With Zimbra 5.0 we’ve introduced some newer ways to make the user experience faster with the Zimbra Web Client. We’ve talked about Jetty, YUI compression, and Lazy Loading, but now there’s just one burning question: Which browser is fastest?
There’s some amazing JavaScript handling enhancements about to be pushed into the major browsers. In-case you missed previous rounds of the browser wars we’ll tell you the answer, but you should still checkout Firefox 2 vs FF3RC1, Internet Explorer 7 vs IE8b, and Safari 3.1.1 vs SF nightlies to get more insight into how each fared on the testbed.
The gloves are off, this is a bare knuckle battle-royal fight:
 |
The winner’s Safari! Surprised? So were we. |
| We had high hopes that FF3GA would at least match Safari 3.1.1 in order to contend with Apple’s Safari 4 just around the corner. Infact that graph is simply those tested in our browser war series; the WebKit nightlies (engine for SF4) deliver a knockout blow. And it’s not just our favorite testing software that shows this; we use OpenQA Selenium which allows us to nicely calculate time rendering a page while navigating the Zimbra AJAX web-client. Other commonly used benchmarks like SunSpider & VeriTest show very similar results and Safari 4 nightlies even fare well on the Acid3 DOM and JavaScript test, beating out Firefox 3 every time. But we’ll let the judges analyze and discuss later. |
|
|
The SquirrelFish JavaScript interpreter in Safari 4 is a bytecode engine which eliminates almost all of the overhead of a tree-walking JavaScript interpreter. According to the WebKit project, the SquirrelFish engine is 1.6 times faster than the engine in Safari 3.1. SquirrelFish does its magic by turning JavaScript script into so-called bytecodes, an optimized code much more suitable for run-time execution than natural language-based commands, which are longer and more complicated to interpret – and therefore are slower. It also leaves room to experiment with things like constant folding, type inference, specialization based on expression context, peephole optimization, and escape analysis. |
In addition, Safari 4 adds the ability to save webpages as standalone web applications (Similar to the Mac favorite Fluid, or Mozilla’s Prism which meshes nicely as an add-on to Firefox.), CCS enhancements to gradients, masks, and reflections, as well as some additional native font rendering and HTML5 support.
|
That said, there’s more to browser choices than JavaScript rendering in ZCS - it’s a great day for Firefox. The new release is packed with over 15,000 updates and new features; from the underlying Gecko and JavaScript engines to Profile-Guided Optimizations (dual pass compiling) that bring dramatic improvements to performance, memory usage and speed. And you can’t forget the best add-on network. There was previously a clamoring in the forums about participating in Firefox 3 download day Guinness World Record attempt. Go do your part and download this awesome browser! |
|
*Test machines were running AMD Opteron 1.8GHz Dual-cores with 2GB RAM against ZCS 5.0.6 GA RHEL4. As always performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection, and other factors like account data and preferences.
on June 18th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I wouldn’t call this a definitive win without including Opera in your “Browser War”. I would wager it could more than hold it’s own against Safari.
on June 18th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
True. I am wondering why you still are not supporting the best browser: Opera. Unfortunately Opera doesn’t support all sites (yet). But I do prefer using Opera than Mozilla. And the rest of the browsers, well, I use randomly.
on June 19th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Where did the black Safari icon come from? It looks awesome - definitely better than the gold Webkit version.
on June 19th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Let me finish that title with “Opera” :]
on June 20th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Would be nice, but with Zimbra:
MSIE has a native method called loadXML. This method is manually created for isNav (Mozilla based browsers). Opera will consequently fail. loadXML method created for isNav uses a __defineGetter__ to create a reference to XMLserializer - getters will also fail in Opera.
To fix this, we’ve thought about rewriting our XMLSerializer especially for Opera, but we just haven’t seen enough demand. That isn’t to say that don’t like opera, but there just isn’t demand to use it.
on June 20th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
And the fastest browser is……
Which is the world's fastest browser? According to Zimbra , Safari runs fastest, though it didn't…
on June 20th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
>That isn’t to say that don’t like opera, but there just isn’t demand to use it.
Another interested Opera user here. You might be surprised at the numbers; we tend to be a bit more invisible on the web with the ‘mask/identify as mozilla/ie’ setting that bypasses the browser checks. That said, a fix for XMLSerializer would be great if it’s ever implemented.
on June 20th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
No Opera? Why?
on June 21st, 2008 at 10:04 am
What about Opera? I’m curious, too.
on June 21st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Why no Opera? - This is not a fair test.
on June 21st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
quick question, why wasn’t Opera used?
It is clearly the best performing browser even though its more feature-full then all of its competitors
on June 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I have to agree with Brian. Opera claimed to be the fastest, so re-do the test and include Opera for us.
Thanks.
on June 21st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Well, yes, Safari is faster than FireFox 2 RC 1.
What I don’t understand is why you tested it with a release candidate of an old version of FireFox.
FireFox 3.0 surely would beat out Safari, but it was not tested here.
on June 21st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
This article can’t claim a winner without including Opera in the tests, sorry. Thumbs down.
on June 21st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Is this a joke? You are testing which browser is fastest, but doesn’t test the one who actually IS the fastest? (Opera)
on June 21st, 2008 at 3:52 pm
The reason/motivation for testing Opera might be the fact that they have historically claimed that they are “The World’s Fastest Browser”.
Opera’s front page still says this:
“Download Opera today to get the fastest and most powerful Web browser available and make the most of your time online.”
So this leaves a serious doubt as to which is truly the fastest browser.
Keep in mind that Opera holds only about 1% of the market, but to have 1% of internet users is a big number. Plus there are a lot of people, like myself, who have multiple browsers. Firefox 3, Opera, and MSIE.
on June 21st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
WHERE IS OPERA???
on June 21st, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I agree with Brian. No Opera, no War.
Is John saying that the test won’t run at all on Opera? If so, I would question entirely the basis of this test.
on June 21st, 2008 at 10:31 pm
What about Opera 9.5?
on June 22nd, 2008 at 3:35 am
You really can’t leave out Opera. There is no perfect browser however opera comes the closest. I always come back to opera after trying the new versions of the others. Just because there isn’t a demnd to use it doesn’t mean a thing. that fact that the majority of people use Internet explorer is proof of that.
on June 22nd, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I agree. It’s surprising that Opera wasnt tested. I would love to see how Opera does. I expect it to do better than Fx but slightly worse than Safari. Esp given that Opera defeated Fx in js benchmark created by mozilla guys themselves.
on June 23rd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
@5:
- If you have proprietary solutions for IE and FF, how did you get it running on Safari?
- Releasing a browser test and leaving out one of the competitors without giving a reason is bad style. This sounds to me like those nasty “this page is optimized for …” disclaimers.
- Sorry for being emotional here but: I’m just fed up with web designers who tell that there’s not enough demand for an Opera compatible website (mainly because Opera isn’t very popular in the US).
on June 23rd, 2008 at 6:59 pm
As some of my friends over a c0de3 pointed out, this is using the prerelease of Firefox, so the results may not be completely valid.
on June 23rd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I had to stop using Opera because of Zimbra’s lack of support for Opera.(or perhaps it is Opera’s lack of support for Zimbra). Either way, I miss Opera. I wish it would work well with Zimbra.
on June 23rd, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Absolutely need to include Opera.
If you must leave it off, you really need an explanation why. When you show a browser speed comparison and then completely ignore Opera you do everyone a disservice. Opera users get shunned, Safari and FF get more ‘free advertisement’, and Opera doesn’t even get a mention. What if you don’t know much about the browser market, all you hear from the media and around the web is how fantastic FireFox is, its irresponsible journalism to completely ignore Opera.
on June 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
So many Opera fanboys here. Well, if they could have tested for Opera, they shoulda…but as they said, there is a defect that prevented it. And with most browser statistics showing Opera at around 1.4-1.6 %, who cares? Other than fanboys, that is!
Sorry, I know that was inflammatory, but let’s get down to facts. I, too, don’t develop for nor test for Opera when we do cross-browser testing. If I didn’t have clients that demanded Safari, I wouldn’t test for it, either. Together, they have about 4% of the market, and the majority of my clients don’t want to spend the money pursuing this market.
I will probably need to reconsider Safari soon, as a general platform, as the market has grown from .5 to 2.6 % in the last 3 years due to the popularity of the new Macs, while Opera has held steady at 1.5-1.6 % for the last 3 years.
So, tell me, why is Firefox capturing nearly 40 % of the market (expanded from approx 10% in 2004/5 to nearly 40 % in May of 2008) , while Opera is capturing 1.5 %, year in and year out? Is it all an Opera lie, i.e. nearly all Opera uses are masquerading as IE browsers, as some here have claimed? Even so, the numbers show no growth at all for Opera. Is it just wishful thinking on Opera’s part, that they are really as good as Firefox, but little brother just gets all the attention? Or is it that their open source younger brother is exceeding expectations, and growing beyond anything that Opera could ever hope for?
Don’t know, but will all the real Opera users unmask and show us their true identities? It’s time to pony up.
on June 24th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Just ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark (http://webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html), and here are my results:
Opera 9.5: 6264.6ms
Webkit nightly: 2030.4ms
Safari 3.1: 3546.0ms
Firefox 3.0 (final): 3280.4ms
Is Opera still the fastest browser in the world?
on June 25th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Opera? what and abortion. If anything worked in it I might care, but I don’t. So we got like what, the 10 people here on the page that run Opera? That’s proabably the whole Opera community right there.
on June 27th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Some fairly recent benchmarks here;
http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/software/internet/soa/Browser-faceoff-IE-vs-Firefox-vs-Opera-vs-Safari/0,139023437,339289417-1,00.htm?omnRef=http://www.reddit.com/info/6lklt/comments/c0472jj
I posted this the other day, but it was removed, unsure as to why.
on July 22nd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I really look forward to robust opera support. I am greatful that zimbra 5 has it’s html mode that mostly works in opera.
I love zimbra, i love opera. plz figure out how to make this work!
tnx!
on August 5th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
well i think Opera is any day better its faster and more easier than anything, but im confused why Opera isnt showing here in the competion, could be its far better than all the competing nominees.
on August 25th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Steve and his boys pay you to do this test ? These benchmarks are not credible without including the superb Opera 9.52, which simnply puts the likes of Safari to shame. As for the question of compatibility, I found it to be more compatible that Safari for websites I use in my everyday life.
One more point, speed is not the only thing that makes it wonderful; it is things like the customization options, widgets, skinnig, mail and RSS read and even IRC chat support all neatly integrated into one package that makes Opera the unchallenged winner.