows automatic anything... dive dive dive , lets consider that electricity travels at the speed of ligh until its interrupted, thus explaining the sparks, so therefore how much more stupid is windows compared to linux for windows creating limits and believing in phony functions such as nagles delay wait algorithm! what a NAG man.

Thanks for sharing the information, I didn't know that safari is ahead, I'm going to try it and see the difference myself. By the way have you ever heard of google chrome's adblock plus extension is now available? If you guys want to try it out you can download it https://adblockplus.org/en/chrome

Below are the criteria TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate Internet browsers.

Feature Set
Top–ranked Internet browsers offer many practical features that make surfing the web faster, easier and more convenient. A few of these features are tabbed browsing, thumbnail previews and an integrated search engine.

Ease of Use
Internet browsers ought to be simple to use so anyone, regardless of their knowledge of computers or the Internet, will feel comfortable using the web.

Security
Security is one of the most important aspects of browsing the web. Internet browsers should protect against pop–ups, viruses and phishing frauds and allow you to clear personal information so you can feel confident while online.

Speed & Compatibility
Your internet browser should help you surf fast and efficiently. While the speed of your computer and internet connection account for most of the speed, not all browsers are created equal in regards to how fast they startup, process HTML and JavaScript. Likewise, not all internet browsers will open all pages correctly. The best browsers will open websites quickly and properly.

Help/Support
Although most internet browsers are free, quality customer support helps if you run into problems. Developers provide support through email, phone, FAQs, manuals and tutorials.