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Firefox 4 edges out Chrome in SunSpider test
You may not be checking in on AreWeFastYet.com all that often. You may even have not known it existed until just now. Whatever the case may be, there's a very good reason to pay attention to Mozilla's Firefox 4 performance gauge.
In tonight's test run, Firefox's SpiderMonkey and the JIT tandem of JägerMonkey and TraceMonkey finally beat Google Chrome's V8 engine in a SunSpider benchmark showdown. If you take a look at the current chart, you'll see that Firefox has is even getting close on Google's own V8 benchmark -- cutting its time in half over the last two months.
I've been impressed over the last couple of days with the feel of speed in the latest Minefield builds and I didn't really need to see Mozilla's chart to know what was happening -- but it definitely provides confirmation. If you haven't tried a nightly build of Firefox 4 in a while and found yourself poo-pooing its JavaScript performance last time, you really should give it another go.
[via Asa Dotzler]
In tonight's test run, Firefox's SpiderMonkey and the JIT tandem of JägerMonkey and TraceMonkey finally beat Google Chrome's V8 engine in a SunSpider benchmark showdown. If you take a look at the current chart, you'll see that Firefox has is even getting close on Google's own V8 benchmark -- cutting its time in half over the last two months.
I've been impressed over the last couple of days with the feel of speed in the latest Minefield builds and I didn't really need to see Mozilla's chart to know what was happening -- but it definitely provides confirmation. If you haven't tried a nightly build of Firefox 4 in a while and found yourself poo-pooing its JavaScript performance last time, you really should give it another go.
[via Asa Dotzler]
Comments
14
Subscribe to commentsAemonyOct 22nd 2010 12:40AM
Oh... my... god. Instant return to Firefox when 4 is released for me. Only reason I began using Chrome was for the speed, but seeing as they are practically as fast now, and hopefully in the future, I can easily return to my all-time favorite web browser.
Ah, the ability to be able to open files from the net! And all other kinds of cool stuff!
bogas04Oct 22nd 2010 2:07AM
Yeah , its quite visible that they are a lot more faster now , even if the graph isn't showed :)
vinitneoxOct 22nd 2010 2:53AM
Awesome. I switched to chrome last week because firefox 4 beta was feeling slow and unresponsive. If firefox is as fast as chrome, there is no reason not to return to firefox.
Bryan PriceOct 22nd 2010 2:54AM
Can't wait for the release. Although I'm still concerned about the lack of extensions that should be upgrading as well. I know it's getting better, but my portable 4 version still looks so different from my 3.6 install.
I also plan on a complete wipe and reinstall of Firefox due to issues that may or may not be related to my profile and/or extensions.
fiendsanOct 22nd 2010 6:40AM
well nightly builds arent the same thing as a stable release, not at all :/ also real life performance is not the same as a sunspider or other tests, so im waiting for 4 to come out to see if its good or not, remember that 3 and 3.5 supposedly had large jumps in javascript performance but then you use it and the browser lags and performs like hell, so its good to know but nothing to go crazy about ^_^
jValdronOct 22nd 2010 7:22AM
That's what they said for IE9 with hardware acceleration. About a week after, Google Chrome had release a browser with faster hardware acceleration.
Just leave Google a couple of days ;) (But what do I know? I'm a Google fanboy)
fleetwoodOct 22nd 2010 12:16PM
Not true, Chrome is way behind IE9 and Firefox 4 in Hardware acceleration. Google has implemented HW in thier dev builds since it would need more work to be done it will be delayed until Chrome 8, not 7.
- Just rechecked now it has been delayed yet again to version 9, poor Google.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20019331-264.html
Sam34543Oct 22nd 2010 9:37AM
Rock on Firefox take back the top spot as the best browser to beat, the betas are amazing as of now ... Heck I don't even use 3.6 anymore considering how stable beta is ... Few flash hiccups but alls well
João PereiraOct 22nd 2010 11:37AM
What does this test measure in reality?
Because I've the latest versions of the build and even my IE9 beta matches the speed of Firefox 4 loading websites (cleared cache on both browsers)
and side by side comparison my Chrome is 3x faster with loads of extensions (Firefox has none)...
My version is 4.0b6 not completely sure if it's the latest
Lee MathewsOct 22nd 2010 11:39AM
It's not current -- grab a nightly build, or you won't see the performance boost. It's that recent.
SilverWaveOct 23rd 2010 8:00AM
OMG you use IE9?
I thought that there had been a study that said that prolonged use gave you cancer of the soul.
LOL
João PereiraOct 23rd 2010 8:15AM
Computer Lesson 101 - You can have more that one program installed.
"and side by side comparison my Chrome is 3x faster with loads of extensions (Firefox has none)..."
that must mean I use Chrome as main browser
because actually I've Opera, Safari Nightly Build, Firefox 4.0b6 and Chrome 8.0.5
I never said I used IE9 as browser just saying that i've installed just like Firefox 4... some of them might have some good feature that makes me want to switch from Chrome (which actually isn't going to happen so soon because the omnibar)
Oskar (:iccecold)Oct 22nd 2010 12:39PM
For those who have been doing their own benchmarks to see if it's really true that Firefox is now faster than Chrome should note that Firefox on SunSpider benchmark performance test shows an irrelevant result. Until Bug 598650 and Bug 599127 is not fixed, we cannot really compare it to other browsers.
The Arewefastyet.com uses shell to benchmark, that result is correct.
Also, this is not where they end tuning JS, there will be more and more improvements :)
@João Pereira, it matches because Firefox 4 has enabled HW acceleration which has performance problems at the moment.
WonderCsaboOct 23rd 2010 4:12PM
Oskar is correct.
And you have to grab latest-tracemonkey build to have the latest JS engine improvements. The trunk build doesn't include them, yet.
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-tracemonkey/