Tom's Hardware Pits Newest Firefox, Opera and Chrome Against Each Other

An anonymous reader writes "Firefox 7 was released a couple days ago, and now the latest Web browser performance numbers are in. This article is the same series that ran benchmarks on Mac OS X Lion last month. This time around the new Mozilla release is going against Chrome 14 and Opera 11.51 in 40+ different tests on Windows 7. Testing comes from every category of Web browsing performance I can think of: startup time, page load time, JS, CSS, DOM, HTML5, Flash, hardware acceleration, WebGL, Java, Silverlight, reliable page loads, memory usage/management, and standards conformance. The article also has a little feature on the Futuremark Peacekeeper browser benchmark. An open beta of the next revision has just been made public. This new version adds HTML5, video codecs, and WebGL tests to the benchmark. It's also designed to run on any browser/OS/device combination — e.g. Windows desktop, iPad, Droid 2, MacBook, Linux flavors, etc. Another great read, a must for Web browser fanatics!"

Is performance really an issue?

[Kenja]

I've not worried about browser performance for a long while, lets face it, they're all fast enough. What matters to me is how they behave, their interface and site compatibility.

Re:Is performance really an issue?

[mgiuca]

In the mobile versions it's very important, especially JavaScript performance.

Now if only they could measure user experience...

[bl4nk]

The constant barrage of updates for Firefox is frustrating to say the least. Having to go through the installer every month and have your extensions checked for compatibility and consistently get disabled... it's just not worth it. I switched to Chrome and have progressed through 8 whole versions without ever noticing and without ever having my extensions break. It's divine, and how all software upgrades should be done (in a perfect world).

Browser wars

[mgiuca]

Although it's only been one month since Web Browser Grand Prix VI: Firefox 6, Chrome 13, And Mac OS X Lion, the browser wars show no signs of subsiding.

Browser wars? It's competition, baby, not war. We're not waiting for a war to end so we can announce a winner and all switch to that browser. We're enjoying every glorious moment of a many-browser ecosystem. The "browser wars" were a time of nasty piling on of proprietary features in an attempt to gain an advantage. This is a glorious golden age of competition and (mostly) an emphasis on standards compliance.

Re:Now if only they could measure user experience.

[zullnero]

It's not that difficult. I'd rather have more updates...including security updates...than fewer and far between. People who complain about updates are like people who complain about having to have bumpers on their car or safety belts on a plane. Besides, the updates install themselves now automatically. Good for you, switching to Chrome for that reason...it only does the exact same thing Firefox does now.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Will this finally shut the trolls up?

[Reality Master 101]

Seems like just about every article that comes out about Firefox there's a dozen or so folks that keep complaining about how slow Firefox is and how much memory it leaks.

... And this is the problem with Firefox. The horrible memory leak problems have been traditionally dismissed by the Firefox team as only seen by "trolls". I gave on Firefox because it constantly sucked more and more and more memory, and I had to constantly restart the damn thing when it got over 2 gigabytes with a handful of tabs open.

Now, maybe the Firefox team (FINALLY) fixed it, and maybe they didn't. But we can't tell from this test, because they didn't do a memory leak test. What they need to do is open 41 sites, close 40 sites, open 40 sites, close 40 sites, on and on and see what happens. I know what will happen with Chrome -- since it uses a process per tab, all that memory will intrinsically get given back to the O/S. Firefox -- who knows?

But what I do know is that it's too little, too late for me. I love Chrome, and Firefox has no compelling features to make me come back.

Re:Kraken de zit cream

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel as though you have strong opinions, but your inability to speak without metaphor has clouded what they might actually be.

Re:Now if only they could measure user experience.

[Kjella]

Really? Is the release cycle really the problem for you or something vague about extensions?

People have a problem with the rapid release cycle because of extensions, the point has been made many times now with all the subtlety of a sledge hammer. If you can't wrap your head around that concept, you must be a Firefox developer.

Re:Is performance really an issue?

[Kjella]

I promised myself I wouldn't become an old fart but when the suggestion is to upgrade a P4 in order to surf the net, I cringe. It's a fscking gigahertz processor, for crying out loud. It's amazing what kind of computing power you can waste just drawing up a web page, even with javascript and flash to kill performance.