Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 - Benchmarked

And it's out!  Mozilla release Beta 4 of Firefox 3.0.

This latest beta refresh includes includes over 900 additional improvements related to the previous Beta 3 release. At this stage most of the improvements concentrate on areas such as security, plugging memory leaks, improving performance and tidying up the UI.

Be sure to check out the Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 gallery!

Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 Benchmarked -->

Note:  All testing carried out on Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit.

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark

The results of the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark shows that Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 is the fastest browser on the block. 

Note:  Neither version of Opera fully completed the MD5 part of the test, and these results have been omitted.

Here are the raw results:

• Firefox 3.0 Beta 4
• Opera 9.50 Beta 1
• Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1
• Firefox 3.0 Beta 3
• Safari 3.0 Beta
• Opera 9.26
• Firefox 2.0.0.12 
• Internet Explorer 7

ACID 3

I also ran all the browser through the ACID 3 standards compliance test.  In this test Firefox 3.0 beta 4 comes first and Opera 9.50 beta 1 second.

Here's the ACID 3 output for Opera 9.50 Beta 1:

Here's the ACID 3 output for Firefox 3.0 Beta 3: 

And here's the winner - Firefox 3.0 Beta 4:

Internet Explorer 7 fails misterably:

Here's what the properly rendered page should look like:

Other thoughts

• Firefox 3.0 beta 4 is a very responsive browser.
• Memory usage seems to be unchanged from Beta 3.  No signs of spiraling memory consumption.
• Start up and shut down is nice and fast.

Here's the official download page containing important information about this release.  Release notes here.

Thoughts?

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