Windows Fastest Browser - My Test & My Results

[happysack]

Haven been spammed with google Chrome ad's recently (even though running it) I thought it would be interesting to see if it really was the quickest browser.

See my test, let me know what you think!

[Somer_Himpson]

You tried this one?
http://www.lunascape.tv/

[happysack]

oO never heard of it, when i run another test i shall do this for sure!

[Gaming_freak_10]

Holy Frig.. Safari?! I thought Google Chrome was the fastest but apparently not.. Have some rep for testing the speed of those 5 programs

Edit: Can someone rep happysack for me? I already repped him in another thread.. can't rep him again until I repped someone else..

[happysack]

Originally Posted by Gaming_freak_10

Holy Frig.. Safari?! I thought Google Chrome was the fastest but apparently not.. Have some rep for testing the speed of those 5 programs

Edit: Can someone rep happysack for me? I already repped him in another thread.. can't rep him again until I repped someone else..

lol thanks bud, yeh was interesting. Im swapping over to safari to see how I get on.

Interestingly on a fresh install Google Chrome was the only one that ran Speedtest.net without the download/patch - guess has flash builtin.

[SuicideNeil]

I'm a hardened Opera user- I have tested it against IE9 and found Opera to be quite noticeably faster every time; won't bother with Safari but glad to know all the Chrome boys are eating my dust...

[Atomic]

Originally Posted by happysack

Interestingly on a fresh install Google Chrome was the only one that ran Speedtest.net without the download/patch - guess has flash builtin.

Yep, flash built-in and autoupdating.

[happysack]

Originally Posted by SuicideNeil

I'm a hardened Opera user- I have tested it against IE9 and found Opera to be quite noticeably faster every time; won't bother with Safari but glad to know all the Chrome boys are eating my dust...

Eating dust, that made me laugh lol

[Ollie1807]

I've been using Chrome for a while and found it pretty good for the most part - Was a die-hard Firefox user for about four years until I noticed how awful it's become recently, I found it to be quite slow/intrusive and crashing a lot.

My flat mate is a Mac user and raves about Safari, although recently i've seen him using Chrome as well...

[happysack]

Originally Posted by Ollie1807

I've been using Chrome for a while and found it pretty good for the most part - Was a die-hard Firefox user for about four years until I noticed how awful it's become recently, I found it to be quite slow/intrusive and crashing a lot.

My flat mate is a Mac user and raves about Safari, although recently i've seen him using Chrome as well...

Would this make you change your mind once again?

[lp rob1]

I don't think that the bandwidth each particular browser can achieve through Speedtest.net is really relevant, to be honest. When I talk about the speed of a browser, I am talking about its startup speeds, its general responsiveness, and the performance of any JavaScript/other client-side code.
That said, it does seem quite odd that different browsers get different results on Speedtest.net. I expect that the Flash implementation has the most effect on the bandwidth, but even so, bandwidth between two endpoints should be the same if they are running the same software (in this case the Speedtest.net Flash software).

EDIT: OK, so I did a bit of testing for myself.
Download
Firefox: 9.26 Mbit/s
Chrome: 8.90 Mbit/s
Opera: 9.46 Mbit/s
Safari: 8.48 Mbit/s

Upload
Firefox: 0.38 Mbit/s
Chrome: 0.38 Mbit/s
Opera: 0.38 Mbit/s
Safari: 0.38 Mbit/s

[Each speed test done 5 times, then the mean taken.] The download speeds are interesting. What I find slightly creepy, is that on all the browsers except Safari, the second last test returned a speed over 10 Mbit/s. While no other tests resulted in that. Firefox was running with a whole mass of addons, and the others were newly installed.

(I am not going to stoop so low as to test IE)

[sb1991]

The download speed is almost certainly not limited by the browser. All of these browsers are more than capable of handling downloads of hundreds of Mb/s - you're probably just testing the natural variation in download speeds on your line and the server (also; OP: your connection is exceptionally slow, and the fact that upload is faster than download suggests that either there's a problem with the line or someone else is using it, invalidating the test).

[cookie! nom nom]

if i was you i would call bt and get them to sort that line out. 80% of uk should be able to get 4mbs

[happysack]

Nope, I work in IT this speed is deffo my maximum i have everything in place to max it out.
I've the best of my street from people I have spoke too.

This is what happen when you live In the countryside a few miles away from the exchange

[loftie]

Good review. I'll remember to try and not complain about my internet speeds anymore :P Also Toms do a a fairly good comparison every now and then. I would say try Opera with Turbo mode on, might help with your connection.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...untu,3129.html

[jaydeee]

very interesting... sometimes it is good to see or do it for yourself...
Thanks

[BentAnat]

Hm...
interesting. Not surprised much by Safari besting Chrome, though.. the underlying rendering engine is the same, and Safari has the newer version...

[Guinevere]

Sorry... but...

Terribly technically flawed review. You're not testing the speeds of the browser.

You are (at best) testing each browsers implementation of flash to download a very small file.

At worst, you're demonstrating the fluctuations in network speed on your own network connection, the tests target node and every connection point in between.

Look at the variations in your three averaged tests. If they were within 1% of each other then that would demonstrate at the very least your test conditions were consistent, but they swing about wildly - proving you are not testing anything about the browser.... nothing... zilch. You're demonstrating the variation in your own internet connection.

You're not even testing the ability of the browser to download files via flash... which isn't a terribly useful test in isolation anyway.

You test is equivalent in taking three different cars. Sending one on a 50mile commute up the M6, the other 50 miles round the M25 and the other up the M3 and into London... and then declaring the one that got to it's destination first as being 'The fastest car'.

Browser speed should be measured on many many things (Start up time, Asynchronous HTTP requests, Javascript, Page layout etc) your tests don't cover any of these I'm afraid.

Edit: I just repeated the test for myself using Safari + Chrome. My connection here is not the fastest in the world but it's nothing if not consistent. I get 9.04Mbps in Chrome and 9.05Mbp in Safari. What does that prove?

That Safari is one thousands of one percent faster than Chrome?

No it proves nothing, only that I have about a 9Mbp ADSL connection and my browsers can run speedtest.net tests without crashing.

[Dude111]

I am a MyIE2 fan (Ie wrapper)

I havenet found ANY OTHER BROWSER AS GOOD AS MYIE2!! (Fast,etc)

[Andy Mc]

I have to say that I'm with Guinevere here on this.

Never depend on sites like speedtest.net to provide accurate results as it just wont happen, at best they give you an idea of your speed but thats it.