3 ms·

Google Chrome 4.0: Fastest OS X browser by 34 per cent

27 points by davecardwell 17y ago

truebosko 17y ago
I love Chrome. I now use it exclusively on Windows at work because Firefox is just so much slower compared to it. At home on Ubuntu, I use the Chromium daily builds which are now very stable and using --enable-plugins for Flash is becoming more stable every week. This is just so great for browsers in general. As we all know, competition just makes everything better. I'm glad how Chromium has grown and I look forward to see how the other browsers begin innovating.
- windsurfer 17y ago
  I love chrome, but it just can't manage tabs the way the Tree Style Tabs extension can.
  - Herring 17y ago
    I'd add autopager & firegestures to that. I doubt I'll ever use a different browser.
  - mbreese 17y ago
    I've used the Tree Style Tabs on Firefox, and I can say that I actually prefer the way Chrome does it. With Chrome, it looks like a standard list of tabs, but behind the scenes, it's a tree. To each their own...
arthurk 17y ago
The author compares the JavaScript performance of a Chromium nightly build with Safari 4.0 based solely on the SunSpider benchmark. Lousy article behind a sensationalist title.
davecardwell 17y ago
Because I’ve used Firefox and various add-ons at work for so frequently and for so long I think Chrome is going to take some getting used to, but from what I’ve seen so far it’s well worth the effort. Firefox has served me well over the last few years but seems to grow ever-slower on my Macbook while playing with Chromium is like a breath of fresh air. Next week I’m going to try using the built-in Developer Tools to see how they stack up against Firebug, but what I’ve seen thus far has been pretty encouraging.
- blasdel 17y ago
  Safari's Web Inspector (used verbatim in Chrome) is still missing a few features vs. Firebug (mostly with editing, and integration with webapp frameworks), but it's STABLE, and fully integrated. Firebug crashes constantly, is unusable with many sites, and is never quite in sync with Mozilla's development plans. Mozilla blew it big time promoting their completely useless "Web Developer" extension for years (even shipping it in the installer), and completely ignoring Firebug.
electronslave 17y ago
Read the Update: at the bottom, and you'll get a feel for the technical / journalistic aptitude of the writer. It really smacks of Mike Angelo's noisemaking at the early part of the decade: http://everything2.com/title/MozillaQuest http://everything2.com/title/MozillaQuest Edit: I really miss the tech-meets-timecube aspect of that site.
rms 17y ago
After using Firefox 3 on Linux since the alpha, Chromium has reminded me what it is like to use a browser where all local operations are instantaneous. I just wonder how low the hardware requirements for Chrome OS will be.
krying_krab 17y ago
Faster than Opera too? Edit: Yes, at least the Javascript engine is significantly faster on this benchmark. On Chrome 2.0.172.39 on Windows I scored 1051.2 ms, on Firefox I scored 4633.8 ms, and on Opera I scored 6230.2 ms.
chrischen 17y ago
I did a sunspider benchmark of safari and firefox (forgot which version, but I did it recently with the latest versions of both) and their speeds were almost identical.
- petsos 17y ago
  So?
  - chrischen 17y ago
    Well safari kept saying how it was the fastest browser around.
chrischen 17y ago
Safari should just take the V8 engine.
- snprbob86 17y ago
  I'm enjoying the constant competition. I'd like to see them continue to push the envelope.
  - chrischen 17y ago
    The whole benefit of open source is so that stuff can be openly improved. If Chrome has a better javascript engine, then why not firefox and safari adopt it? They could always improve the Chrome version afterwards anyways (I'm assuming the V8 engine is indeed better). There really are only two browsers duking it out, Internet Explorer and the open source browser. Why? Because open source has no barriers to adopting it's own technology and can be considered one entity in theory. If one javascript engine is clearly superior why waste effort developing seperate open source implementations? It's not like the user interface where someone might prefer the style of firefox's javascript rendering over Chrome's. Competition even in open source is natural and should be encouraged, but they don't have to necessarily compete to improve. They can build on top of each other.
    - blasdel 17y ago
      1) A browser's full JS implementation is pretty closely coupled with its rendering engine. Even Mozilla ties them together, and they have a long heritage of making chunks of browser functionality separate libraries for no goddamn reason. 2) In the real world open source software is about scratching your own itch, and has absolutely nothing to do with "what's best for users". Developers are highly invested in their own code, and are loath to rip it out and replace it with someone else's. It's extraordinarily rare for OSS projects to merge at all even when they are forks (and I can't think of a single example of non-forked projects merging).
      - chrischen 17y ago
herf 17y ago
Scrolling on Chrome is still really slow compared to Safari (uses 100% cpu!) Guess this test doesn't do any of that.
lucraft 17y ago
If it's ok with you, I'm going to go ahead and mentally refer to it as Google Chrome 0.4.

27 points by davecardwell 17y ago

I love Chrome. I now use it exclusively on Windows at work because Firefox is just so much slower compared to it. At home on Ubuntu, I use the Chromium daily builds which are now very stable and using --enable-plugins for Flash is becoming more stable every week. This is just so great for browsers in general. As we all know, competition just makes everything better. I'm glad how Chromium has grown and I look forward to see how the other browsers begin innovating.

windsurfer 17y ago
I love chrome, but it just can't manage tabs the way the Tree Style Tabs extension can.
- Herring 17y ago
  I'd add autopager & firegestures to that. I doubt I'll ever use a different browser.
- mbreese 17y ago
  I've used the Tree Style Tabs on Firefox, and I can say that I actually prefer the way Chrome does it. With Chrome, it looks like a standard list of tabs, but behind the scenes, it's a tree. To each their own...

arthurk 17y ago

The author compares the JavaScript performance of a Chromium nightly build with Safari 4.0 based solely on the SunSpider benchmark. Lousy article behind a sensationalist title.

davecardwell 17y ago

Because I’ve used Firefox and various add-ons at work for so frequently and for so long I think Chrome is going to take some getting used to, but from what I’ve seen so far it’s well worth the effort. Firefox has served me well over the last few years but seems to grow ever-slower on my Macbook while playing with Chromium is like a breath of fresh air. Next week I’m going to try using the built-in Developer Tools to see how they stack up against Firebug, but what I’ve seen thus far has been pretty encouraging.

blasdel 17y ago
Safari's Web Inspector (used verbatim in Chrome) is still missing a few features vs. Firebug (mostly with editing, and integration with webapp frameworks), but it's STABLE, and fully integrated. Firebug crashes constantly, is unusable with many sites, and is never quite in sync with Mozilla's development plans. Mozilla blew it big time promoting their completely useless "Web Developer" extension for years (even shipping it in the installer), and completely ignoring Firebug.

electronslave 17y ago

Read the Update: at the bottom, and you'll get a feel for the technical / journalistic aptitude of the writer. It really smacks of Mike Angelo's noisemaking at the early part of the decade: http://everything2.com/title/MozillaQuest http://everything2.com/title/MozillaQuest Edit: I really miss the tech-meets-timecube aspect of that site.

rms 17y ago

After using Firefox 3 on Linux since the alpha, Chromium has reminded me what it is like to use a browser where all local operations are instantaneous. I just wonder how low the hardware requirements for Chrome OS will be.

krying_krab 17y ago

Faster than Opera too? Edit: Yes, at least the Javascript engine is significantly faster on this benchmark. On Chrome 2.0.172.39 on Windows I scored 1051.2 ms, on Firefox I scored 4633.8 ms, and on Opera I scored 6230.2 ms.

chrischen 17y ago

I did a sunspider benchmark of safari and firefox (forgot which version, but I did it recently with the latest versions of both) and their speeds were almost identical.

petsos 17y ago
So?
- chrischen 17y ago
  Well safari kept saying how it was the fastest browser around.

chrischen 17y ago

Safari should just take the V8 engine.

snprbob86 17y ago
I'm enjoying the constant competition. I'd like to see them continue to push the envelope.
- chrischen 17y ago
  The whole benefit of open source is so that stuff can be openly improved. If Chrome has a better javascript engine, then why not firefox and safari adopt it? They could always improve the Chrome version afterwards anyways (I'm assuming the V8 engine is indeed better). There really are only two browsers duking it out, Internet Explorer and the open source browser. Why? Because open source has no barriers to adopting it's own technology and can be considered one entity in theory. If one javascript engine is clearly superior why waste effort developing seperate open source implementations? It's not like the user interface where someone might prefer the style of firefox's javascript rendering over Chrome's. Competition even in open source is natural and should be encouraged, but they don't have to necessarily compete to improve. They can build on top of each other.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    1) A browser's full JS implementation is pretty closely coupled with its rendering engine. Even Mozilla ties them together, and they have a long heritage of making chunks of browser functionality separate libraries for no goddamn reason. 2) In the real world open source software is about scratching your own itch, and has absolutely nothing to do with "what's best for users". Developers are highly invested in their own code, and are loath to rip it out and replace it with someone else's. It's extraordinarily rare for OSS projects to merge at all even when they are forks (and I can't think of a single example of non-forked projects merging).
    - chrischen 17y ago

herf 17y ago

Scrolling on Chrome is still really slow compared to Safari (uses 100% cpu!) Guess this test doesn't do any of that.

lucraft 17y ago

If it's ok with you, I'm going to go ahead and mentally refer to it as Google Chrome 0.4.