Hardware 2.0

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Safari 3.1 is fast ... but so is Firefox 3.0 Beta 4

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes | March 19, 2008, 12:07pm PDT

Summary: A little over a week ago I took a look at Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 and I benchmarked this latest release against the current browser lineup. Yesterday Apple released Safari 3.1 so the browser landscape has now changed. It’s time to see how Apple’s latest browser fits into the big picture.

A little over a week ago I took a look at Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 and I benchmarked this latest release against the current browser lineup. Yesterday Apple released Safari 3.1 so the browser landscape has now changed. It’s time to see how Apple’s latest browser fits into the big picture.

Apple makes some bold claims relating to Safari. Have a read of this:

The fastest web browser on any platform, Safari loads pages up to 1.9 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2.

And it executes JavaScript up to 6 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 4 times faster than Firefox 2. What does all that mean for you? Less time loading pages and more time enjoying them.

To put these results into context you have to also read the small print:

Performance measured in seconds. Testing conducted by Apple in March 2008 on a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo-based iMac system running Windows XP Professional SP2, configured with 1GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon HD 2600 with 256MB of VRAM. HTML and JavaScript benchmarks based on VeriTest’s iBench Version 5.0 using default settings. Testing conducted with a beta version of Safari; all other browsers were shipping versions. Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection, and other factors. [emphasis added]

Now if I’m going to pull Apple up over anything it’s over the use of iBench. iBench 5.0 is a benchmarking fossil. It was released November 2003 and it’s safe to say that a lot has changed since then, especially as popular websites are now loaded with JavaScripts and make heavy use of AJAX. Benchmarking a modern browser (and OS) with an old tool seems pointless to me and the results should be taken with a liberal pinch of salt. But it does highlight a problem that when it comes to browser benchmarking tools, there isn’t much to choose from. iBench might be old (and obsolete) but there’s not much else to take its place. We either have to rely on benchmarking against live sites and put up with all the variables introduced by server load, lag times and local traffic bottlenecks, or alternatively rely on synthetic benchmarks which have little in common with the real world.

There are dozens of tests out there that look at page loading times and page rendering speeds, but I don’t feel happy using any of them, and as a result I’ll leave out any discussion of page loading and rendering.

I’m going to confine testing to two tests:

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark
ACID 3

Testing will be carried out on the same hardware and software platform as previous tests were carried out on.

The tests –>

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Topics

Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Benchmarking, Beta, Web Browser, Safari 3.1, iBench 5.0, Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

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Safari has serious security problems,

Apples&Oranges 14th Apr 2008

We installed SAFARI 3.1 for Windows and was impress on how "pretty" it makes your web site looks. However, it is critical broken with Security issues. First, it doesn't work with HTTP DIGEST. It issues double request after a user logs in, its been verified on APACHE and the Wildcat! Web Server. I'm sure its broken on other Web Servers. Second, it also now has the same BASIC/DIGEST credential issues that IE had that Microsoft fixed where it remembers your credentials EVEN if you close the browser. This has to do with how Windows remembers credentials in one of the resident program that allows Explorer Desktop to see the credentials. Fixed in IE atleast 2 years ago, APPLE doesn't learn. Third, cookies are unsafe with Safari, it leaks COOKIE information from web site to web site. Go to one web site that might set too cookies, go to another web site that sets more cookies and you will the first web site get the 2nd web site cookie information - TERRIBLE. Gawd, PEOPLE need to start getting sued for pushing crappy ware - this is BEYOND the "honest, all software is not perfect" claim. This is moronic programming by people that think they can PUSH the same CRAP to Windows users that was push to the layman APPLE user.

Again, PRETTY but BROKEN.

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Opera on Acid Test

TigerhawkVok 19th Mar 2008

Hm, I know on my build of Opera 9.5 I get a 77 on the Acid3 test. Then again, its not an official beta release, just one of the weekly builds [9.5 build 9841], so it doesn't quite count.

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I installed Safari on Vista

NonZealot 19th Mar 2008

It was TERRIBLE. Easily the ugliest browser I've ever seen. The fonts were incredibly blurry to the point where I couldn't read any of the text. The thing also crashed many, many, many times. So while it may bring text to the screen 0.5% faster than Firefox, it really does no good when you can't read that text because it is so blurry... assuming Safari hasn't crashed while loading the page.

Firefox is the one for me. Safari had its chance and blew it. I will never install that garbage again.

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you've gone too far... you're sounding like Mike Cox now...

doctorSpoc 19th Mar 2008

8.5 on the Mike Cox rating scale.

only problem is that you are actually trying to be taken seriously..
totally transparent MS shill... how can anyone with half a brain actually
take you seriously any more?

like you tried Safari... whatever man! Apple products for you are like
garlic to a vampire... you would burst into flames if you pressed the
download safari button.

Safari 3.0 was not that good... i admit that. i didn't even use it as my
default browser on my Mac, but i'm thinking i'm going to switch from
Firefox to Safari now... finally renders all the websites that i use
everyday... the Firefox 3.0 Beta theme for OS X is freak'n brutal... what
were these guys thinking??

I've been running Safari on a PC at work in XP for the last two days
and it's rock solid.. not even one crash... not buggy in the least... if i
was on a PC at home though i probably would still run Firefox because
of the security issues of Safari on the PC though. but stability in this
release is not an issue... that's how i can tell that you either have not
used it, or are just out and out lying.

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The important thing here is the competition. We went years without any

DonnieBoy 19th Mar 2008

upgrades to IE, and now, the upgrades are coming fast and furious. What could be better??? Exactly which one is best at the current moment is interesting, but, it is the overall improvement of all browsers that is great.

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Yeah, what he said. (nt)

Hallowed are the Ori 19th Mar 2008

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Competition is good

D T Schmitz 19th Mar 2008

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Ditto....

James Quinn 20th Mar 2008

Pagan jim

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He's not satirical, he's actually serious. Don't compare him to MIke. [nt]

olePigeon 20th Mar 2008

nt.

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Font rendering philosophies

CobraA1 19th Mar 2008

The font problems arise from different font rendering philosophies. Apple has a philosophy that the letters should look the same at all sizes, reflecting what would be printed on paper. Microsoft, on the other hand, emphasizes legibility, going as far as even changing the shapes of the letters at small sizes to make them more legible. What you are seeing is that Safari uses Apple's font rendering.

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Yeah, I remember that discussion

NonZealot 20th Mar 2008

I do understand why the text is blurry to the point of illegibility but it certainly doesn't make it any easier to read. I suppose this is why the EC stated that Macs are only useful for publishing and no one else could possibly justify buying them.

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Apple computers were 14%

frgough 20th Mar 2008

Of all PC sales in the United States last month. That's a 60%
increase over last year.

The more you rant, the more obsolete and fossilized you
sound.

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Picking nits

itpro_z 20th Mar 2008

Apple computers were 14% of all retail sales last month, not all PC sales. Keep in mind that a good deal of PC sales are direct rather than retail.

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And to WHOM pray tell do we need to "Justify"

James Quinn 20th Mar 2008

our preference? Let me guess there is no such person or
entity. I thought as much. I do have fun with you and your
ilk but in the end I simply prefer the Mac and find myself
more productive and my experience/work with said to be far
more enjoyable. That is in the end all the justification I need.

Pagan jim

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And yet...

zkiwi 20th Mar 2008

People in publishing presumably like their stuff to look amazing onscreen and off. Also, people seem to like what they see given the Feb sales spike, or are you saying that people just love the fuzzy look so much they are shelling out for it in droves. Who knows, perhaps they put on "special glasses" provided at the Apple stores, just to fake them out.

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Font smoothing is optional

steveklein 28th Mar 2008

In Safari 3.1:

Go to the Edit menu
Select preferences
Click the Appearance button

Choose whatever Font Smoothing option you
want!

Is it your argument that it's somehow bad to give users a
choice?

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Sounds like your Vista

labarker 20th Mar 2008

needs a lot of work doing on it!

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First sign of trouble: "On Vista"

Bruizer 20th Mar 2008

Heck, most MS software didn't work on Vista (Can you say
Zune??) , how could anyone get it right:-)

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I wouldn't know, I don't have a Zune

NonZealot 20th Mar 2008

Funny though how Firefox (what I'm using now) never, ever, ever crashes on Vista. In fact, by looking at my Reliability and Performance monitor, I can tell you exactly how many application crashes I've had since Jan 1:
Jan 11: 3 Roxio crashes, all right after installing it. Went back to Nero, no problems since.
Jan 15: Windows Media player.
Jan 22: LGDCore.exe (my Logitech keyboard's LCD display driver)
Jan 26: Windows Movie Maker
Feb 11: LGDCore.exe
March 1: LGDCore.exe
March 16: LGDCore.exe

In 3.5 months I've had 7 application crashes. Safari crashed 5 times on the day I installed it. It would seem that Apple is one of the very few that can't figure out how to write a Vista application.

Hmm, actually, you might be right, it might be Vista that is the deciding factor in the crashes. After all, we already know from the Mac ads that Apple is deathly afraid of Vista. Maybe there is a bit of code in Safari that causes multiple crashes if it detects Vista, in the hopes that the user will blame MS for the problems! Guess I'm smarter than Apple. happy

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And many Window users

Ken_z 20th Mar 2008

are also deathly afraid of Vista. happy

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thats a little harsh

akkarin2.0 26th Mar 2008

I don't know about vista but I found it works fine on XP pro an OS X, I do agree that Firefox is better but find it hard to explain why other then just personal choice, in my opinion there is nothing wrong with it and I know for certain the if it weren't for firefox I'd be using safari!

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Love the competition!! How many years did we go without updates to IE??????

DonnieBoy 19th Mar 2008

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Agreed! (nt)

CobraA1 19th Mar 2008

nt = no text

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Thanks for clarifying that Cobra!

jerang@... 20th Mar 2008

If anyone is beta testing IE 8, you will realize it's still the worst browser. Safari is definitely the fastest and with it's font-rendering, makes some websites look more than amazing. Firefox is def. my number one - reliable and efficient.
Not sure what the IE team is up to - follow standards or not!!

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Opera 9.5 beta 1 is old now...

james.faction 19th Mar 2008

The weekly builds of Opera 9.5 beta are faster.

There's been a lot of development on Opera recently... It's good to see other browsers are finally giving Opera a run for its money. happy

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I Notice

DannyO_0x98 19th Mar 2008

That both Safari and Firefox reduced their scores by 2/3ds
from their previous Beta to the current Beta. I'm impressed by
the effectiveness of their optimizations.

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RE: Safari 3.1 is fast ... but so is Firefox 3.0 Beta 4

Mitch 74 20th Mar 2008

Safari 3.1 is good, that's for sure. Firefox 3 will be, too (the current beta 4 has seen optimizations patches commits, and also some build profiling).

However, the results for Firefox 3 are a bit misleading: the latest nightly builds show 71/100 on Acid3 - most remaining errors are tracked, and patches already exist, but due to Firefox 3.0 Final approaching, those patches won't be committed right away.

Most missing features in both are SVG tests (Firefox comes with a souped up SVG Tiny engine, Acid3 tests for some of SVG 1.2 Full features) and advanced CSS3 selectors (a patch for these may make it into Firefox 3.0 final).
Firefox 3.0 will also miss CSS text-shadow (supported by Safari since version 1.2), because its existing patch is too old (pre-Thebes and Reflow integration).

Now, there are some talks about integrating the remaining changes in hypothetical minor Fx 3.x releases - vote for them!

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RE: Safari 3.1 is fast....

fatman65535 20th Mar 2008

Quote; Most missing features in both are SVG tests (Firefox comes with a souped up SVG Tiny engine, Acid3 tests for some of SVG 1.2 Full features) and advanced CSS3 selectors (a patch for these may make it into Firefox 3.0 final).
Firefox 3.0 will also miss CSS text-shadow (supported by Safari since version 1.2), because its existing patch is too old (pre-Thebes and Reflow integration).

Now, there are some talks about integrating the remaining changes in hypothetical minor Fx 3.x releases - vote for them!

I agree. But, if they do not show up in version of Firefox 3; they may end up in Minefield (Firefox version 4)

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Yes, but art of "fast" is speed and openness of bugfixes

dpnewkirk 20th Mar 2008

...so "good work" to Apple on giving Windows users yet another, and very worthy, alternative to slow, insecure, buggy, standards-noncompliant IE7, but no other browser will equal Firefox for speed and openness of bugfixes, especially those relating to security. Apple is even more secretive than Microsoft in the security bugfix space.

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That's "part," old chum

dpnewkirk 20th Mar 2008

as in *part* of fast happy

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Point made!

eMJayy 31st Mar 2008

Safari 3.1 has bugs and security issues that will not be fixed for some time...the CNN live video bug is one that's just killing me. Firefox has always been able to fix bugs while others were still scratching their heads.

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RE: Safari 3.1 is fast ... but so is Firefox 3.0 Beta 4

Timpraetor 20th Mar 2008

Just how fast does a browser need to be? In my real world life, my browsers usually spend more time fighting through DNS snafus, routing arguments and sluggish servers than actually rendering the results.

Running local benchmarks are great to make sure that the code as written isn't watsteful, but what does it really translate into when Google isn't responding, or MSN is under a DOS attack?

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True, but....

eMJayy 31st Mar 2008

When your system is low on resources it does make a noticeable difference; the performance gaps are enhanced in those conditions...otherwise it's as you said..plus i use tab browsing in a way that makes browser speed irrelevant..

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If it had firebug...

dchester11 20th Mar 2008

as seemless as firefox, i would consider it.

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Fox 3b4 fast on PCLinuxOS

Don Collins 20th Mar 2008

Very impressed with Fox 3b4 on PCLinuxOS... Fox and Safari are leaving M$ in their dust. I don't see how M$ can get back in the race - maybe they don't care.

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MS know speed isn't a lock-in

fr0thy@... 20th Mar 2008

and that 90% of computer users will buy any old sh*t.

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RE: Safari 3.1 is fast ... but so is Firefox 3.0 Beta 4

realneil@... 20th Mar 2008

So safari is fast. What about secure?
I feel safe with my Firefox 2 browser and the Add-ons or Extensions that I've selected to use with it. I use it on my Mac and PC's too. NoScript alone is worth it's weight in gold,.....And I use several Extensions.
Didn't I read not too long ago that Pay Pal was dissing the Safari browser for crappy security?

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RE: Safari, Firefox, IE, Opera etc. etc.

trm1945 20th Mar 2008

Did it ever occur to you that the only reason
you're intelligent, the only reason you should be
listened to is that you use a product made by
someone else? There are some here that will
crusade for and against these moving targets
and it's getting silly. In the case of browsers
being fast or slow, who cares? The other end
affects the speed and the browser's features
determine the choice, at least for the non
aligned civilians. If you really want followers,
change your name to Piper.

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RE: Safari 3.1 is fast ... but so is Firefox 3.0 Beta 4

CreepinJesus 20th Mar 2008

What are all these numbers ?

And when you say its faster, are you saying its going to shave 5 milliseconds off loading Google? If so, I really couldn't care...

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More like...

Mitch 74 21st Mar 2008

...cut it by half.
You must see that depending on the browser you use, loading time for 'advanced' websites gets longer and longer. I'll take a few examples:
- Gmail
- Yahoo! Mail advanced
- Hotmail Full version
Now, open all three in IE6/7 on one side, in Firefox 2 on the other.

You must notice that, depending on website, you get to the main content faster on Firefox 2, but you still get a noticeable delay. This delay isn't huge for Gmail (which is one of the most optimized), a bit annoying on Yahoo! Mail, and downright terrible on Hotmail Full - which can take a dozen seconds to load under IE 7 on a 1 GHz machine.

Add a DNS snafu, and you may even get a "script is too slow - want to interrupt? Y/N" dialogue - forcing you to reload the page and wait another 10 seconds.

On the other hand, top-speed browsers like Firefox 3 and Safari 3 would load the very same page in 2-3 seconds - making a potential half-minute process ten times faster.

So yes, I think benchmarking those browsers is a sound idea.

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protected stoneage

llval@... 21st Mar 2008

versus smart addons - but maybe that is rather
a sponsored prayer than anyhow a serious debate.

I'm a diehard firegeek. still I'll have an eye
on the safari and even check if microskills can
deliver a streamline browser eventually.

well indeed I hope to live yet them few decades.

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RE: Safari 3.1 is fast ... but so is Firefox 3.0 Beta 4

pbicket 22nd Mar 2008

I installed Safari on a Vista machine, used it once, then deleted it. Reboot takes too long, Safari takes too long to open.

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In Windows XP, Firefox 3b4 wins. Period.

ase7 25th Mar 2008

Were this tests performed on Win XP?

In Win XP, I still prefer Firefox 3b4 (to Safari) because it uses significantly less memory (than any other browser for the windows platform). [Besides the add-on convenience]

I think resource consumption is another important factor to consider when picking a browser.

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RE: Safari 3.1 is fast ... but so is Firefox 3.0 Beta 4

JithendraG 26th Mar 2008

Hi,

Its a very good review to discuss about the "speed" criteria. But we want to know is about the security of the Browsers from Malwares, Spywares and Browser Hacking. How are these important criterias handled for a safe and happy browsing?

Remember the saying:"Speed Thrills, but Kills!"

Regards,
Jithendra
My Blog: http://jithendra-g.blogspot.com

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Who cares until any of these start to catch up with Opera?

baljeetd 27th Mar 2008

Big deal - the only question for me is are any of these browsers starting to catch up with the speed, functionality, compatibility and elegance of Opera? Till then, why bother talking about the rest?