Safari 4 - "The world's fastest browser" ... NOT!
![adrian-kingsley-hughes](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/6f9ac99abaa541291e393a8b765bdffb2fa11559/2022/08/05/11c625de-cb18-4e3f-8614-5010553831f2/adrian-kingsley-hughes.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&frame=1&height=192&width=192)
At yesterday's WWDC 09 keynote speech Apple announced the release of Safari 4 web browser for Windows and Mac. Apple claims this browser is "the world’s fastest browser" ... let's find out.
![09-06-2009-10-27-36.jpg](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/2014/10/04/5ff6245f-4b71-11e4-b6a0-d4ae52e95e57/09-06-2009-10-27-36.jpg)
So, is Safari 4 the fastest browser? Let's test out Apple's claim by pitting it against Google Chrome.
I'm using my standard test bed - QX9770 Core 2 Extreme running at 3.2GHz, with 2GB or RAM on a fully up-to-date Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit platform.
I'm putting Safari 4 against Google Chrome because that's currently the fastest browser on the block. If Safari 4 can beat that, it earns the title of "world's fastest browser." If it can't beat Chrome, then the claim is puff.
As usual, two tests - SunSpider JavaScript, and V8 benchmarks.
The results -->
While it's clear that Safari 4 is fast, and it's almost caught up with Chrome in the V8 benchmark, Safari 4 is clearly NOT the world's fastest browser.
I replicated the same tests on a number of other systems and came up with similar results. Google Chrome still outperforms Safari 4. The gap is closing, sure, so it's close but no cigar.
Detailed benchmark results -->
Google Chrome 2.0.172.30
V8 Benchmark
Score: 3623 Richards: 3297 DeltaBlue: 3747 Crypto: 3043 RayTrace: 4006 EarleyBoyer: 5777 RegExp: 1265 Splay: 7441
Sunspider JavaScript Benchmark
============================================ RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals) -------------------------------------------- Total: 802.8ms +/- 2.5% --------------------------------------------
3d: 128.4ms +/- 9.2% cube: 36.8ms +/- 5.6% morph: 54.6ms +/- 25.7% raytrace: 37.0ms +/- 2.4%
access: 71.8ms +/- 11.9% binary-trees: 4.6ms +/- 14.8% fannkuch: 27.6ms +/- 19.0% nbody: 28.4ms +/- 12.2% nsieve: 11.2ms +/- 9.3%
bitops: 49.2ms +/- 8.6% 3bit-bits-in-byte: 4.2ms +/- 24.8% bits-in-byte: 9.8ms +/- 5.7% bitwise-and: 13.6ms +/- 5.0% nsieve-bits: 21.6ms +/- 19.3%
controlflow: 3.4ms +/- 20.0% recursive: 3.4ms +/- 20.0%
crypto: 57.4ms +/- 6.2% aes: 18.4ms +/- 3.7% md5: 21.6ms +/- 8.7% sha1: 17.4ms +/- 10.8%
date: 109.6ms +/- 11.9% format-tofte: 57.0ms +/- 4.4% format-xparb: 52.6ms +/- 22.4%
math: 72.4ms +/- 4.0% cordic: 25.8ms +/- 4.0% partial-sums: 35.8ms +/- 5.2% spectral-norm: 10.8ms +/- 5.1%
regexp: 29.6ms +/- 7.0% dna: 29.6ms +/- 7.0%
string: 281.0ms +/- 3.3% base64: 37.4ms +/- 4.5% fasta: 42.8ms +/- 5.2% tagcloud: 52.6ms +/- 3.6% unpack-code: 91.2ms +/- 6.4% validate-input: 57.0ms +/- 3.1%
Safari 4.0 (530.17)
V8 Benchmark
Score: 2494 Richards: 3844 DeltaBlue: 2965 Crypto: 3325 RayTrace: 2829 EarleyBoyer: 3710 RegExp: 1252 Splay: 1206
V8 Benchmark
============================================ RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals) -------------------------------------------- Total: 846.2ms +/- 3.5% --------------------------------------------
3d: 187.4ms +/- 14.1% cube: 74.0ms +/- 23.8% morph: 62.6ms +/- 16.7% raytrace: 50.8ms +/- 18.2%
access: 90.6ms +/- 9.3% binary-trees: 8.4ms +/- 8.1% fannkuch: 20.0ms +/- 9.8% nbody: 54.0ms +/- 20.8% nsieve: 8.2ms +/- 24.9%
bitops: 41.0ms +/- 3.7% 3bit-bits-in-byte: 4.6ms +/- 14.8% bits-in-byte: 8.6ms +/- 7.9% bitwise-and: 3.8ms +/- 14.6% nsieve-bits: 24.0ms +/- 0.0%
controlflow: 4.8ms +/- 11.6% recursive: 4.8ms +/- 11.6%
crypto: 64.4ms +/- 10.4% aes: 14.4ms +/- 40.8% md5: 25.0ms +/- 6.1% sha1: 25.0ms +/- 6.1%
date: 78.0ms +/- 28.0% format-tofte: 27.6ms +/- 26.8% format-xparb: 50.4ms +/- 47.7%
math: 135.4ms +/- 5.6% cordic: 54.6ms +/- 7.3% partial-sums: 55.6ms +/- 15.8% spectral-norm: 25.2ms +/- 2.2%
regexp: 33.0ms +/- 8.8% dna: 33.0ms +/- 8.8%
string: 211.6ms +/- 6.9% base64: 28.4ms +/- 2.4% fasta: 43.8ms +/- 21.9% tagcloud: 42.8ms +/- 18.2% unpack-code: 55.0ms +/- 26.8% validate-input: 41.6ms +/- 5.8%
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