Major web browsers: JavaScript, web standards compatibility, and memory usage tested

Introduction

More and more people are getting their content through netbooks, or smaller, less powerful laptops. We wanted to see what browsers the average user of a netbook would want to use, as well as adding an element that was not computer-dependent.

The goal of this test is to rank web browsers with our new experimental formula, WG1, factoring in javascript processing, web standards support, and memory usage.

What’s being tested

This test focuses on three aspects of web browsers:

• Javascript processing (tested by SunSpider, from the WebKit Open Source Project)
• Web standards support (tested by the Acid3 Test from the Web Standards Project)
• Memory (RAM) usage

The following browsers were tested:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702IC
• Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1
• Apple Safari 4.0 (530.17)
• Opera 9.64
• Google Chrome 2.0.172.37

Testing environment

These tests were conducted on an ASUS EeePC 900HD.

The formula

When composing the formula, we ran in to the fact that with the results from the SunSpider test, and memory usage, the lower number the better. So, we inverted this by taking a number just higher than the highest (aka worst) score, and then subtracting results from that.

Our final formula came down to:

(24,000 – total milliseconds in the javascript test) + (Acid3 test score) + (200 – RAM used with 5 tabs open in megabytes) = final score

Test Results > JavaScript tests by SunSpider

Ranked from lowest to highest (lower is better)

1. Google Chrome – 3,364 ms
2. Apple Safari – 3,710 ms
3. Mozilla Firefox – 4,658 ms
4. Opera – 16,784
5. Microsoft Internet Explorer – 23,219

Test results > Acid3 Test

Ranked from highest to lowest (higher is better)

1. Tie: Apple Safari – 100/100 | Google Chrome – 100/100
2. Mozilla Firefox – 93/100
3. Opera – 85/100
4. Microsoft Internet Explorer – 20

Test results > Memory usage

Total Memory usage of browsers with 5 tabs open (google.com, yahoo.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, bing.com). This also factors in all processes for multi-process browsers.

Ranked from lowest to highest (lower is better)

1. Opera – 69 MB
2. Mozilla Firefox – 83.5 MB
3. Google Chrome – 90.7 MB
4. Microsoft Internet Explorer – 173.5 MB
5. Apple Safari – 196.4 MB

Test results: overall

Browsers listed by total score.

Google Chrome – 225,551,480 points

(24,000 – 3,364 = 20,636) * 100 * (200 – 90.7 = 109.3) = 225,551,480

Mozilla Firefox – 209,560,899 points

(24,000 – 4658 = 19342) * 93 * (200 – 83.5 = 116.5) = 209,560,899

Opera – 80,350,160 points

(24,000 – 16,784 = 7,216) * 85 * (200 – 69 = 131) = 80,350,160

Apple Safari – 7,304,400 points

(24,000 – 3,710 = 20,290) * 100 * (200 – 196.4 = 3.6) = 7,304,400

Microsoft Internet Explorer – 413,930 points

(24,000 – 23,219 = 781) * 20 * (200 – 173.5 = 26.5) = 413,930

Conclusion

Our formula greatly emphasized each aspect, making it virtually impossible for a browser to get a bad score on one part, and great scores on the other two (as in Safari’s case).

Internet Explorer scored badly in all three categories, causing its score to be a mere one 544th of Chrome’s.

Now, our formula may need some fine tuning, and in the future we hope to add aspects. But as of right now, Google Chrome holds the #1 position, but barely.