Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, Google Chrome Beta and Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 Release Candidate are all development milestones of the browsers developed by Microsoft, Google and Mozilla. Of course that with the advent of Google Browser (Chrome) on September 2, 2008, the browser market is bound to see additional competition, and in this context, comparisons are inherent.
IE8 Beta 2, Chrome and Firefox 3.1 have already been thrown against one another in arenas designed to evaluate their resource consumption and the performance of their JavaScript engines. But, naturally, there is always the aspect of web standard compliance and support. For this there are two browser measuring tools, namely the Acid2 and Acid3 tests from the Web Standards Project.
"Acid2 tests features that web designers have been requesting. Everything that Acid2 tests is specified in a Web standard, but not all Web standards are tested. Acid2 does not guarantee conformance with any specification. After careful consideration, we have selected and are testing the features we consider most important for the future of the web," reads an excerpt from the description of the Acid2 Test.
As you can very well see from the screenshots integrated at the bottom of this article, IE8 Beta 1, Google Chrome Beta, and Firefox 3.1 codename Shiretoko Alpha 2 RC all pass the Acid2 Test with flying colors, as should in fact be expected. However, not the same can be said about the Acid3 Test. Actually, quite on the contrary, all three browser versions fail miserably.
"Acid3 is primarily testing specifications for "Web 2.0" dynamic Web applications. Also there are some visual rendering tests, including webfonts," reveals a message posted on the official Acid3 test webpage.
When it comes down to the Acid3 test, Firefox 3.1 codename Shiretoko leads the pack with a score of 85 out of 100. Google Chrome, although just a first Beta, comes in second with 78 out of 100. And Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is third with an insignificant 21 out of 100.
Google Chrome is available for download here.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Mac OS X is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga
IE8 Beta 2 vs. Google Browser (Chrome) vs. Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 RC
Mozilla: Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 RC Faster than Google Chrome
Firefox 3.1 codename Shiretoko Alpha 2 Release Candidate is faster than Google Browser (Chrome), according to Brendan Eich, chief architect, Mozilla. The fact of the matter is that the comparison involves only the two browsers' respective JavaScript rendering engines, namely TraceMonkey for Firefox and V8 for Chrome. In the first tests Eich ran with the two JavaScript engines on SunSpider, Shiretoko Alpha 2 RC managed to come on top of Google Chrome Beta.
"We win by 1.28x and 1.19x, respectively. Maybe we should rename TraceMonkey "V10." OK, it's only SunSpider, one popular yet arguably non-representative benchmark suite. We are not about to be braggy. "Don't be braggy" is our motto here at Mozilla," Eich stated.
Google Chrome comes with the V8 virtual machine, which is essentially an open source JavaScript engine built at the Google office in Aarhus, Denmark. According to Google, the V8 JavaScript engine has been designed with nothing but performance in mind, especially when it comes down to the way it handles web-based applications.
"The cornerstones of the V8 design are: compilation of JavaScript source code directly into native machine code; an efficient memory management system resulting in fast object allocation and small garbage collection pauses; and an introduction of hidden classes and inline caches that speed up property access and function calls," revealed Lars Bak, software engineer, Google.
Eich praised the work Google has poured into Chrome, and especially V8. According to Mozilla's Chief Architect, there is even more room for JavaScript performance improvements in Google Browser. But this does not change the fact that, for the time being, TraceMonkey is faster than V8.
"TraceMonkey is only a few months old, (...) which we've built on and enhanced with x86-64 support and other fixes. We've developed TraceMonkey in the open the whole way. And we're as fast as V8 on SunSpider," Eich added.
Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 is available for download here.
Google Browser Chrome is available for download via this link.
By: Marius Oiaga
Google Browser (Chrome) Not Just an IE Killer, a Windows Killer Too
On September 2, 2008 Google released its own breed of open source browser, a marriage between Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox, dubbed Google Chrome. Of course, Google Chrome is first and foremost a new competitor for Internet Explorer on the browser market. But in Google's own perspective, it is so much more than a potential IE killer. It is actually a Windows killer. Google has in fact not been shy about positioning Chrome against both Internet Explorer and Windows, as items of prey.
"What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build," revealed Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management, and Linus Upson engineering director, on the occasion of the first official announcement of Google Chrome.
With the exception of the platform reference from Pichai and Upson, Google was careful to avoid the subject. Of course, not all of the Mountain View-based search giant representatives followed suit. Google co-founder Sergey Brin in fact indicated that Chrome was gunning down for Windows, not only Internet Explorer.
"I think operating systems are kind of an old way to think of the world," Brin stated according to Yahoo Finance. "They have become kind of bulky, they have to do lots and lots of different legacy things. Web users want a very lightweight, fast engine for running applications. The kind of things you want to have running standalone on a computer are shrinking."
Since Google's portfolio of services is situated completely into the cloud, the Mountain View-company needs only a browser to let end users access its products. In this context, the only actual piece of software anchored on the desktop that Google needs to control is the browser. The operating system in general, and Windows in particular, although it is currently one of the main intermediaries controlling access to Google along with IE, can be circumvented completely. In this context a future where the Google Chrome browser would boot straight on top of the hardware, perhaps with a minimalist hypervisor layer at the basis, but no Windows, or any operating system in sight, is a threat that Microsoft can not afford to ignore.
"We believe that open source works not only because it allows people to join us and improve our products, but also (and more importantly) because it means other projects are able to use the code we've developed. Where we've developed innovative new technology, we hope that other projects can use it to make their products better, just as we've been able to adopt code from other open source projects to make our product better," revealed Ben Goodger, Google software engineer.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is available for download here.
Google Chrome is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga
Google Chrome for Mac Confirmed
“Google Chrome for Mac is in development and a team of engineers is working hard to bring it to you as soon as possible,” the Google team has confirmed. Not only that, but Chrome for Mac will be even “faster” and “more robust” than the currently-available (Windows) version, according to Google's VP of Product Management.
“This is just the beginning - Google Chrome is far from done,” said VP Product Management, Sundar Pichai, and Engineering Director, Linus Upson, on the Official Google Blog. “We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.”
We reckon it will be faster and more robust, given that Chrome is based on several open source projects, borrowing core elements from Apple's own WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox. Google also claims that, in what is a natural approach, it is making all of its code open source as well. “We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward,” Google's Upson added.
WebKit is an open source web browser engine, but it is also the name of the Mac OS X system framework version of the engine used by Safari, Dashboard, Mail, and other Mac OS X programs.
Google's VP of Product Management claims their goal with Chrome is to “add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.” To do that, Chrome must be capable of features like desktop shortcuts that launch your favorite web applications, suggestions for both search and web pages, dynamic tabs, and more. And it is.
Using a “regular work machine” with multiple processes and apps running in the background, Veteran Mac expert Joe Kissell has conducted a few tests to compare Chrome to Apple's Safari. Since Chrome is currently available only for Windows users, a virtual machine also had to be fired up, further damping the MacBook Pro's processor and RAM. In the tests “representative of the 'real world' in which many are likely to use the browser,” Cult of Mac revealed the following results:
-- Chrome launched in < 2 seconds in XP under VMware Fusion while Safari launched in ~9 seconds. Pages loaded in 7.254 seconds in Chrome and in 9.531 seconds in Safari.
-- The “How To Create Css Test” page (which drastically affects load times in browsers that use progressive rendering) rendered in 162 ms in Chrome, and in 37 ms in Apple's Safari.
Be sure to stick around, as we will be making Chrome for Mac available for download the instant it comes out.
By: Filip Truta
Resource Hogs: Google Chrome and IE8 Beta 2 Compared to Firefox 3.0.1
Google Browser (Google Chrome) and Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 are nothing short of resource hogs compared to Firefox 3.0.1. This is the conclusion presented by researchers from the Devil Mountain Software company, who threw the three browsers one against the other on the same "arena", a Dell OptiPlex 745 (Core 2 Duo @ 2.66GHz) with 2GB of RAM and running both Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.
The conclusion on IE8 Beta 2 is not that flattering: "What we found was another example of unchecked Microsoft code "bloat," complete with "shirt-bursting, waistline-stretching" memory consumption and the kind of CPU-hogging thread growth normally reserved for massively parallel server farms," a representative from the Devil Mountain Software company stated.
But the fact of the matter is that Google Chrome, is even worse. "What we found was truly shocking: After re-executing our 10-site, multi-tab scenario across all 4 browsers, we discovered that it is Google Chrome, not Internet Explorer 8, that is the true memory consumption leader," the Devil Mountain Software company member indicated.
In a 10-site, multi-tab browsing scenario, IE8 Beta 2 consumed no less than 332MB of RAM, with Chrome Beta also eating a lot of system memory, namely 324MB. By contrast, Internet Explorer 7 only managed to climb as high as 250MB. In this context, it appears that the new technologies, features and capabilities built into Internet Explorer 8, as well as Google Chrome, require more resources than Firefox to perform the same tasks.
"Of course, both browsers look absolutely porcine when compared to the lean, mean Firefox 3.01 (151MB peak, 104MB average working set size). And lest we forget, IE 7 continues to hover somewhere between the fit & trim Firefox and the obesity that defines Chrome/IE 8 (209MB peak, 142MB average)," the Devil Mountain Software company researcher added.
But when it comes down to CPU utilization, both Firefox 3.0.1 and Google Chrome managed to shame IE8 Beta 2, in terms of their hunger. Google Browser took no less than 45% of the processor while Firefox 3.0.1 managed a high of 42%. IE 8 Beta 2 used just 22% of the CPU under XP SP3 and 33% under Vista SP1, while IE7 took only 13% and 24% respectively.
"Both Firefox and IE 7 spawn a relatively modest number of threads (25 and 43, respectively), a fact related to their reliance on a single process instance to handle all tabbed sessions. By contrast, IE 8 spawns potentially hundreds of threads (153 in our latest test round), and spreads them out across its various instances (in our case, 6 discrete copies of iexplore.exe)," the Devil Mountain Software company member indicated, adding that, by contrast, Chrome was managing just 48 execution threads at the apex of the test scenario.
But in the end, the fact that Firefox 3.0.1 is superior, in terms of resource usage, to Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 shouldn't come as a surprise. Both Microsoft and Google's browsers are still in Beta development stage, albeit IE8 is in Beta 2, with the gold version expected to drop in November 2008, and considerably slower than its predecessor.
"Chrome, like IE 8, is a browser designed with tomorrow’s hardware in mind. Its use of a multi-process tabbing model – which, according to Google, helps isolate failures and protect complex web applications (like GMail or Google Docs) – means that it will always use more memory than Firefox, IE 7 and similar, single-process browsers. How such model will hold up under heavy use, especially on today’s hardware, remains to be seen," reads the conclusion from the Devil Mountain Software company.
Google Chrome is available for download here.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Mac OS X is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga
Google Browser (Chrome) - the Internet Explorer Killer
If Microsoft is moving into the Cloud, Google is expanding to the Desktop and to the Windows client. The Mountain-View search giant is on the verge of making available a beta version of Google Chrome, a browser initially designed to integrate only with the Windows platform, but which is set to be tailored to additional platforms in the future. Not even out yet, Google Chrome is positioned as an Internet Explorer killer, far beyond what Microsoft's rivals Mozilla and Opera have been capable of doing with their own products.
"This is just the beginning – Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust," revealed Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management, and Linus Upson, engineering director.
At the time of this article the Google Chrome bits were not available for download yet. Google is attempting what representatives from the company referred to as a "fresh take on the browser," with every intention to "launch early and iterate." Anchored on the desktop and owning the vast majority of both the operating system and the browser markets, with Windows and Internet Explorer, the Redmond giant is in fact an intermediary between the end users and Google, located almost exclusively into the cloud.
Even though Google claims that Chrome will be made available "because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web," the fact of the matter is that the Mountain View company is making a decisive move to reduce the relevance of Internet Explorer on the world wide web.
At the end of August 2008, Winifred Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and chairperson and former chief executive officer of the Mozilla Corporation, announced that "we’ve just renewed our agreement with Google for an additional three years. This agreement now ends in November of 2011 rather than November of 2008, so we have stability in income."
So in this context, Google and Mozilla are now obvious partners, on the same front against Microsoft. At the end of August 2008, all the supported editions of Internet Explorer accounted for over 70% of the browser market, according to data from Net Applications, while Firefox was close to breaking the 20% milestone. As a newcomer, Google Chrome will start from zero, but the browser is bound to get traction fast, especially with Google's resources behind it.
The Google Browser features components from Apple's WebKit and Firefox and is a fully fledged open source product. Chrome sports a new approach to the graphical user interface, with the focus on Tabs but also features such as Omnibox, an address bar with auto-completion functionality, as well as a Speed Dial, privacy mode via the "incognito" window, a new method of managing the execution and usage of web applications, and malware protection.
"Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers," added Pichai and Upson.
Update: Google Chrome is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga
