With Internet Explorer 9 being acclaimed as the fastest ever browser client from Microsoft, DaniWeb decided to put it to the test against Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari and see just how quick it really is in a real world test of web browsing speed.
You can read our review of the Internet Explorer 9 Beta here .
A certain degree of nerdiness, no doubt, drives so many publications to take the microsecond benchmarking suite approach to testing. While we certainly do not dismiss these tests as pointless, measuring the speed of the browser JavaScript engine and core rendering speeds are important metrics in the scheme of things, we don't happen to think that most users really care too much about them. What users care about, and what we have been asked to produce as a result, is a measure of the real-world speed of browsers when faced with the average online content mixture facing an average user day in and day out. This was never intended on being a lab coat wearing scientifically benchmarked exercise, so please do not berate us for that. What it is, is an at-a-glance comparison of how the leading web browser clients stack up against each other in terms of real-world application when it comes to the single metric that is speed of use.
We fully appreciate that any shoot-out of web browser clients must come with a 'your mileage may vary' warning as far as the results are concerned, what with there being so many variables to consider. Your Internet connectivity is going to be different to ours, and the computer upon which your web browser client is loaded is going to be different as well. The important thing here being that all these tests were performed using the same broadband connectivity, the same computer from the same endpoint at the same time of day. Which makes this as even a playing field as possible for all the web browser clients being put to the test. Talking of which, we used the following client versions during our testing: Apple Safari 5.0.2, Google Chrome 6.0.472.63, Internet Explorer 9 Beta 9.0.7930.16406, Mozilla Firefox 3.6.9 and Opera 10.62. each of the following tests was performed three times, with system reboots inbetween where necessary, and the average time across all three tests used.Cold test
Each browser was setup to point at www.happygeek.com and then started from cold, immediately after the computer was rebooted in order to judge initial first use speed. In fastest order, the results were as follows: Chrome 9.8 seconds Opera 11.9 seconds Safari 13 seconds IE9 13.5 seconds Firefox 18.4 seconds Warm test
Each browser was setup to point at www.daniweb.com and then closed, but the computer was not rebooted inbetween tests, in order to judge typical loading speeds in day-to-day usage. In fastest order, the results were as follows: Opera 19.4 seconds Chrome 19.6 seconds Safari 20.2 seconds IE9 23.4 seconds Firefox 24.8 seconds Webmail test
Each browser was pointed at a webmail inbox at http://mail.google.com and the time taken from clicking on the completed login to the priority inbox being fully loaded and ready to read measured. In fastest order, the results were as follows: Safari 8.5 seconds Chrome 9.7 seconds Firefox 10.2 seconds Opera 10.9 seconds IE9 11.3 seconds Video test
Each browser was pointed at www.youtube.com and we measured how long it took to search for the 'Evolution of Dance' video and start it playing. In fastest order, the results were as follows: Safari 13.3 seconds Opera 14.6 seconds Chrome 17.9 seconds IE9 18.8 seconds Firefox 19.2 seconds News test
Each browser was pointed at www.msnbc.msn.com in order to see how a complex page full of continously updated text feeds as well as live streamed multimedia would take to be fully loaded. In fastest order, the results were as follows: Safari 28.6 seconds Opera 29.7 seconds IE9 34.1 seconds Chrome 36.2 seconds Firefox 38.4 seconds Browser homepage tests
We gave each browser an opportunity to shine by testing how long it took them to load their own homepage, that is the one that is used to market the browser in question online. While you, and indeed we, might expect these to be tweaked to ensure that the browser concerned loads as quickly as possible the tests suggest that this is not always the case.
Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive IE9 4.4 seconds Safari 4.8 seconds Opera 5.2 seconds Chrome 5.8 seconds Firefox 7.9 seconds Google Chrome Opera 1.4 seconds Chrome 1.8 seconds IE9 2.1 seconds Firefox 2.4 seconds Safari 2.7 seconds Mozilla Firefox Firefox 4.6 seconds Chrome 6.2 seconds Safari 6.4 seconds Opera 6.5 seconds IE9 6.9 seconds Opera Chrome 3.9 seconds Firefox 4.8 seconds IE9 4.9 seconds Opera 5.9 seconds Safari 7.1 seconds Safari Safari 3.7 seconds Chrome 4.0 seconds Opera 5.2 seconds Firefox 7.6 seconds IE9 8.4 seconds And the winner is...
To come up with an overall fastest browser winner, we awarded a simple one to five point sliding scale for each test performed with the fastest getting the full five points and the slowest just one. The points from all ten categories were then combined to produce the overall result with a score out of a maximum possible of 50.
And so, without any further ado, the results of the Great DaniWeb Browser Speed Shoot-Out are: Chrome (37/50) Safari (35/50) Opera (34/50) IE9 (23/50) Firefox (21/50)
Internet Explorer 9 may well be the fastest web browser yet from Microsoft, but our tests reveal it still has a long way to go to catch up with the crowd as far as real-world, day-to-day web usage is concerned. Our tests also revealed that Firefox, whilst having the biggest market share of the Microsoft alternatives, is struggling when it somes to pure browsing speed.
