Found this browser test online.
https://cybernetnews.com/browser-comparison-internet-explorer-firefox-chrome-safari-opera/ Browser Comparison: Memory Usage, Speed, Acid 3 Test
Ever since we did a browser comparison test last year there have been a lot of emails and comments asking if we were going to update the article to reflect new releases. I thought about adding in the new browsers as they came out, but decided against it for one reason or another. Instead I thought it would be better to just do a fresh article, and include even more stats than last time.
The main reason that I thought this was worthy of its own article was because a lot has changed in the last year. Since March 2008 we’ve seen major milestone releases from each of big browser makers, and to top it off Google Chrome has come onto the scene. These browsers have also shifted focus from adding nifty new features to diving deep into the code trying to squeeze out every last ounce of performance.
We’ve got a lot in store for you today ranging from JavaScript speed tests to memory usage comparisons, and we’ll even throw in some Acid 3 coverage. Lets go ahead and dive right in.
Notes about testing:
All of these tests were performed on the same Windows XP SP3 machine that is wired into a network to eliminate the effects of wireless disturbances.
All browsers started with a clean profile and no add-ons/extensions were installed.
All browser data, including caches, were cleared before each test was run.
Only one browser was open at a time, and no other applications (other than standard XP services) were running.
Internet Explorer 8 was used in the native rendering mode (“standards compliant mode”).
No plug-ins (Flash, Java, etc…) were installed on the machine to ensure that slow performance wasn’t due to the loading of a plug-in.
–JavaScript Tests–
The main speed test that everyone seems to use for JavaScript is SunSpider. Last year we compared the browsers with the SunSpider test prior to writing our first comparison, and so we wanted to try something different. That’s when we turned to the MooTools SlickSpeed Test. It tests various operations against a lot of common JavaScript libraries including MooTools and JQuery.
So which one did we go with this year? Well, we did both. We ran each test, SunSpider and SlickSpeed, a total of three times each. Then we averaged the results together to get the pretty little graphs you see below. For both of them the goal was for the browser to complete the tests as fast as possible, and so a lower number is better.
Sunspider Test:
Safari 4: 603ms
Google Chrome 3.0 Beta: 636ms
Google Chrome 2.0: 720ms
Firefox 3.5: 1278ms
Opera 10 Beta: 2975ms
Opera 9.64: 3931ms
Internet Explorer 8: 5441ms
MooTools SlickSpeed Test:
Opera 10 Beta: 330ms
Safari 4: 355ms
Opera 9.64: 375ms
Google Chrome 3.0 Beta: 464ms
Firefox 3.5: 580ms
Google Chrome 2.0: 763ms
Internet Explorer 8: 1901ms
–Website Rendering Tests–
I used the same method for testing website load times as I did last year. It’s a website called Numion Stopwatch that uses some fancy JavaScript to monitor when a page has finished loading, and then spits out the amount of time it took to complete.
We used two extremely popular sites for these tests: ESPN and the Wall Street Journal. Each site was loaded up three times in each browser, and then the results were averaged together. Obviously we were targeting which browser could load the websites the fastest, and so a lower number is better:
ESPN Load Time:
Safari 4: 1.936 seconds
Google Chrome 3.0 Beta: 2.194 seconds
Firefox 3.5: 2.380 seconds
Internet Explorer 8: 2.604 seconds
Opera 10 Beta: 2.605 seconds
Opera 9.64: 2.651 seconds
Google Chrome 2.0: 2.873 seconds
Wall Street Journal Load Time:
Google Chrome 3.0 Beta: 1.612 seconds
Opera 10 Beta: 1.989 seconds
Opera 9.64: 2.141 seconds
Safari 4: 2.166 seconds
Google Chrome 2.0: 2.552 seconds
Firefox 3.5: 2.886 seconds
Internet Explorer 8: 3.292 seconds
–Acid 3 Tests–
Last year we also took a look at how the various browsers scored on the Acid 3 test. At the time a Safari nightly build was the closest to perfection by reaching a score of 86 out of 100. Today, however, is a different story. A few browsers can handle the test perfectly, some are very very close, and others (yeah, IE) have some work cut out for themselves.
Note: Click on any of the thumbnails for a full-size rendering.
Safari 4 (100/100) – It gets a perfect score and renders everything correctly.
Opera 10 Beta (100/100) – It gets a perfect score and renders everything correctly.
Google Chrome 2.0 (100/100) – It gets a perfect score, but not all tests are executed successfully.
Google Chrome 3.0 Beta (100/100) – It gets a perfect score, but not all tests are executed successfully.
Firefox 3.5 (93/100) – It gets a near perfect score.
Opera 9.6 (85/100) – This is the oldest release we tested, and it comes as no surprise that it doesn’t pass the test. It should be noted that the next milestone, version 10, does pass the test perfectly as seen above.
Internet Explorer 8 (20/100) – While they still have a ways to go before they get a perfect, I do have to give them credit for at least making the image look halfway normal. You know what I’m talking about if you remember what IE7′s rendering of the Acid 3 test was like.
–Conclusion–
So which browser is the winner? I wouldn’t really say any of them outshine the others. The problem that we are going to face with performance tests from here on out is that the browsers will all come very close to each other in the standings… often within a fraction of a second from one another. As the browsers continue to get optimized we will see these times get even closer, and performance might become less of a concern which picking which one we want to use. So I’d say to pick the browser you feel the most comfortable with, because it’s getting hard to distinguish one browser from another when it comes to performance.
What’s your take on the stats? Anything stand out to you? Will you be switching browsers based upon anything you learned here?