RSSFirefox 3.1 could catch up to Safari 4 in beta speed duel
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published March 4, 2009, 4:46 PM
With the next -- though probably not the last -- public beta of Firefox 3.1, testers outside of Mozilla will get their first chance to see in action perhaps the number-one reason customers would want to upgrade: the browser's new TraceMonkey JavaScript execution engine. Expectations have been raised quite high over the past several months, as developers have promised orders of magnitude faster execution of functionally-driven Web pages.
But last week, it was Apple that threw down the gauntlet with its public release of a Safari browser beta, for both Mac and Windows, that tore through the speed records for JavaScript in public betas. Right now, it's Safari 4 that has the provisional pole. Yesterday, however, Mozilla managers instructed developers to start wrapping up their final check-ins, as it's nearing time for a public release of Firefox 3.1 Beta 3.
This afternoon, Betanews checked the latest nightly internal build of the code being wrapped up for Beta 3, to see if TraceMonkey was going to make its appearance or be delayed until the next round. We gave the latest build of code-name "Shiretoko" a quick qualification test, and you can almost hear the voice of Tom Carnegie now: "An-n-n-nd...he-e-e-e's on it!"
Our early test results showed that Firefox 3.1 could, at the very least, make up a lot of ground in the rendering department against Safari. It hasn't passed Safari's scores just yet, but if the warm-up laps are any indication, Firefox will join Safari in a neck-and-neck battle for the pole.
We put last night's "Shiretoko" build through the same battery of tests that we gave the latest Safari 4 beta last week, along with production versions of the other major Windows-based browsers: Google Chrome, Opera, and Internet Explorer. We used the same virtual machine running Windows Vista SP1 in Microsoft Virtual PC, running on an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600-based host, that we used in our previous tests. This isn't exactly a superspeedway, but what's important here are the relative speeds, which are more pronounced against one another when using a slower environment.
In the HowToCreate.co.uk CSS rendering benchmark, Shiretoko loaded the test page in 456 ms, and completed the rendering test (at first) in 38 ms. But each successive rendering got faster, thanks probably to memory caching, until eventually Shiretoko was capable of rendering the test in 4 ms. This compared to the Safari 4 beta's score of 54 ms to load and 7 ms to render. We were able to speed up Safari in successive renders as well, until it too hit 4 ms.
By itself, that delta still looks like a gulf. But Firefox 3.0.6 loaded in 400 ms and rendered in 61 ms. If 3.1 can get closer to that 4 ms score in the final public build, it will have made up some critical ground -- and in any event, it will look and feel a whole lot faster to a much broader range of users, at least on the Windows side, than Safari.
In Sean Patrick Kane's collective JavaScript speed battery, Shiretoko completed the battery in 344 ms, which is 32% faster than Firefox 3.0.6 -- not orders of magnitude, but still a good boost. Safari 4 beta's score stands at 174 ms.
And finally, Shiretoko earns some style points along the way by scoring a 93 on the Web Standards Project's Acid3 standards compliance test. That's one of Mozilla's highest scores there to date, with Firefox 3.0.6 only scoring a 71. Of course, you can't get any better than Safari 4 beta's score: a perfect 100.
Nightly builds of any kind of software, including open source, tend to have less optimized code than public beta builds, so Shiretoko's speed increase could be an indication of a more competitive score from Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 down the road.
I tried Safari 4 for a short time. No support for multiple home pages. Separate search bar. No ad blocking. Buggy "cover flow". Embarrassing lack of extensions. I won't touch Safari 4 if you paid me. Even Chrome is better. And the supposed "speed" of Safari 4 wasn't obvious to me. I didn't see much difference compared to FF or Chrome. IE7/IE8 are just horribly slow anyway.
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|If the author if this article was testing Shiretoko from the last couple days he'd need to check on the version of it. It's entirely possible he thought he was using the upcoming beta 3, but in reality was using the pre beta 4 version. I've been using Shiretoko for quite a while and noticed it updated to 4pre (when it was 3pre until a few days ago). Just thought I'd point that out.
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|Safari still can't get simple tables to display correctly on some websites. It's garbage.
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|It's nice to know you finally paid your bill and you now have internet access again. We really missed hearing from you.
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|Opera 10 is far faster than Firefox. Now I don't have the Firefox Beta... so can't compare there. Safari was a memory drain. But yes Chrome still fastest.
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|Great. Neither opera nor chrome can block elements or ads like noscript or adblock can. That makes them both SLOWER overall.
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|Opera can block whatever you need to, manually. What it lacks is the chance to download a custom ad list (like adblock does). Opera add this and a better spellchecker and I will return to it as default browser.
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|Oh I would use Opera too if it did this. I've been asking for 4+ years now and it hasn't happened, so I doubt it ever will.
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|I'm currently running IE7 with the SlimBrowser Addon. I'm not concerned about security, as I run ESET's Smart Security in Strick Mode. I have yet to see any viruses, trojans or spyware get through it.
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|Well I'm using Opera 10 Alpha, it's the best Opera for years. But it's not faster than Firefox, and not as fast as Chrome. Safari crashed soon after I'd started using it, so I, unlike most who post here will not be commenting on it, except to say it's a load of rubbish. Chrome however just keeps getting better, and better, faster, and faster, it's so bloomin' boring. That's why it'll be Opera for a while, and when it crashes as it surely will, I'll pop over to their forums and tell 'em why they should be using Chrome, and they'll delete all my posts again.
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|Hasn't Tracemonkey been on by default since at least 3.1 beta 2?
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|Might, might not - who cares about speculation...
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|Scott passed the line. He did not saw the comments on his last Safari propaganda... Both Firefox nightlies and Opera alphas already beat Safari, not only in speed but compatibility, usability, expansion and features.
It is sad for him to insist writing lies unless he admit the did not read previous comments. Did you, Scott?
Edit, a last line, not on speed but UI, which I agree: http://www.osnews.com/st...fari_4_Beta_UI_Disaster
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|At this point, FireFox has the same advantage as the iPhone - addons/apps. FF has thousands of additions that make safer, faster, more friendly browsing, however you choose. Having a few dozen ms speed disadvantage is worth having robust tools like NoScript, FlashBlock, GreaseMonkey, ABP, FireFTP, etc etc etc.
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|Safari 4 is hands down the world's best browser. The code in Webkit is much smaller than the bloated code in Firefox's gecko engine, thus giving Webkit an eternal advantage in the speed department.
No other browser has more features and ease of use out of the box than Safari 4. Apple constantly leads the way in innovation and engineering. Safari 4 is so advanced that I feel like I'm in the year 3009 when I'm using it.
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|The Safari 4 beta isn't compatible with ad blocking software, not even Privoxy. Safari 4 Beta can't seem to retain proxy settings. This alone makes Firefox 3.x better than Safari.
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|I am with you dude; until i can easily block ads, Safari and Chrome are not going to be used other than for development testing.
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|*laughing*
WebKit smaller...Cute.
Did you know WebKit is used by many apps for rendering in Mac OSX? No? Did you know that "uninstalling" safari (deleting Safari.app) leaves all the crufty WebKit stuff behind?
Did you know that Safari has NPAPI capability for plugins by default, which has much the same security risks as ActiveX? (To be honest, almost all browsers do this)
Sounds a lot like another browser I've heard of... IE something or other....
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|Ok seriously... I've seen fanboyism. This takes it to a whole new level. Safari4 rendering on Windows has got to be the worst attempt at integrating with the UI I have ever seen. Tabs in the title bar? Close, Minimize, and Maximize buttons are all messed up when using a patched uxtheme.dll.
As for innovation, seriously... has anyone really USED top sites or the bookmark editor?
Apple may innovate when it comes to hardware or operating systems, but this latest attempt at safari leaves a lot to be desired compared to FF.
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|LOL Tool... I wasn't going to go that deep... I don't think he would get it. ;-)
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|You are so good with the sarcasm, I almost think that you're serious sometimes.
I can't imagine that the speed will continue after the beta. They'll fix things and hopefully plug security holes (I'm not holding my breath) and it'll slow down a lot, as is the usual case with Apple's code.
Firefox doesn't need to be the fastest, it needs to be the best overall browser. JavaScript speed is only one factor and it's been the slowest factor for years, but add-ons and flexibility are huge features, as is a team that responds to security issues more quickly.
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|Superb. Finally FF speed up.
Waiting for final release. I'll stick with FF3.0.x for a while
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|superb man!
I love Firefox
I am anxiously waiting for the final release of FF 3.1 :)
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|"And finally, Shiretoko earns some style points along the way by scoring a 93 on the Web Standards Project's Acid3 standards compliance test. That's one of Mozilla's highest scores there to date, with Firefox 3.0.6 only scoring a 71. Of course, you can't get any better than Safari 4 beta's score: a perfect 100."
Or Opera 10 Beta's 100.
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|I kind of like Safari, however, without extensions like firefox, I will only use it as secondary browser.
IE7 - Secure Site Access e.g banks
Chrome - sometimes when I feel like it
Safari - when i'm reading a lot of stuffs
Firefox - for everything else, the supremo
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|IE7 for secure site access?? You're not kidding right?
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|I've used Shiretoko for months, maybe even a year now. Yes, it is fast in the tests. However, I also use IE7 and honestly, in real world browsing (you know ebay, amazon, new sites, etc) there is not much difference in any browser. ..and Safari 4 is so ugly I can't stand to use it.
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|i guess it all depends on your version of ugly. personally, windows everything is, to me, super fugly.
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|I really notice a speed difference with Safari 4 and I usually *HATE* all things Apple, if only for the total pretentiousness and *look at me - I've got a shiney thing* attitude. UI design is more than doing it differently, and Safari breaks the UI so badly on Windows... tabs at the top... dear god NO!
That said, I really think you need a fast connection in order to tell the difference... if your line is anything under 8mbps, you're probably not going to notice all that much. I'm on a 20mbps line (soon to be 50mbps - thank you Virgin Media) and it is incredibly fast. Still... I'm a FF die-hard fan especially as a web developer, so anyway, I'm just saying, if you want to see a speed increase, it's not *JUST* the browser that counts. If you don't notice the difference, you either don't browse the web a lot or you're experiencing a bottleneck somewhere else!
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