{"id":46993,"date":"2018-12-31T16:06:16","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T22:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=46993"},"modified":"2019-01-02T13:58:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T19:58:25","slug":"rocket-yard-testing-lab-which-browser-is-fastest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/46993-rocket-yard-testing-lab-which-browser-is-fastest\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Yard Testing Lab: Which Browser is Fastest?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When asked what browser they use on their Mac, most people will respond with Google Chrome or Apple Safari. Some will mention Firefox and Opera as alternatives to the big two.<\/p>\n

It seems each browser has its advocates, with browser features, speed, and user interface being the most often named reasons for a preference. It would be difficult to try to measure the benefits of a browser\u2019s features, or its user interface, but we can test a browser\u2019s speed, and who doesn’t enjoy a good race?<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s line up the competitors and see who gets to the finish line the fastest.<\/p>\n

The Browsers<\/strong>
\nThe four most popular Mac browsers are included in our benchmark testing, along with Safari Technology Preview (STP), a browser in beta form designed to showcase new technology that will likely make its way into Safari at some future date. We\u2019re including it just to provide a sneak peek at what will be coming down the line.<\/p>\n

Chrome: <\/strong>Google Chrome<\/a> has become the most used desktop browser, with an estimated 68% share of the desktop market (2018). It was first released in 2008, and made use of the WebKit rendering engine, the same one used by Safari. In 2013, the Chromium project was announced; it included the new Blink rendering engine. Blink was a fork of the WebKit code, and since the two have parted ways, each rendering engine has seen a frantic pace in its development.<\/p>\n

Firefox: <\/strong>Could be considered one of the oldest browsers available. Firefox can trace its heritage back to Netscape Navigator, one of the first widely available web browsers. Firefox may have a long history, but it is, in all respects, a modern browser. It includes the newest version of the Quantum rendering engine, designed to bring new technologies to Firefox<\/a> by building on the foundation of the older, but very stable, Gecko engine.<\/p>\n

Opera: <\/strong>Another browser that can follow its heritage back into the dim beginnings of the world wide web. Although Opera<\/a> has been around for a very long time, its technology is quite new; it\u2019s based on the same Blink rendering engine used in Chrome.<\/p>\n

Safari: <\/strong>Apple’s Safari web browser has been the default browser app since 2003 and the release of OS X Panther. Safari <\/a>makes use of WebKit as its rendering engine.<\/p>\n

The Benchmarks<\/strong>
\nIn choosing benchmarks for measuring the performance of a web browser, two aspects jump out as the most important: how quickly and how accurately a browser can display a web page. This process is known as rendering, and is the responsibility of the browser\u2019s rendering engine.<\/p>\n

The rendering engine is concerned with interpreting the HTML elements and CSS styles, as well as the graphics primitives used to display the web page.<\/p>\n

The other main focus is on testing the performance of the JavaScript engine<\/a> each browser uses. JavaScript is the language used by web developers to bring a static page to life, and to build web apps. JavaScript can have a major impact on a browser’s performance, and how well a web page performs.<\/p>\n

In order to measure the rendering engine and JavaScript engine used in the browsers we\u2019ll be testing, we\u2019ll use four browser benchmarks:<\/p>\n

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(ARES-6 results: bold text indicates best results in each test.)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ARES-6: <\/strong>This benchmark is designed to measure the performance of JavaScript’s newest features, including arrow functions, Map, Set, classes, proxies, and more. It rewards browsers that initialize quickly, and that are able to optimize code segments that are used repeatedly.ARES-6 is broken into four sub-tests: Air, Basic, Babylon, and ML.<\/p>\n

Air makes use of popular JavaScript benchmarks from Octane (executeIteration), Kraken (gaussianBlur), and Octane\/Typescript (scanIdentifier).<\/p>\n

Basic is an implementation of ECMA-55 BASIC language. The Basic sub-test runs a number of Basic programs, including finding prime numbers.<\/p>\n

Babylon is a test of the Babel JavaScript transpiler. The sub-test runs the Babylon parser on four different JavaScript sources.<\/p>\n

ML builds several feedforward neural networks, training them with sample data sets. ML tests how well a browser\u2019s matrix math libraries perform.<\/p>\n

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(MotionMark results: Most of the browsers were able to turn in respectable graphics performance.)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MotionMark: <\/strong>This web benchmark focuses on graphics performance by rendering multiple elements designed to stress the graphics system. The benchmark adds additional elements until the browser fails to display the scene at 60 frames per second. Nine test scenes are performed, each stressing different graphics processes.<\/p>\n

MotionMark can use one of three screen sizes to target different types of devices:<\/p>\n