“According to tests run by Computerworld, the Chrome beta, which Google launched yesterday, is the second fastest of four Mac browsers tested,” Keizer reports. “Chrome renders JavaScript 10 times faster than Opera 10.10 and almost twice as fast as Firefox 3.6 Beta 4, the most recently released Mac version of Mozilla’s open-source browser.”
Keizer reports, “But Chrome can’t match Safari 4.0.4’s speed: Apple’s browser is approximately 12% faster than Google’s beta.”
Full article here.
More info and download link for Apple’s free Safari Web browser for Mac and Windows PC here.
The extra free time I’ve created with these speed boosts has been great.
Is it me or has Mozilla lost a little steam lately? I didn’t think they’d be so long in passing the acid3 test.
nice thing about Chrome, IMO, is that each tab gets a separate process. I’m hopeful Safari goes in that direction — one bad tab brings the whole ship down, and that’s just no fun.
Who cares! Chrome doesnt eat all my RAM and thats is the biggest problem with Safari. Sooooo RAM hungry. But safari is faaaast! and with more features – thats for sure.
@TVSLAVEN
Safari is RAM hungry, has more features, and is faster.
I bet you can figure out why it is more RAM hungry if you look at that long enough.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Why is MobileMe great?
Got a replacement iPhone at Apple store.
Logged into .me account.
Had all my contacts and (thanks to Safari) all my bookmarks within 5 minutes although I won’t be back home for another 3 days.
Winner: Safari
Play with the test for yourselves:
http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html
Download the latest WebKit nightly (it updates itself, too) and include that as well.
You’ll see that:
Chrome performs worse than Safari. Not even all that close. And WebKit blows them both way out of the water. This is how far ahead Apple is when it comes to Mac browsers.
Even NetNewsWire (ok, it uses WebKit too) nearly equals Chrome.
Safari is great, but the WebKit nightlies are remarkably stable and they are also the fastest you’ll ever get on a Mac (currently.)
These synthetic benchmarks are all nice and good, but I’ve been trying out Chrome and am impressed by its speed. Using it, it feels like a solid browser that I could use as my first choice. Still testing though…
Has anyone else find Safari locks up with the beach ball of death a lot lately? Also, flash is constantly crashing in Safari. I love Safari but it has gotten so bad that I have switched to Firefox as default until they get Safari fixed.
Just glad to see more and more browsers on the market: means folks have to design for open standards, rather than explorer. Speaking of, does anyone even discuss explorer anymore?what a joke!
Plus the fact that Arial doesn’t work in Chrome. Nice work there, guys.
@Cincinatus: How is Flash crashing Safari’s fault?
I block Flash by default anyways, using ClickToFlash. Everything’s much faster.
(In order)
1. Apple Menu -> Software Update (do this until no new updates are available)
2. Update flash: get.adobe.com/flashplayer
3. If you use Netflix, update Silverlight at silverlight.net
4. Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utilities -> repair ur permissionz
5. Reboot. All better? If your CPU has less than two cores, buy a new computer…
I’ve been testing Chrome on my MBP circa Dec 2006. Refurbished. Some of the problems I encountered:
1. Accessing bank accounts. It just sucks. It does not render any of them properly.
2. General web browsing. Lacking…I gues that’s why it still in beta. Some pages does not render properly.
3. Usability. Not much since it’s still in beta. However, even when safari was in beta, it was more useful than Chrome.
I’ve been using chrome since the day it came out for the Mac. So far, Safari is still the winner–in every respect. But, I do like the fact that the browser war is not over.
sorry safari. i’m using Chrome and it’s much faster for me. at least by 20% on some pages.
Ok, when the Safari 4 beta was first released, all the whiners griped about moving the tabs to the top. Didn’t bother me, and I kind of liked it. Peopled complained enough, that Apple moved the tabs back for GA.
Where are all the top-tab whiners now for Chrome?
OK, just ran the Acid3 test on Safari 4.0.4, the latest Web Kit build and Chrome. All scored 100 while the Mozilla Minefield alpha scored 94/100.
As both Chrome and Safari are based on Web Kit, I’m not surprised they scored the same.
Sticking with Web Kit.
I have totally moved to Chrome from Firefox. FF and Safari would slow down my Macbook eating memory and that occasional dreaded spinning ball really ticks me off. No spinning ball with Chrome. Chrome launches with one bounce in the Dock just like Safari.
All my banking sites work great and the pages load a lot faster than Safari and FF. Java support will get faster as this is a beta release but it’s not noticeably slower for me.
Works just as great on my hackintosh Atom powered netbook as well. No brainer for a netbook given 1GB of RAM.
I recently read a similar article – a compo twixt Mac browsers touting Chrome – and was a bit startled when Chrome beat out the “standard MSFT entry”. Didn’t actually SAY “IE”, so this may have been either something left over from the Chrome-on-Windows article or merely a brain-fart on the part of the author, but it surprised me. Not sure will IE 5.x even run on OS X 10.5 or 10.6?
I need to update my wife’s computer to SL. Sometime when she isn’t going to need it for a couple of days. She gets quite testy about losing time due to my messing around – and then to learning new stuff.
guys, don’t hate. Chrome is stripped down and slick. Safari beachballs like crazy.
the only reason I use Safari? intergration with basic media plugins, namely, MPEG playback.
“As both Chrome and Safari are based on Web Kit, I’m not surprised they scored the same.
Sticking with Web Kit.”
They’re basically the same browser, effectively made by Apple. Google just has a more Web 2.0 trajectory. And, as I’ve said before, the Google Themes are so so nice. Safari looks staid and boring.
This headline may be true, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. Safari is constantly hanging up, but somehow Chrome doesn’t fall into the same traps that Safari does. It might be an illusion. I.e. Chrome continues to build pages while waiting for pesky ads while Safari just beachballs waiting for ads.
@ Anthony–
The whiners weren’t so much whining about the tab location, as they were about the change.
People were used to things being a certain way, and when it changed, they didn’t want to adopt, although plenty of people liked the change!
Consider it xenophobia.
They should have just made it an option in the preferences.
That’s the thing about a beta though–There may be differences between versions.
I prefer Chrome, honestly.
A browser is just a tool. Use whichever suits your tasks. Unless it’s IE. Then you should be shot.
But it sure crashes less. I guess Safari needs the startup speed because you constantly have to Force Quite and reopen. Everyone says it’s because of Flash, but if Chrome doesn’t crash with the same sites then it’s probably a deficiency in Safari.
The simplest things bring up the beach ball in Safari.