Internet Explorer vs. Firefox vs. Chrome vs. Safari vs. Opera

By | June 25, 2009 | 12 Comments

Internet Explorer vs. Firefox vs. Chrome vs. Safari vs. OperaIt seems that everyone is testing web browsers this week.

While some sites are posting usual SunSpider results, Codexon has decided to run something closer to the “real life situations”.

As a result, he loaded 10 web sites and calculated load time.

Sites used:

Baidu.com – Chinese Google
Blogger.com – Popular blogsite
Facebook.com – Popular social site
Google.com – Popular search Engine
Havenworks.com – A poorly designed site weighing 820 kb with over 280 images
Live.com – Microsoft search engine
Myspace.com/tom – Typical Myspace profile
Reddit.com – Social site
Wikipedia.org – Online encyclopedia

Results (less is better):

Average Loading Times (in ms)

Opera             204
Safari            205.2
Chrome            205.5
Firefox           416
Internet Explorer 556.8

For some graphs and more details, please visit the original post (site is down atm).

As you can see, Opera is a winner here, followed by Safari and Chrome. Don’t forget the famous Microsoft quote: “To actually see the difference in page loads between all three browsers, you need slow-motion video.” Expect for that fact that IE is 2.5x slower…

Thanks to Bob for sending this!


About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • Grrblt

    Average loading times? Average for all 10 sites? That’s a waste of speed test when the sites are so incredibly different. Loading a site with 260 images and Wikipedia and taking the average between those times shows absolutely nothing.

  • tomass

    Hopefully the site is back soon and we can see the partial results..

  • http://www.favbrowser.com Vygantas Lipskas

    http://74.6.239.67/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=Benchmarking+Browsers+with+Real+Websites%3A+Chrome%2C+Firefox%2C+Opera+…&fr=opera2&u=www.codexon.com/posts/a-real-benchmark-real-websites-with-chrome-firefox-opera-safari-ie&w=benchmarking+browsers+browser+real+websites+website+%22web+sites%22+chrome+firefox+opera+operas&d=QRcyNBlMTBj1&icp=1&.intl=us

  • tomass

    interesting, I think this is the way of testing browsers… more accurate than artificial benchmarks. however, a larger set of sites would be required for this test to be really valid

  • http://nocontinues.net/ Tiago Sá

    What I’d really like to test is doing a certain task in the browser. Say…

    Each morning I check 12 RSS feeds for new items, 3 sites for changes and 5 bookmarks for day-to-day browsing. In Firefox the RSS feeds are ultra quick, with me using the sidebar and middleclicking what I want to open. The 3 sites are checked with an extension and it takes no actual time, as it’s done automatically. The 5 bookmarks are open by middleclick in my sidebar too. I do this in less than 30 seconds.

    No other browser does this. Not one.

    And the awesomebar, and the tags for bookmarks, and the ultra super handy fully customizable search bar. Nothing beats firefox’s speed, if if it isn’t the fastest on paper.

    • Kyle

      “Each morning I check 12 RSS feeds for new items, 3 sites for changes and 5 bookmarks for day-to-day browsing. In Firefox the RSS feeds are ultra quick, with me using the sidebar and middleclicking what I want to open. The 3 sites are checked with an extension and it takes no actual time, as it’s done automatically. The 5 bookmarks are open by middleclick in my sidebar too. I do this in less than 30 seconds.”

      Each time I start up Opera it checks the 83 RSS feeds that I can read with my built-in RSS feed reader (and continues to do this every 15 minutes), checks my mail on 4 different accounts, 3 IMAP, 1 POP3 (and continues to do this every minute), opens up the 6 sites I usually check in the morning + a speed dial tab. My bookmarks panel is accessible via the panel on the left, the start bar that drops open when I click on the address bar, or Ctrl + B. It does this in less than 5 seconds.

      No other browser does this. Not one.

      “And the awesomebar, and the tags for bookmarks, and the ultra super handy fully customizable search bar. Nothing beats firefox’s speed, if if it isn’t the fastest on paper.”

      Check, check, and even more customizable. Still faster, still more lightweight, and I only have to download the core package ;)

      • Foo

        I don’t have to care which browser I use, because all I have to do is: go to reader.google.com to see updates for my 193 subscriptions and go to gmail.com to read any new mail from however many accounts I so wish without it being detrimental to my computers performance.
        I have these two pages open already (among 229 other) as I haven’t had a reason to restart my computer since I last updated the kernel three months ago. If there’s somewhere I need to go all I have to do is to open a new blank tab and enter a letter or two and I’m there. No need to touch the mouse at all.

        Most browsers can do this. But thanks to the wonderful Mozilla community I can enhance my experience in various ways.

        “Check,”
        It takes more than just basic searching to become awesome :P
        Comparing the Opera implementation to the Firefox one is like comparing AltaVista with Google.

        “check,”
        Huh? Where? You do realize that nicks isn’t the same as tags… right?

        “even more customizable”
        now you’re just being plain silly here…

        “download the core package”
        No you’re not, you’re downloading a browser suite. Firefox is a web browser; handling mail, news (nntp) and things like that is not in the scope of the project. SeaMonkey is the browser suite maintained by Mozilla.

    • Foo

      Ever tried the Brief extension? From what I’ve seen, it’s the best one when it comes to using extensions to handle feeds.

  • Dels

    it’s true the fact that Presto rendering engine on Opera (especially Opera 10 Beta) was the fastest, it even faster than Webkit rendering engine used by Safari & Chrome…

    the current lack of Opera at present was a speed on javascript engine which they will improve with the Carakan release (but not on Opera 10 release)

    after Carakan, i guess Opera will be the fastest browser in the earth (their previous slogan for years) again

  • cousin333

    Besides, don’t forget to mention, that they didn’t loaded the pages as people normally use to, but downloaded them, and opened from HDD. Even better, they had already loaded them in memory.

  • Gabriela

    I can assure you Firefox 3.5 CR3 Is the fastest ever!
    I don’t care for any benchmarks or URL’s. Just the URLs I use every day and the sites I work online for.
    I’ve tried Safari, Opera and Chrome, all with the latest versions.
    The fastest is Firefox 3.5 CR3!
    And I can’t make do without the addons I need for my work.
    Besides, Firefox keeps track of all the safety breaks and it solves them immediately. The others don’t.
    Besides, I can help in the localization translation and in the new version’s testing so its an alive browser. The other aren’t
    Conclusion: Firefox 3.5 CR3 is the best browser ever and the final version will be even better!

  • http://www.wongbulu.co.cc wongbulu

    I use all popular browser, ie8, ff 3.6, chrome, safari 4 and even flock. but I no use opera 10 because to slow on my laptop.

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