RSSCode-frozen Firefox 3.5 beta gains 4% more speed against Chrome 2
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published April 16, 2009, 4:13 PM
We may see the latest Mozilla Firefox 3.5 public beta -- now with the whole numbering thing straightened out -- as soon as next Wednesday, and quite likely a Firefox 3.0.9 update in the same timeframe. In the meantime, as Mozilla's developers test the final nightly build prior to the opening of the floodgates, Betanews tests reveal that regular Firefox users should appreciate about double the speed and performance of Firefox 3.0.8, and 450% the performance of the final release of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.
But as Mozilla's developers make tweaks to its rendering engine and its new TraceMonkey JavaScript interpreter, Google's developers (some of whom, admittedly, are the very same people) are making tweaks to its development series browser, Chrome 2.0.172.6. (Google's development browser now co-exists with its Chrome 1 series, which represents finalized code.) As a result, our latest tests show Apple may not hold claim to "the world's fastest browser" for much longer, as Chrome 2 pulls within 2% of Safari's general performance, and as Firefox 3.5 makes up some ground.
The latest performance scores for the April 16 Firefox 3.5 nightly build (intended for private testing) in Betanews tests are 17% better overall than for Firefox 3.1 Beta 3, a public beta released last month. This is on the strength of 18% better CSS rendering performance, 13% better JavaScript object handling, and 27% better overall JavaScript processing scores, in a suite of performance tests produced by independent developers and collected by Betanews.
So as Chrome 2 improves, Firefox 3.5 improves even faster...though it still has quite a lot of ground to make up. Using Betanews' cumulative index scoring in which a 1.0 score represents the performance of Internet Explorer 7, the latest 3.5 nightly build scored a 9.19 -- meaning, when all the tests are ironed out, 919% the speed and performance of IE7, which even Microsoft has acknowledged to be something of a dog. Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 scored a 7.85 in these same tests, which were conducted on a Windows Vista-based Virtual PC environment (not the fastest, but still sufficient to gauge relative performance).
The Safari 4 Beta scores from last month still represent the latest available index scores, with a 14.39 -- and Apple maintains the lead. But not by much, as Chrome -- the #2 chariot being driven by Charleton Heston -- pulls up uncomfortably close with a new score of 14.09, nearly 10% better than last month's build.
Now, do you remember the non-competitive days of Web browsers, so very long ago...2008? Imagine if Web browsers got faster at a rate of 10% per month, every month? Real competition can certainly change the landscape.
I have all the browser on my system, for compatibility etc, but in the end, regardless of how the percentages run, my firefox loaded with its script blockers etc loads faster cos it doesn't load all the script on a page, the flash I don;t want etc. the other browsers don;t have the scripting resources available that firefox does have.
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|Does anyone know if add-ons work yet? Specifically ad block plus?
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|Yep, adblock plus plugin and the adblock plus:element hider plugin works with the current public beta build of Firefox 3.1b3. I am using it now to block all the advertising goodness, but sadly the normal adblock plugin doesn't work on it yet..
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|@rsx508
i actually thought they wanted more part of the market for themselves not share it with someone
and to the previous post of yours
i am actually using the nightly builds of Mozzila ad i am quite satisfied with the performance
and yes the 4% you re talking about keeps on improving every single day .
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|I find it odd that Google was so involved with Mozilla funding and support for a brief period, and has since kicked them in the shins with Chrome. Anyone know how/why that change occurred?
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|4% ?! Seriously? Is there a human alive that can detect that without being informed beforehand? 20% might be noticed, but 4%?
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|"some of whom, admittedly, are the very same people"
And who would those people be? AFAIK, the developers with Mozilla roots working on Chrome all stopped coding for Mozilla awhile ago.
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|what are the speed differences when ad networks and scripting aren't loaded?
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|What about the latest Firefox 3.6 build compared to Firefox 3.5 ? Is it faster, slower, the same ?
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|Apple's Safari will always win the speed category. Safari 4 is beta but the final release will trump the final releases of Firefox 3.5 and Chrome 1.0.
The unstoppable and mighty Apple always finds a way to 1 up the competition. :)
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|You're really good with that sarcasm. I'd almost expect you to be a fanboy.
If Firefox 3.5 is even close to Safari in speed, it's already won since Safari doesn't support Themes or Addons, except in the most limited way. Safari 4's tab system does add to my laughter, though. What were they thinking?
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|mozilla should adopt google chrome sandbox for firefox and work with google on it
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|im sure many people said "mozilla should adopt IE and work on it" back in 1999.
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|i respect your opinion, but i do hope you know what google chrome >>sandbox
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|I want. :)
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|4 % of 0.001ms, I doubt anybody can tell.
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|I'm tempted to remind you that it all adds up, but that would just be ridiculous in context lol.
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|You mean, I could save 20% in performance by closing and opening FF five times? :)
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|And in the end, does this all matter, if Firefox and Opera are so much easier to live with on a daily basis. Browsers, such as ie8, can not be set to use a font size specified as the minimal allowed size. Some may want for ad blocking, which FF has. Just a gazillion features which are better in FF or Opera over that of the competition. A little slower, you say --- so what???
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