Google Chrome: Still Smokin

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Google Chrome: Still Smokin

Posted 08/16/2009 at 10:55:33am | by J Keirn-Swanson

In recent benchmarking tests performed by CNET, the latest version of Google's Chromium (its developer title) buried the competition. In a SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, Chromium busted through with a 657ms final time, compared to 886ms for Safari, 1,508ms for Firefox, and Opera coming in at an embarrassingly slow 5,958ms.

In layman's terms, for loading and rendering pages that rely on JavaScript (which is a lot), Chromium smoked Safari and Firefox. Opera fared roughly as well as a tricycle would at the Indy 500.

And when it comes to Acid3's standards-compliancy tests, Chromium scored a perfect 100/100.

But wait, there's more.

Extensions and themes, long complained about as one of Chrome's greatest shortcomings, are slowly making their way into the builds. The most recent themes allowable were simple, worked across all platforms, and point towards the future universality of other goodies. The Google Chromium blog discusses some relevant issues as well as the eventual opening of a gallery of extensions much like Firefox has long had that will allow for user ratings and updates.

While the Chrome folks still haven't nailed Flash video rendering, they appear to be getting there. That this should be such an issue for the owners of YouTube is almost comically bizarre, but issues with the Flash plug-in aren't unique to Google's browser. HTML codec universality can't come fast enough (and we may never get there).

While the competition for the fastest browser will never be definitively won, the rivalry and the developer builds that push the envelope can only be good news for consumers. If Safari is your browser of choice, the Google team is only spurring the Mac developers to make your browser even faster. Likewise Firefox. Opera fans, I don't know what to tell you, but I'm sorry.

COMMENTS: 2

TAGS: Safari, chrome

COMMENTS

Go Safari !!!
Submitted by gavinthain on Sun, 2009-08-16 23:26

I just run this on my 3 year old iMac, using Safari (whilst also running iTunes, Aperture, iMovie, Keynote, and a few other apps and got:

Total: 703.6ms +/- 1.9%.

ie. - pretty much the same as Chrome then :)

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WebKit Faster..
Submitted by itsthenewdc on Mon, 2009-08-17 05:44

WebKit is also faster than Chromium.. and plus, Flash in Chromium is a lot slower when playing back HD content. So to say Chromium is still smokin' is not exactly the most accurate statement.

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