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Firefox performs worst on its own browser benchmark
OPEN SOURCE BROWSER OUTFIT Mozilla seems to have shot itself in the foot by releasing a benchmarking software tool that shows Firefox to be the slowest browser out there.
Yesterday, Mozzarella released Kraken, which it claimed is a more realistic Javascript benchmarking utility. It was trying to counter claims that other browsers have overtaken Firefox, the leading alternative to Microsoft's paragon of insecurity and lack of innovation, Internet Explorer, in terms of speed.
Mozilla claimed that using Kraken its upcoming Firefox 4 was 250 per cent faster than the current version. While that's all well and good, it seems that our tests show that Mozilla's own benchmarking tool does a good job of showing up Firefox's lagging performance.
We ran Kraken on the latest stable releases of Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera with the results clearly showing Mozilla's own browser up to 36 per cent slower than the fastest, Opera. Though Apple's Safari 5 did run close to Firefox 3.6.10, it still managed to scrape past it with a 100ms faster time than Mozilla's browser.
The scores on the doors were:
Opera 10.62 12628.2ms
Google Chrome 6.0.472 14442.3ms
Safari 5.0.2 17141.5ms
Mozilla Firefox 3.6.10 17258.0ms
Trying to run the test on Internet Explorer 8 resulted in the browser continually warning that the script might slow the browser down. Frankly after 15 minutes of trying to get it to work, we lost interest as it should be blindingly obvious that any of alternatives performs better than Microsoft's effort.
We refrained from testing beta browsers such as Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4 as it is likely that optimisations will be devised before production release.
Though Mozilla's attempt to provide an open source 'realistic' benchmark should be applauded, it's rather embarrassing for the outfit to come up at the bottom of the pile in its own test.
Usually benchmarks are created by organisations and used to highlight, perhaps through questionable testing methodologies, how their products are better than competitors. It seems that Mozilla has adopted the opposite approach. µ
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since i have downloaded latest version of firefox. Nothing is working well.So i tried the old version, but still i am not able to browse. I am getting an error message that it is not responding. This happened for a long time , and i had to leave the net in middle of my work. So i finally installed GOOGLE CROME, it is working excellently. so fuck firefox, it is going worse and worst day by day. I think it is sinking ship now.
Let me see. A browser company which makes a FREE browser and mail system creates a browser benchmark utility to compare the functionality of any browsers javascript engine...
Ok... So what? Did MS do it? Apple? No. The guy's doing it for little or no profit did it... And you're whining because their last stable release is slower by less than an eye blink?
Please... Get. A. Clue.
Are you dumb , (the maker of this blog posts)
Do you even know that there is IE 9 and Firefox 4 out there , If yes , then why are you testing IE 8 and Firefox 3.6.10 ???
How dare you write this blog post without doing any paperwork ?
Random off-topic comment:
Sorry, I saw the words Safari and stable in the same article...
iPhone Safari crashes All The Time. Sometimes it just zeros-out all the open windows and then each window (tab) has to be reloaded from the web. Other times it locks-up for about 30 seconds and then closes itself.
This happens a lot when you actually use it for blogging and surfing at the same time.
Apple coders are not as good as they think they are...
I have a very similar spec to Jason, slightly lower in fact. I got 7760.0ms +/- 1.0% with Minefield 4.0beta7pre x64.
Now adobe have finally released x64 flash player (and there is an x64 java too) I hope Mozilla release an official x64 browser soon!
As they said it would, it performed much better than previous efforts.
Score: 13995.1ms +/- 0.8%
Firefox 3.6.10
19584.8ms
Firefox4 Beta6
14605.5ms
Chrome 6.0.472.59
12732.9ms
Opera 10.62
10251.1ms
Safari 5.0.2
13762.2ms
IE9 Beta1
38513.6ms
Run on a Pentium Dual Core E6300 OC to 3.8GHz 1600MHz FSB.
IE9 Kept displaying a blank white screen on an off during the benchmark so I'm guessing it isn't running correctly.
For some reason the Firefox 3.6.10/Safari numbers don't match up on my system to those in the chart.
I am interested to see results for the JagerMonkey javascript engine that will be implemented in Firefox4 Beta7.
I've got a crappy 1.7Ghz AMD machine.
I have never experienced a problem with JavaScript running slowly and devaluing my user experience.
Download problems? Yes. Crap JavaScript looping? Yes. Seriously badly written JavaScript doing something pointless taking forever? Yes. Shitty web design making my life hell? Yes.
Waiting 2 or three minutes for an analanalytics to get back so the rest of the page can run? Oh Yes.
@Fritz - 40% of the time to process JavaScript is like having a Porche in a traffic jam - there are a lot better things to waste your hard earned life on.
Maybe you should try http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175500 to adjust the script execution timeout. Microsoft even provides a "Fix it for me" option for those that can't follow (or won't) follow directions.
@Jason
250% faster completion reworded is completion in 40% of the time.
100*2.5=250 (250% of 100=250)
100/2.5=40 (100% divided by 2.5=%40%)
250% is 2.5 times 100%
250% of 40% is 100%
The arithmetic is quite simple. Not sure why you had a problem with it.
Not really sure where the 250% number came from.
See, when you're doing percentage comparisons, your starting percentage is ALWAYS 100%. If a time is faster, it's means the percentage goes DOWN. So if it's really 250% faster, then that means you're getting your information before you even ask for it, which would be pretty cool if actually true. The highest increase possible would be 100% which would mean things are literally instantaneous, also cool.
Proper mathematical term usage, we've heard of it.
This says more about the author than the products he is testing
2 out of 10, poor troll.
Must try harder.
Release a benchmark where you are the slowest so the competition puts it in the news how good they are and then when people know about release the BOM (the update that puts the competition in shame)
And now it's to late to say that the benchmark can not be trusted.
dis is all bullshit, nothing more; nothing less
Netscape Navigator 2.01 performed terribly in this particular benchmark as well.
Report the WHOLE story, Lawrence!
The way Mozilla develops their browsers, their betas are always stable releases. They don't become official until every feature Mozilla wanted in the browser is finally in.
Firefox 4 beta is the stable equivalent of Chrome 5 and Opera 10.
Minefield is their unstable test release with the latest features, and that would be the equivalent of Chrome 6 or Webkit nightlies.
Nobody who uses Firefox uses 3.6 anymore, unless they're running a computer lab or a business distribution, and those always lag behind a generation.
I forgot the link. J/k on the above comment too.
http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/index.html
I just took the test myself!!
Total: 20597.7ms +/- 0.1%
How do these guys test their systems??
q6600@3.4
Xp Pro 4Gigs ram
GTX 260
I do not have any craplets running at all. I'd say I beat them ALL!!!! HAHA.
I am more curious about what applications take a speedy browser than which one is fastest. My workstation is a Dell, dual Xeon with 16 gigs of memory, but it is seven years old. That is like using a Texas Instruments graphing calculator compared to Intel's new chips.
Without looking for applications that stress browser usability, I cannot think of anything I have done in the last several years that would require a browser faster than what I have been running. The only ones I can think of are maybe Flash-intensive sites, but the problems I have seen with those appear to be optimiation and stability rather than pure speed.
I did have to use one of those Compaq computers that only cost a few hundred dollars for a while several years ago. Once I put a gig of memory in it and cut off all the crapware, it could handle just about anything, even online gaming and YouTube at the same time. So I would be curious to see an article that explored what anyone could possibly be doing in a browser window that required lightning speed.
I think its a fair test ... if you want to try all browsers on your system ... try Futuremark's PeaceKeeper ... Opera is certainly the fastest browser and is available for most OSs compared to IE9 Beta and Firefox Beta 4 relying on Windows 7/Vista for GPU acceleration ... and by the way ... Opera is still the fastest browser in the world on that test!
play dumb. But its not funny, Lawrence.
In my tests, the Firefox 4 nightly build did it in 65% of the time the Chrome nightly build took to do it. Also Firefox 3.6 was released around the same time as Chrome 4.0.
Look, Inquirer, we know you do not like Mozilla. You have never been subtle about that. You have certainly never let journalistic integrity or honesty stand in the way of that.
Thing is though, articles as transparent as this one will seriously undermine your credibility as a source of news.
I mean...
Comparing the previous generation of a browser to current generations of other browsers. Oh look, the previous generation does worse! Shocking.
well... mozilla says that firefox 4 nightly build performs 2.5x better than firefo 3.6... I'm gonna try IE9 and let you know the result