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Topic: Browser

Safari dominates browser benchmarks

Summary: Proving itself a staggering 42 times faster at rendering JavaScript than IE 7, benchmarks confirm Apple's Safari 4 is the fastest browser on the planet.

Nate Lanxon

By Nate Lanxon |

Proving itself a staggering 42 times faster at rendering JavaScript than IE 7, our benchmarks confirm Apple's Safari 4 browser, released in beta Tuesday, is the fastest browser on the planet. In fact, it beat Google's Chrome, Firefox 3, Opera 9.6 and even Mozilla's developmental Minefield browser.

We used the SunSpider suite of JavaScript tests to determine which browser was the quickest, and the Safari 4 beat every browser in terms of speed, on both a PC running Windows XP SP2, and a Mac running OS X 10.6 with all updates applied.

Below are the actual figures if you want to see how all seven browsers scored against each other, but for quick reference we determined on a PC that Safari was a whopping 42 times faster than Internet Explorer 7, just over six times faster than Internet Explorer 8, 3.5 times faster than Firefox 3, and 1.2 times faster than Google Chrome. Here's Safari versus the rest, excluding IE 7:

Add IE 7's results to the PC graph and witness the shocking truth. These are results from a PC with a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo:

1) Safari 4 (Total time: 910ms)
2) Mozilla Minefield 3.2a1 (1,136ms)
3) Google Chrome (1,177ms)
4) Firefox 3 (3,250ms)
5) Opera 9.6 (4,076ms)
6) Internet Explorer 8 (5,839ms)
7) Internet Explorer 7 (39,026ms)

On Mac OS X, Safari was four times faster than Firefox 3 and a depressing (for Opera) 7.5 times faster than Opera 9.6.

Results (fastest at the top) on Mac OS X (2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo):

1) Safari 4 (Total time 967ms)
2) Minefield 3.2a1 (969ms)
3) Firefox 3 (3803ms)
4) Opera 9.6 (7322ms)

You can download Safari yourself here.

This article was originally published on CNET UK Crave.

Topics: Browser, Apple, Microsoft, Operating Systems

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68 comments
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  • So then the increased speed

    will help download malware faster to OS X?

    How is that a good thing?
    GuidingLight
    Reply Vote

    • Look at it this way so far that vast majority of

      malware is PC/Windows only it will not effect Mac's at least. On the PC
      side you should have a wealth of experience and Anti Malware
      applications to help with the increased speed of delivery of said that
      Safari might afford you...:P

      Now what Malware there is for OSX does not require speed for there is so
      very little of it and what I've read about it the OSX malware I can not for
      the life of me determine what actual harm it does.

      Pagan jim
      James Quinn
      Reply Vote

      • Eh yo Quinn?

        I just discovered the Safari toolbar can be customized. Under Mac OS X,
        while Safari is running , go to the top menu & click on View, then look for
        Customize Toolbar ...



        "In a world without walls & fences, who needs windows & gates?"
        Intellihence
        Reply Vote

        • So when did the world ever become free of walls and fences?

          Probably when hell freezes over...
          transposeIT
          Reply Vote

    • OMG

      The article is all about browser rendering speed, not download speed,
      which is dependent on your ISP pan.

      Fanboys are as tiresome as religious fundamentalists, and often
      indistinguishable.
      rahbm
      Reply Vote

    • How is that [faster] a good thing . . .?

      Well, I'm getting impatient. After all, it's been years I've been waiting . . .

      Oh, that's right. It's OS X. Guess I'll keep on waiting. ;)

      brian ansorge
      Reply Vote

  • And this is a good thing? (seriously)

    I confess I honestly don't know if Javascript render speed is an important issue these days. I'm still stuck back here with Firefox 2, and aside from the slight delay upon first opening, I've never once watched a web page opening and muttered under my breath, "Damn--I wish this page loaded faster."

    It's like going to an auto showroom and the dealer saying, "On this new Belchfire 3000 the engine will start in 0.3 seconds when you turn the key, not the 2 seconds your old car needs." Big whoop.

    But maybe it's a factor.
    Dorkyman
    Reply Vote

    • Depends on whether you use JavaScript based pages...

      ...if not then, no, it won't help. But a lot (sorry no proof to back this up) of web sites these days use JavaScript.

      I personally use FF3 w/ NoScript which stops JavaScript from running by default. More or less any page I visit has NoScript blocking something which tells me there is a lot about (most are Google Analytics scripts) on a page.

      So I would say using a browser that can render it faster (if you don't use NoScript) will speed up your web experience...

      -- EDIT --

      Takalok just kind of made my point a lot more compact!
      DevJonny
      Reply Vote

      • For quite sometime, Safari has the ability to have javascript disabled.

        Go to preferences in Safari, go to security next, and you will see, not only
        can you disable javascript, but also java, plugins, etc,,,




        "In a world without walls & fences, who needs windows & gates?"
        Intellihence
        Reply Vote

        • Well any browser can do that!

          But NoScript lets you turn JavaScript on and off without leaving the page and going into options, and can be set on a site by site basis and on an individual page basis if you want. It's fantastic for killng off those annoying and often unwanted adverts etc that tend to pop up all over the page on some sites, and NoScript greatly increases the chances of you not downloading any potentially harmful script.
          GOTBO
          Reply Vote

        • So?

          That's nothing special. That's supposed to be a mandatory feature of any browser. But when you do use that method, javascript is universally unavailable for all sites until you re-enable it.

          What NoScript does is allow the user to turn off javascript elements on a site by site basis. Javascript can be on for YouTube.com while being off for ZDNet.com. That's a whole different level of javascript control.
          eMJayy
          Reply Vote

    • FF 2.0..do you realize how many exploited vulnerabilities you are open to?

      update your damn browser! people like you are a
      virus writer's wet dream.
      doctorSpoc
      Reply Vote

      • Nice to know...

        ...that I'm someone's wet dream, I guess. Wrong gender, though.
        Dorkyman
        Reply Vote

    • Good thing for AJAX

      For those of us trying to avoid java applets, Flash, and Silverlight, this is extremely important.
      davidr69
      Reply Vote

    • Yes, it is (Seriously)

      What you may not understand is that there are many new Javascript
      libraries coming on line. JQuery, MootTools and a host of other new
      interactive libraries offer us designers many new ways to develop
      advanced web pages. With these abilities, the complexities in code can
      start to choke older web browsers from rendering. What speeds you
      think you are happy with now will start to bother you in the years to
      come as the web jumps to 3.0.

      As an example, go run your Vista program on a 3-4 year old computer
      and feel the effects of why faster computers are needed to make you
      happy.
      carter02
      Reply Vote

  • Sure does matter

    Javascript is everywhere, and if you're talking about having a page load in approximately 1 second with Safari, versus 4 or 5 seconds on other browsers or even 39 seconds with IE7, yeah, that's HUGE.
    Takalok
    Reply Vote

    • No it doesn't...

      Don't talk rubbuish. This story is about how fast these browsers render JavaScript not how long they take to download. In other words it's about how good the JavaScript engine is. There's probably little or no difference in the download times between any of these browsers. But they're not going to tell you that because that would tend to put a huge damp squid on the whole thing.
      GOTBO
      Reply Vote

      • same download time, but you're going to be waiting for javascript...

        to render so what's the difference..
        instantaneous in Safari = 20-30 second in IE...
        you're still waiting, fast download or not..
        speaking of rubbish.. :P
        doctorSpoc
        Reply Vote

        • You're just adding to the confusion...

          (a) IE7 doesn't perform nearly as badly as they suggest or IE would have been dumped by the lorry load by now. And it hasn't. It's still the market leader.
          (b) Only one of the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark tests returns an abnormally high result in IE7, and I doubt you'll come up against that very often in the real world or (a) would equally apply.
          (c) The times shown in the graphs are the total result in milliseconds for all the tests. You're not likely to come across all the events tested in one piece of JavaScript on any one site.
          (d) The important factor is always the user experience, not how long something takes to render in some measurable test. I doubt anyone would really notice the difference between a piece of JavaScript that rendered in 50ms and a piece that rendered in 500ms. Especially given that the download time is part of the perception, and this can vary considerably just from page to page.

          I'm not an advocate of IE. I hate it. My preference is still for Firefox. I just think this whole test is not only biased but highly flawed.
          GOTBO
          Reply Vote

          • Or people are just sheep

            and don't know any better. That explains most of MS's dominance and
            easily answers your a) point.

            as for d) "I doubt anyone would really notice the difference between a
            piece of JavaScript that rendered in 50ms and a piece that rendered in
            500ms."

            So you think that there is little difference visually of something updating
            at 20 fps VS 2 fps. Interesting.
            Bruizer
            Reply Vote
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