5 ms·
I just ran both of the speed test benchmarks [1][2] mentioned in the article, plus two other tests [3][4]. | Firefox | Safari
by joeblau 8y ago
I just ran both of the speed test benchmarks [1][2] mentioned in the article, plus two other tests [3][4].
| Firefox | Safari | Chrome
----------------|----------------|-----------------|-----------------
Speedometer 2.0 | 83.0 ±0.91 | 92.1 ±2.8 | 75.7 ±3.4
JetStream | 219.40 ±8.5563 | 294.79 ±11.138 | 201.81 ±15.171
Motion Mark | 203.71 ±5.41% | 525.77 ±6.56% | 388.85 ±4.79
ARES-6 | 54.06 ±0.95ms | 16.85 ±1.19ms | 20.26 ±0.56ms
It looks like Firefox beats Chome in some perfomrance tests but Safari is still faster than Chrome and a lot faster than Firefox. At this point, I'm not sure any of Firefox's features are compelling enough to get me to switch back. I started using Firefox at 0.4 back when I was in college then I switched to Chrome when Firefox got slow, but I think the way I use the web now has changed. I really only use a few sites and I just want better security/ad-block/tracking block tools (which Apple is committing to) and speed.
edit: If someone uses Windows, I would be curious to see how Edge compares to Firefox and Chrome.
[1] - https://browserbench.org/Speedometer2.0/ https://browserbench.org/Speedometer2.0/
[2] - https://browserbench.org/JetStream/ https://browserbench.org/JetStream/
[3] - https://browserbench.org/MotionMark/ https://browserbench.org/MotionMark/
[4] - https://browserbench.org/ARES-6/ https://browserbench.org/ARES-6/
- tymekpavel 8y agoAssuming these are all in ms, how do you conclude that Safari is faster than Chrome or Firefox? It's slower in almost every test.
- msbarnett 8y agoHigher is better in Motion Mark, Speedometer, and Jetstream. ARES-6 is elapsed time. Safari beat the other two browsers in all four benchmarks.
- wutbrodo 8y agoI know that at least for the Jetstream benchmark, higher scores are better (ie they're not just time measurements). If you make an assumption that makes the parent comment contradict itself, it seems like it would make sense to investigate your assumption instead of thinking the parent comment is contradictory.
- bbeonx 8y agoI dunno, this _is_ the internet...
- andrewbinstock 8y agoIt would be useful to indicate whether higher results are better or not for each of the tests. From what I know, Speedometer: higher is better; ARES-6: lower is better.
- marban 8y agoFWIW, I keep coming back to Opera which feels the snappiest on the latest MBP 13". Any real-world numbers?
- Teeer 8y agoStrangely, I've also found that Opera's android browser is by far the fastest, very noticeably.
- te0006 8y agoAlso Opera is the only major mobile browser left with a decent text reflow implementation. Shame on Chrome for dropping it.
- arsham 8y agoI've also switched to Opera a couple of months ago. I'm running Opera touch on android too. I've found Opera on desktop (Linux) to be faster than Firefox and Chrome and the only functionality I'm missing is "to move the tabs to left and right". Even the chromecast works on Opera, which is fantastic. I've been using the Flow functionality ever since I've started using Opera, and I think that is the second reason (well, after it being fast) I'm going to stick with Opera.
- hasahmed 8y agoIt's much faster than it was. I don't notice any difference when I switched. I switched just so chrome wouldn't have such a monopoly
- culot 8y agoFWIW: | Firefox | Edge | Chrome ----------------|-----------------|-----------------|----------------- Speedometer 2.0 | 65.70 ±01.100 | 59.10 ±01.300 | 86.92 ±00.600 JetStream | 191.73 ±14.598 | 226.78 ±12.531 | 162.21 ±02.1999 Motion Mark | 173.67 ±04.61% | 432.36 ±13.07% | 279.61 ±13.67% ARES-6 | 63.72 ±01.26ms | 77.97 ±20.19ms | 27.65 ±00.79ms
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- maxyme 8y agoFYI, firefox is working on switching to rendering the entire page in opengl which should bring it's motion mark score up substantially. Details on that (and how to enable it in nightly at the bottom of each post) at https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com
- spockz 8y agoThey’d better switch to using metal because Apple deprecated OpenGL for MacOS.
- Nullabillity 8y agoThat's Apple's problem, not Mozilla's.
- zaarn 8y agoThat's a problem that Apple fabricated themselves. All MacOS games would also have to switch and I don't see that happening other than through the MoltenVK library if they support Vulkan at all.
- clouddrover 8y agoSince Firefox is a cross-platform project it'd be easier for them to target Vulkan and then use the MoltenVK library to do Vulkan on macOS: https://moltengl.com/moltenvk/ https://moltengl.com/moltenvk/ https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/ https://www.khronos.org/vulkan/
- 8y ago
- woolvalley 8y agoYeah I agree with your assessment ancedotally. Firefox a few months ago had horrible performance in google maps and strangely facebook. I checked again today, it's improved a lot, but it is still noticeably slower for those two cornerstone websites. It was enough to make me stop using firefox again I'm glad that the perf issues have been improved. They just need to get a little bit better and most objections for firefox would go away. Maybe as a workaround someone could make an extension that opens specific urls in chrome/safari when you open them. Only use chrome for maps and facebook for example :p
- nothrabannosir 8y agoFirefox’s biggest problem is rapacious battery draining. Unplug your charger and Safari feels like a dainty butterfly in a soft summer breeze, while Firefox thrashes around like a drunken Godzilla in mid-90s Tokyo. The energy usage tab on the activity monitor consistently shows Firefox at a ~40 “score” (whatever that unit is), and Safari more around 4. Anecdotally, the difference in battery time is real. This is the biggest reason to keep using Safari on Mac in battery mode. (Or Always Be Charging :) ) I hope they can ever fix this :( sounds pretty fundamental, but I know little.
- acqq 8y agoI also observe the same problem with Firefox on Windows and Linux. I have an impression that their developers don't have any priority on the battery drain, instead they just measure speed, and don't want to investigate too much on reducing actual work done, even when, from the user perspective, we're "doing nothing" (e.g. just keeping the browser open on some pages). I know there are many sites today that have tracking codes etc that "always run" but it seems that it's an excuse not to investigate what the browser "always does" in all the scenarios when it should just do as little as possible. Also, different kind of "movement" on the pages (videos, animated gifs, sounds) all take more battery than the competition. My measurements are that on some specific pages, even when I "do nothing" Firefox uses up to twice as much CPU. Luckily, it's not always twice as much battery drain, because even idle uses power. But it's definitely visible and measurable: from 3 hours of other browsers you'd probably have only 2 of Firefox.
- rusk 8y ago> like a drunken Godzilla in mid-90s Tokyo. You know you're old when you hear people making references to Godzilla in the 90s :-)
- more-coffee 8y agoIt is pretty fundamental. While Safari lacks features, it feels so much lighter and is noticeably less memory/CPU intensive. As a developer who needs every MB of memory, this makes me resort to Safari for pretty much everything. I'll occasionally use Firefox/Chrome when I really really need their superior webdev tools.
- mooman219 8y agoTo compare: i7 6700k / GTX 1080 / Windows 10 | Edge 42 | Chrome 67 | Firefox 61 ----------------|-------------------|------------------|------------------ Speedometer 2.0 | [3] 76.8 ±1.0 | [1] 118.0 ±1.3 | [2] 85.7 ±2.1 JetStream | [1] 283.0 ±21.4 | [3] 235.1 ±2.4 | [2] 240.8 ±2.7 Motion Mark | [3] 273.2 ±12.9% | [2] 305.4 ±0.9% | [1] 445.7 ±0.8% ARES-6 | [3] 65.4 ±16.5ms | [1] 17.8 ±0.4ms | [2] 51.4 ±1.7ms
- thecrazyone 8y agoThanks for putting the [1] [2] [3], it becomes easier to understand for someone who doesn't know about these test scores
- midasz 8y agoToo bad there is no way to install Safari on Windows.
- rootlocus 8y agoSafari is heavily optimized for Mac, so porting it doesn't really make sense.
- a_imho 8y agoFWIW the major factor driving user experience is content blocking. It is good to know the subtle diffrences, but any browser that ships with content blocking enabled by defult smashes the browser with the fastest rendering speed when it comes to actual browsing. Moz://a could easily ship the best browser on the market if they actually cared about the users, instead of taking Google money and pretending to be a competition.
- Y_Y 8y agoIf they stopped taking the Google money it would be much harder to pay developers. I think this would be worse overall for the users, and I bet Mozilla thinks the same.
- a_imho 8y agoDisagree, there are many ways to financial stability besides taking money from a direct competitor. Are they that cash strapped?
- Vinnl 8y agoThey would be if the revenue from search engine deals fell away. They've been experimenting with different, user-respecting sources of funding (and still are), but also have to face with enormous amounts of backlash every time they do, so finding alternative funding is not as simple as you make it out to be.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bkor 8y ago> Are they that cash strapped? It's more the opposite. They get a huge amount of money from Google. It's pretty hard to replace. E.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing for a mention + source of 300 MUSD per year.
- Paraesthetic 8y agoBut ewww safari, why even?