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Browser Performance Chart

Posted on 16 Oct 2009

in Site Development

by Adrian Roselli (aardvark)

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Adrian Roselli

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User since: 14 Dec 1998

Articles written: 85

Jacob Gube has posted a handy chart over at Six Revisions titled "Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers." He tests the current versions of five browsers:

  • Mozilla Firefox 3.5
  • Google Chrome 3.0
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0
  • Opera 10.0
  • Apple Safari 4.0

In his tests he used the following performance indicators, tested three times each with an unprimed cache, and averaged the results:

  • JavaScript speed
  • average CPU usage under stress
  • DOM selection
  • CSS rendering speed
  • page load time
  • browser cache performance

When Google Chrome 3 was released in September, Google claimed a 150% increase in JavaScript performance from its previous version but didn't offer comparisons to other browsers. Opera also made improvement claims in its September release of Opera version 10, specifically a "40% faster engine." Those claims are also not made in comparison to other browsers. The overall performance ranking he assigns to the browsers isn't too much of a surprise, with Google Chrome as the best and Internet Explorer 8 as the worst. If he ran as many persistent tabs in Firefox as I do, it might not hold on to the #2 slot so easily. The ranking:

  1. Google Chrome 3.0
  2. Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (tied with Safari)
  3. Safari (tied with Firefox)
  4. Apple Safari 4.0
  5. Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0

Use the chart below to link to the full size version. You can also download the raw data in CSV format from the site in case you want to try your own hand at colorful charts.

Small view of browser performance comparison chart.

A founder of evolt.org, Adrian Roselli (aardvark) is the Senior Usability Engineer at Algonquin Studios, located in Buffalo, New York.

Adrian has years of experience in graphic design, web design and multimedia design, as well as extensive experience in internet commerce and interface design and usability. He has been developing for the World Wide Web since its inception, and working the design field since 1993. Adrian is a founding member, board member, and writer to evolt.org. In addition, Adrian sits on the Digital Media Advisory Committee for a local SUNY college and a local private college, as well as the board for a local charter school.

You can see his brand-spanking-new blog at http://blog.adrianroselli.com/ as well as his new web site to promote his writing and speaking at AdrianRoselli.com

Adrian authored the usability case study for evolt.org in Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself, published by glasshaus. He has written three chapters for the book Professional Web Graphics for Non Designers, also published by glasshaus. Adrian also managed to get a couple chapters written (and published) for The Web Professional's Handbook before glasshaus went under. They were really quite good. You should have bought more of the books.

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evolt.org Evolt.org is an all-volunteer resource for web developers made up of a discussion list, a browser archive, and member-submitted articles. This article is the property of its author, please do not redistribute or use elsewhere without checking with the author.