Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Opera vs Chrome vs Safari
Browser wars – Browsers FACEOFF – 2008/2009 – comparison test
I searched all over the net for latest browser speed comparison test and I did not find anything, so I decided why not to make test myself. I already had on my pc, Opera and Firefox so I downloaded latest version of IE7, Chrome and Safari. Since I am big Opera fan and I am using Opera Browser for over 9 years I thought that Opera will easily blow up opponents just like it did maybe two years ago. However I did not count that Chrome is so blazing fast. I used few old tests from HowToCreate.co.uk and Java Script tests from CelticKane.com and also I added few of my own… All browsers are tested on same machine Athlon 3800 64bit, Gigabyte M55S-S3 mainboard and 2 gb DDR2 ram and Windows XP with SP2.
Browsers:
Opera 9.63
Firefox 3.0.4
Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.13
Google Chrome 1.0.154.36
Apple Safari 3.2.1
All browsers are tested “out of the box” without any extension or plugin.
This gave significant advantage to Firefox, since it is considerable slower with just couple of extensions.
1. Cold Start:
For cold start test, I run the programs (after windows finish loading) and then I measure time of loading until browser is ready for use. I measure 3 times and between any test I reset my pc. For other tests I also measured 3 times and then calculated average value… After first test, Chrome already jumped on the first place with unbolivable load of only 1,6 seconds. Opera was second with 3,7 second and surprise was Internet Explorer with just 0,1 second behind Opera. Safari started bad with very slow loading with over 10 seconds.
2. Warm Start
Warm start is the test when I run browser then turn it off and then start it again without turning or logging out from windows. I hardly got Chrome loading time in this case, since it was incredible fast. Safari, for a difference from last test, was now very fast to. Opera and Firefox are slower then first three.
3. Acid 2 test
Acid 2 is web standard compliance test. All browsers easily passed, but IE7 failed completely with ruining and deforming that poor face.
4. Acid 3 test
After easy job on ACID 2, neither one browser passed Acid 3 test. However Opera scored most points, ending it with the score of 85. Chrome was second with the score of 79. Some alpha and beta version of browser are already passing successfully this test…
5. CSS speed test
This test was taken from HowToCreate.co.uk!
Quote:
To test CSS rendering speed I use a CSS benchmark test devised by nontroppo. The test measures the time it takes the browser to render a page consisting of almost 2500 positioned DIVs. The page is stored locally, loaded once to pre-load it, then reloaded 3 times, and the average time taken for those three renderings. The page is the first page loaded after starting the browser (after logging out and in). All browsers took significantly longer during the initial load, which is why I discount this initial load, as it does not reflect the reality of normal rendering. Safari and Firefox headed clear victory here leaving behind Opera then Chrome and IE7.
6. Javascript speed
I assigned browsers to celtickane.com javascript speed test. Every browser is tested three times and then average speed is calculated. Chrome won again with Safari on second, Opera on third, Firefox on 4th and as expected IE7 on the last place.
7. Memory usage
I started every browser with one tab. Opened google.com and then checked with Chrome “memory usage option” how much every browser take memory. IE7 taked easy victory here probably because parts of the IE are in some other windows processes which are not counted. Safari taked shameful last place with using over 65 MB for loading only one page.
8. Setup Size
Opera used to have smallest installation file but now Firefox takes that place. Interesting thing is that if you dont need additional languages then Opera setup.exe is smaller then 6 mb, however since Opera gives this file for download by default then I took that file in count.
9. Options
Firefox got second win. By using extension firefox becomes very powerful tool. Main reason why people use it. Opera widgets are silly thing in relation to extensions and UserJS are ok but not good as Firefox Extensions. However this bring another conclusion, Firefox without extension is nothing. If you integrate to many extension then Firefox performance decrease significantly, almost 4-6 times… As I already mentioned this tests are conducted on Firefox without single extension. Just Out of the box. Even with that problem, Firefox easily take win here leaving Opera behind. This category gives also to Chrome first last place since Chrome in current stage looks like a hairless person 
Conclusion and FINAL SCORE.
Opera do not have advantage any more. Instead of advantage it is neither anymore the fastest. Chrome is ahead, then Opera on second place and Firefox just behind it (depends on personal taste). Safari is ok browser but weaker then first three, and it looks that Apple marketing is just a bunch of lies. IE7 is the bad thing. Just like a IE6. But since people get it free with windows they still use it. If we counted Opera powers of customizing skins, moving elements (such as menus, buttons, toolbars, adressbar, statusbar, skins) then Opera would be easily be on first place…
For myself, I am going to stick with the Opera. Chrome, even if it is fastest, dont have some key capabilities. Probably people who use Firefox think the same as Opera fans…
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48 Responses to “Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Opera vs Chrome vs Safari”
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Google Chrome with extensions, now that’ll be a winner. Unless they royally f*** it up with security problems and memory usage. I’ve been using Opera since ver 5.0 but I’ve been using Chrome once in a while. The big prob with Chrome is the security and privacy issues. Maybe people should get Chromium instead.
This test is flawed, and the conclusion bogus.
For the download size, you have measured an English only download (Firefox) vs. an installer with more than 30 languages (Opera). Opera clearly should have won there, especially if you look at the classic installer.
As for the conclusion:
“Opera do not have advantage any more”
So performance, functionality, small setup size, etc. all don’t matter? Opera’s advantage is clearly the whole package.
Of course, if you ignore the need for features you can make any browser win, but placing Chrome over Opera even though Chrome has serious privacy issues as well as a severe lack of features? Not to mention the fact that you need to fiddle around with lots og third party extensions to get similar functionality in Firefox!
Your test should show Opera with 36 points vs. Chrome’s 37. And while Opera, according to this test, is lacking nothing what so ever, Chrome is seriously lacking when it comes to features.
You left out “functionality”, which means that in reality, Opera should have won, or at least tied with Chrome.
Some tips on improving the test…
“CSS speed test”
More like a rendering test… what happened to things like transparency, floats, borders (rounded), different text sizes and colors?
You should also divide it up into “cold run” and “warm run”.
“ACID3″
You should have included the rendering of it as a score, if not only to lower IEs score
“Javascript speed”
You should have also tested with SunSpider ( http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html ), V8* ( http://v8.googlecode.com/svn/data/benchmarks/v2/run.html ) and Dromaeo ( http://v3.dromaeo.com/ ).
* Warning, runs at once. I couldn’t find an introduction page.
Preferably you should also test on a non-windows computer.
http://ejohn.org/blog/accuracy-of-javascript-time/
@nagi
“You left out “functionality”, which means that in reality, Opera should have won, or at least tied with Chrome.”
You do realize that Opera isn’t a browser, but an internet-suite, right?
The only other internet-suite, that I’ve heard of, is SeaMonkey ( http://www.seamonkey-project.org/ ).
Comparing browsers that only try to be browsers with an internet-suite and not allowing one to count extensions is what I would call an unfair comparison.
Btw, the only browser/internet-suite in this test that doesn’t have real extensions is Opera. (Chrome is working on proper support, but already have some)
As for missing functionality, does Opera have everything Flock ( http://flock.com/ ) have by default? How about Songbird ( http://getsongbird.com/ )?
I will definatly take some of your suggestions for next test after Opera 10 i Firefox 3.1 are released.
Thanks N
“You do realize that Opera isn’t a browser, but an internet-suite, right?”
How does that negate the fact that Opera has more features?
Funny how people keep requesting tests that have been optimized to run well in specific browsers (V8 for Chrome, SunSpider for Safari, etc.).
I do not know if you have got your CSS test right- Safari was clearly the fastest, Chrome was second and Opera third when I ran it on more than one machine. Are you sure you used a deafult empty setup. Because Firefox is abot ten times slower than Safari, and twice as slow as Operawhen I used it. Firthermore, if you have to measure speed, I do not see how Acid tests have anything to do with it or features (and if you are trying to compare the entire browsers, then these two are far more important than speed and should get greater weightage). There are more tests for speed like rendering tables and onload test which you can find in the same non troppo site. But speed tests are extremely unreliable now, because the processors have become so fast that old tests have become more error prone.
Firefox will catch up to Chrome in speed when 3.1 is released. But speed is nearly worthless anyway, all browsers on a modern computer with broadband are much faster than anyone would need. The most important feature in a browser is a reliable adblocker, and on that front Firefox is by far the best. Privoxy or hosts files are unreliable and hard to work around false positives compared to Adblock Plus.
nagi:
Well, Chrome’s a real simple browser, and it won focusing on its task to be a browser. It’s like the very old IE, which has the capability only to browse and it doesn’t have any extensions or else.
Chrome doesn’t have plug-ins because it doesn’t have to.
And, regarding to privacy issues, don’t you notice the Chrome Spy Window where you can browse freely and the browser will clean everything afterwards? Have you used it?
Chrome is not considered by Google as browser, they said it was a “web os”, and you know what it means. It’s juste one more application linked to google.
Now, if you think that Google doesn’t have enough info about your browsing habits, that’s your business.
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/09/24/iron-chrome-for-privacy-fanatics/
“Iron” is essentially Google Chrome, except for these important modifications (for your privacy):
* No unique user-ID
* No user-specific information is sent to Google
* No alternative error messages
* Crash information is not sent to Google
* No Google updater
“Firefox will catch up to Chrome in speed when 3.1 is released. But speed is nearly worthless anyway, all browsers on a modern computer with broadband are much faster than anyone would need.”
You apparently don’t use many web sites that have a lot of javascript/ajax on them… speed is not worthless, i have a 10mbps connection, my work has a 30mbps connection, there is still a HUGE difference in speed (javascript and rendering) for Chrome & Firefox vs IE6, IE7, and IE8. I haven’t really tested the other browsers so I can’t comment on them, but speed does matter. This especially applies on lower end computers, chrome loads/runs soooo much faster than IE from what I’ve seen. (Tested on P4 with 512mb of ram) Although I don’t notice as much of a different on my machine.
if opera 9.63 is the second is logic that with the opera 10.0 alpha is the best,I’ve made a comparative with this 5 browsers and my conclusions are that in the first place is opera 10.0, second chrome, third safari, fourth Firefox and in the ultimate place IE7
How about comparing how much disk space browser use when installed? Of course, it’s not very importaint, with all those 1TB hard drives, but still, it could give some points to Opera
Opera 9.64 installation with flash plugin uses only 10.1MB.
Firefox 3.0.6 – 20.4MB
Safari 3.2.2 – 60.4MB
Internet Explorer – it’s hard to tell, how much disk space it takes up, because it’s integrated with windows and such.
adblock plus is the reason why i stick to firefox!
There are many options available like proxy, adsweep but adblock works flawlessly,blocks more and have less problems plus it is integrated to firefox.
Very interesting test that you invented. Really useful & helpful… Kudos!
Great job, the Test….
But it is not the Best test (no test is perfect. but…)
The marking Criteria is not good for me….
Cold and Worm startas are low priority things….
Not the start, but after the start is most important.
And Size is not that important.
Size depends on features…
But if U consider file size,….
(Opera International version 7.6mb. en US version about 5.4mb. It should be the winner!
And plus Opera contains in Built POP3, SMTP, RSS ant BitTorrent support. Other beowsers do not have!. Look at Sea Monkey file size, its simillar to Firefox with above features in Opera)
Opera En US 5.4mb
SeaMonkey en US 12.4mb
Firefox en Us 7.1mb
Best browser depends on people using it!…
And it differ acording to tthe tasks…..
Thanks for the article, it was very informative.
Ja ja ja. Only Explorer is fast, the others aren’t fast.
98% of users have got Explorer, a lot of them
try other browser and then came back to use Explorer. That is the true.
chrome have many advantages that did not been mention here. you all should look at this:
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html
all the information here make sense to me and i like it!
i used mozilla firefox for a long time…
i am amazed with firefox add ons, that the other browsers doesn”t have
[...] Science has just published Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Opera vs Chrome vs Safari, which contains the results of an extensive competitive speed test between five popular web [...]
[...] PS: The tests mentioned were conducted in Athlon 3800 64bit, Gigabyte M55S-S3 mainboard and 2 gb DDR2 ram and Windows XP with SP2. For details click here. [...]
i use internet explorer first, but now i am using Mozilla Firefox all the time when i am surfing the internet
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The memory test is flawed.
Surely if your using chrome to check the memory usage, isn’t chrome going to be using more memory to preform this task?
Why not just task manager or one of the 5 billion 3rd party products out there.
Though the test war very informative, but i think that opera should be the winnner.
I’m actually not that concerned about speed as long as it doesn’t become sluggish. I find Firefox unbearable these days as it is slow and unreliable. So, I moved to Opera because it also has a session manager, which is a feature I simply can’t live without. But how do you import your bookmarks into Opera? Very simple, just go to this article where they explain it to you with a video tutorial: http://www.miracletutorials.com/importing-bookmarks-firefox-to-opera/
I hope this is useful to somebody?
Safari for me was not really a contender despite what Mac devotees. Opera used to be fast. Firefox is faster than IE8 but lets us down on Govt and banking sites like HMRC. They seem to be catering for IE base. Chrome I have found to be very fast at displaying sites but is sluggish when playing media files.
So for my money – chrome OK for the domestic user for general browsing. Firefox is my default browser and I keep IE8 for logging into banks/hmrc etc.
For me, Opera is the most complete. Firefox has the most third-party support, and really the only browser with add-ons. I use IE occasionally for convenience and to test our CSS and how well it doesn’t load correctly. Google Chrome is just annoying – its like trying to move from Office 2003 to 2007 – no more toolbar, you just have icons.
One of Opera’s best features is the Wand – if you use it, you will learn to love CTRL + Enter. When you close out of Opera, you can re-open it and have everything exactly as you left it (aside from typed content and flash or java).
The only thing Opera needs is the ability to export sessions and synchronize them with your bookmarks (new feature in Opera 10).
@Miguelon: Ja ja ja. Only Explorer is fast, the others aren’t fast.
98% of users have got Explorer, a lot of them
try other browser and then came back to use Explorer. That is the true.
I’ve been a webmaster for at least 6 years and you’d be surprised how few people use IE, it is usually still the most used browser but generally only around 60% and that’s pushing it a little.
[...] [...]
FireFox is good. Google Chrome better. Chromium best. But if need security Firefox or Opera. 2.6.31.4 x86_64 GNU/Linux
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interesting test, but most of the tests are irrelevant for me
Unless you use extensions I say chrome is the best. And avoid extensions most of the time. I switch to firefox if and only if I need something to be done with the addons.
[...] areas tested by this blog site on different browsers without add-ons or plugins are the [...]
Your article was just what I was looking for, and very informative too. Thanks.
Of course I’ll choose Opera and I’d give it the first place even if it was worse than the others :p
I tested Internet Explorer 8 and FireFox 3.5.5 in Acid 2 and 3:
In Acid 2, FF3.5.5 displayed correctly the face, but IE8 didn’t about 2 seeconds.
In Acid 3, FF3.5.5 scored 92, the blue box was gray, but IE8 scored only 12.
google chrome is best and opera is more best but IE.mozilla,safari are waste.and even i thought lunascape is more fastest than all,oh yes megaleecher too
Anyone use Maxthon? Thats the browser i use.
I think opera is the the most enjoyable browser to use because of it’s speed and terrific default built in mouse jestures. Also opera 10.10 series has great widgets. and love the tab bar also.. There is only one HUGE problem. It is very unstable when you try to go full screen on any video. The shock wave flash plug in almost always fails and the browser crashes. This is extremly irritating.
try testing the latest version of Chrome and IE and other web browsers please
Maxthon? It just like a shit, i will never use it again.
need something more recent…
in my opinion As of RIGHT NOW Opera 10.50Beta has the best features and is very fast But uses a maximum of 300mb system memory. there javascript engine is the fastest and i can pause and resume download thats all i need in a browser Please do another review i liked this