Habitually Good

One of the most popular posts on this blog is about a comparison between Firefox and Chrome. That was when I switched over to Chrome from FireFox, and have never looked back. This month Opera 10 was finally released, and I have also since installed FireFox 3.5, Safari 4, and IE 8. So, I thought I would do a Browser showdown to see how these latest and greatest browsers perform against each other.

Firefox versus Chrome versus IE versus Safari versus Opera.

And so I present, the Great Browser Performance Showdown:

Setup and Preparation

A little note about the setup I had in place and the preparations I did before testing out the various aspects of these browsers.

• Windows Vista x64, 4 GB RAM, 10K rpm HDD, Core 2 Quad Q9550.
• Fresh Windows install.
• Fresh Chrome, Opera, Safari, IE, and Firefox installs.
• No plugins or addons on any browser.
• Set each browser to load a blank page upon startup.
• Warmed up each browser to visit several sites just to fill up cache and cookies randomly for each browser.
• Updated each browser to the latest.
• Each browser has a Quick Launch icon in my Quick Launch bar.

And for the record, here are the versions that each browser was running.

• Opera 10.0, build 1750
• Firefox 3.5.2
• Internet Explorer 8.0.6001
• Chrome 2.0.172
• Safari 4.0.3

Before I start, I have to say that this comparison is not very scientific, but is 100% unbiased. Also, I am not comparing features that each browser has, but comparing only performance while performing normal tasks. Features are a whole different ballgame.

Here we go.

Startup Time

One of the things that I want my browser to be able to do the most is to start off very quickly – it should launch before I am done moving the mouse after clicking the icon to launch it. So, how do all these browsers perform while starting up.

The method I used to test this simply classifies these browsers into two parts: Blazing Fast and Just Not There. This is more a feeling test – if I feel that the browser is taking a pause before launching, its Just Not There. And the results are:

Blazing Fast

• Chrome
• Internet Explorer

Just Not There

• Safari
• Opera
• Firefox

Even I was surprised by the results. Of all of them, Firefox is the slowest with Opera being the second slowest. I have to of course say, that the difference is really a split second. With Chrome and IE, you can say that they start instantaneously, while Opera and Safari, I felt a momentary lag before they start up, and with Firefox, it was quite noticeable.

Another way to confirm how fast each browser loads is to check for how long does the busy cursor in Windows Vista show? With Chrome and IE, I hardly see the cursor, while with the others I actually see it go round.

Another thing to notice is that the startup time increases over time. In case of Firefox, once you install some plugins, the startup time really takes a plunge (from past experience) and the same goes with IE. Even with Chrome, it won’t be so blazing fast after you have used it a bit.

Conclusions:

• Chrome and IE win.

Memory Usage

The other thing that is important is how much memory does the browser use. If you are anything like me, you will have 30-40 pages open at the same time, and before you know it your browser alone is taking up more than a gigabyte of your RAM.

The other thing to know is how quickly does the browser release memory as pages are closed and tabs are shut down. For this test, I am going to start the browser, and open 6 pages, and note the total memory consumption for all of the browser processes after each page is opened. Then I am going to close them one by one and see how the memory is released. In order to measure how the memory is released, I am going to take the measurement 30 seconds after closing the tab. I am going to use the same 6 pages for each browser.

Here are the results:

In the chart above, the x-axis is the number of pages open. The following observations can be drawn with this data:

• IE and Chrome take the most memory as you open more pages (IE is the highest).
• IE and Chrome release memory much better as the pages are closed.
• Firefox, Opera, and Safari don’t release memory as much as pages are being closed. This is obvious to see when you compare the memory that was being used when the browser was started initially to when the pages were closed to zero (Firefox 20 to 53, Opera 24 to 69, and Safari 22 to 79)
• Opera uses the least amount of memory of all the browsers per page.

So, as you go about your day, opening and closing pages, there is a big chance that you will have a sizable memory consumption when using Opera, Safari, or Firefox. While if you are using IE or Chrome, and you need to free up some memory, you can simply close some pages instead of the entire browser.

Some more observations that I made during this testing:

• Chrome and IE both use multiple processes for loading multiple pages. This is probably what causes the higher memory consumption, and also allows the faster memory release.
• While Chrome uses one process per page, IE doesn’t always spawn a new process per page. Chrome releases memory almost immediately, while IE takes up to a minute to release memory.

Conclusions:

• Chrome and IE win because of how quickly they release memory.
• If you are not a heavy user, then Opera wins.

Browsing Speed

This is the one that most browsers keep talking about. How fast does it actually load the page. And there are plenty of sites out there which have very scientific measures of browser performance. However, in my daily use, I want to see how fast these browsers load the sites that I visit. For this test, I have cleared my caches in all the browsers, and I am going to test them against 5 pages each (the same pages). Here are steps I am going to use to measure the time:

• Clear cache
• Start time on pressing Go
• Stop time when page stops loading
• Repeat 3 times and take average

Here are the results:

In the chart above, the x-axis represents the 5 different websites (LifeHacker, CrunchGear, YouTube, MidEastYouth, and StackOverflow) and the average time for all the sites.

The following are the obvious observations:

• Opera is painfully slow.
• And Firefox is blazingly fast.
• Chrome and IE do pretty well in most situations, with Chrome being faster more often.
• Safari is just about average.

One thing I would like to point out, is this. While all other browsers don’t change anything in the open window when you clear browsing data, Opera clears out the entire environment (closes the open page).

Conclusions:

• Firefox is the winner.
• IE on average is second best, but Chrome is probably a better contender. The average suggests that Chrome does very badly on certain types of sites.

Verdict?

Here’s the summary of my testing:

• Firefox wins – startup time and memory usage not withstanding, it is the one that gives you the fastest browsing.
• Internet Explorer 8 is a very compelling contender.
• Chrome is still holding its own. I am probably going to stick with Chrome for now.

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