Browser speed test

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A browser speed test is a computer benchmark that scores the performance of a web browser, by measuring the browser's efficiency in completing a predefined list of tasks. In general the testing software is available online, located on a website, where different algorithms are loaded and performed in the browser client. Typical test tasks are rendering and animation, DOM transformations, string operations, mathematical calculations, sorting algorithms, graphic performance tests and memory instructions. Browser speed tests have been used during browser wars to prove superiority of specific web browsers. The popular Acid3 test is no particular speed test but checks browser conformity to web standards (though it checks whether a general performance goal is met).

Contents

General tests

Speedometer 2.0

Speedometer was originally developed by the WebKit team at Apple and released in 2014 and was updated in 2018. [1] Speedometer 2.0 tests a browser's Web app responsiveness by timing simulated user interactions.

This benchmark simulates user actions for adding, completing, and removing to-do items using multiple examples in TodoMVC. Each example in TodoMVC implements the same todo application using DOM APIs in different ways. Some call DOM APIs directly from ECMAScript 5 (ES5), ECMASCript 2015 (ES6), ES6 transpiled to ES5, and Elm transpiled to ES5. Others use one of eleven popular JavaScript frameworks: React, React with Redux, Ember.js, Backbone.js, AngularJS, (new) Angular, Vue.js, jQuery, Preact, Inferno, and Flight. Many of these frameworks are used on the most popular websites in the world, such as Facebook and Twitter. The performance of these types of operations depends on the speed of the DOM APIs, the JavaScript engine, CSS style resolution, layout, and other technologies.

Peacekeeper

Peacekeeper is a platform-independent benchmark by Futuremark that tests rendering, mathematical and memory operations. It takes approx. 5 minutes for execution and tells the results of other browsers with different CPUs. Futuremark stopped maintaining Peacekeeper in July 2015. [2] The test was taken offline in March 2018 and is no longer available.

Testdrive

Microsoft maintains a suite of performance-oriented tests, often designed to test and stress JavaScript and rendering performance. These tests are typically designed to highlight IE's performance[ citation needed ], but are compatible with other major browsers.

WebXPRT

WebXPRT is a cross-platform browser benchmark that runs HTML5- and JavaScript-based workloads. [3] The benchmark provides scores for six individual workloads, as well as an overall score. [4] WebXPRT is published by the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, which is administered by Principled Technologies, and is one of the BenchmarkXPRT benchmarks. WebXPRT 4 is the most current version of WebXPRT. [5]

3D tests

Wirple BMark

Performance test for HTML5 3D applications. It tests performance in both Canvas3D and WebGL.

Developer suites

Mozilla benchmarks

Dromaeo (superseded by Kraken)

A Mozilla test suite based on SunSpider tests. It takes several minutes for execution and displays very detailed information about every single test task.

Kraken (active)

Another JavaScript test suite from Mozilla, released September 14, 2010. [6]

Apple benchmarks

JetStream (active)

A JavaScript test suite developed by Apple. [7]

SunSpider (superseded)

SunSpider is a benchmark created by the webkit team that aims to measure JavaScript performance on tasks relevant to the current and near future use of JavaScript in the real world, such as encryption and text manipulation. [8] The suite further attempts to be balanced and statistically sound. [9]

Version 0.9 was released by the WebKit team in December 2007. [10] It was well-received, [11] and other browser developers also use it to compare the JavaScript performance of different browsers. [12]

Version 0.9.1 was released in April 2010. [13]

Version 1.0 was released in April 2013. [14]

Google benchmarks

V8 (superseded)

A JavaScript test suite by Google, used to optimize the Google Chrome web browser. It does not test rendering performance. It was superseded by Google's Octane benchmark.

Octane (unmaintained)

Google's JavaScript test suite which replaces the V8 benchmark. According to Google, "Octane v.1 consists of 13 tests, 5 new ones and 8 from the original V8 Benchmark Suite." [15] Octane v.2 supplanted v.1, consisting of "17 tests, four more than Octane v1." [16]

As of April 12 2017, Google no longer maintains Octane. [17]


GUIMark 2

This tests vector, bitmap, and text rendering for both Adobe Flash and HTML5.

Related Research Articles

Gecko is a browser engine developed by Mozilla. It is used in the Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client, and many other projects.

ECMAScript is a standard for scripting languages, including JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript. It is best known as a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different web browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the document ECMA-262.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firefox</span> Free and open-source web browser by Mozilla

Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. Firefox is available for Windows 10 and later versions of Windows, macOS, and Linux. Its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and other platforms. It is also available for Android and iOS. However, as with all other iOS web browsers, the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform requirements. An optimized version is also available on the Amazon Fire TV as one of the two main browsers available with Amazon's Silk Browser.

WebKit is a browser engine primarily used in Apple's Safari web browser, as well as all web browsers on iOS and iPadOS. WebKit is also used by the PlayStation consoles starting with the PS3, the Tizen mobile operating systems, the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, Nintendo consoles starting with the 3DS Internet Browser, and the discontinued BlackBerry Browser.

A JavaScript engine is a software component that executes JavaScript code. The first JavaScript engines were mere interpreters, but all relevant modern engines use just-in-time compilation for improved performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acid3</span> Online HTML rendering test

The Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project that checks a web browser's compliance with elements of various web standards, particularly the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Explorer 9</span> Web browser for Windows released in 2011

Internet Explorer 9 or IE9 is the ninth major version of the Internet Explorer web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 14, 2011, as the successor to Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 as a major out-of-band version that was not tied to the release schedule of any particular version of Windows, unlike previous versions. It is the first version of Internet Explorer not to be bundled with a Windows operating system, although some OEMs have installed it with Windows on their PCs. Internet Explorer 9 was the last version to be called Windows Internet Explorer. The software was rebranded simply as Internet Explorer starting with the release of Internet Explorer 10.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">WebGL</span> JavaScript bindings for OpenGL in web browsers

WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelerated usage of physics, image processing, and effects in the HTML canvas. WebGL elements can be mixed with other HTML elements and composited with other parts of the page or page background.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maciej Stachowiak</span> Polish American software developer (born 1976)

Maciej Stachowiak is a Polish American software developer currently employed by Apple Inc., where he is a leader of the development team responsible for the WebKit Framework. A longtime proponent of open source software, Stachowiak was involved with the SCWM, GNOME and Nautilus projects for Linux before joining Apple. He is actively involved the development of web standards, served as a co-chair of the World Wide Web Consortium's HTML 5 working group and was a member of the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group steering committee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Closure Tools</span> JavaScript developer toolkit

Google Closure Tools is a set of tools to help developers build rich web applications with JavaScript. It was developed by Google for use in their web applications such as Gmail, Google Docs and Google Maps. As of 2023, the project had over 230K LOCs not counting the embedded Mozilla Rhino compiler.

Chakra is a proprietary JScript engine developed by Microsoft. It is used in the Internet Explorer web browser.

CommonJS is a project to standardize the module ecosystem for JavaScript outside of web browsers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Swiffy</span> Software tool that converted SWF files to HTML5

Google Swiffy was a web-based tool developed by Google that converted SWF files to HTML5. Its main goal was to display Flash contents on devices that do not support Flash, such as iPhone, iPad, and Android Tablets. Swiffy was shut down July 1, 2016.

Content Security Policy (CSP) is a computer security standard introduced to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking and other code injection attacks resulting from execution of malicious content in the trusted web page context. It is a Candidate Recommendation of the W3C working group on Web Application Security, widely supported by modern web browsers. CSP provides a standard method for website owners to declare approved origins of content that browsers should be allowed to load on that website—covered types are JavaScript, CSS, HTML frames, web workers, fonts, images, embeddable objects such as Java applets, ActiveX, audio and video files, and other HTML5 features.

In software development, a polyfill is code that implements a new standard feature of a deployment environment within an old version of that environment that does not natively support the feature. Most often, it refers to JavaScript code that implements an HTML5 or CSS web standard, either an established standard on older browsers, or a proposed standard on existing browsers. Polyfills are also used in PHP and Python.

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asm.js is a subset of JavaScript designed to allow computer software written in languages such as C to be run as web applications while maintaining performance characteristics considerably better than standard JavaScript, which is the typical language used for such applications.

A headless browser is a web browser without a graphical user interface.

References

  1. "Speedometer 2.0: A Benchmark for Modern Web App Responsiveness". 15 January 2018.
  2. Brinkmann, Martin (23 July 2015). "Futuremark ends support for Peacekeeper benchmark". Ghacks. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  3. Hachmann, Mark (28 November 2018). "Samsung Galaxy Book 2 tablet review: Performance takes a back seat to battery life". PCWorld. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  4. Addison, Ken (19 April 2018). "The Ryzen 7 2700X and Ryzen 5 2600X Review: Zen Matures". PC Perspective. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  5. T S, Ganesh (28 December 2023). "ASRock Industrial 4X4 BOX-7840U mini-PC Review: AMD Phoenix in an UCFF Avatar". AnandTech. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
  6. Jostedt, Erica (14 September 2010). "Release the Kraken". The Mozilla Blog (blog). Mozilla. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  7. Heath, Nick (21 May 2015). "Windows 10 and Edge: How Microsoft's new browser could soon challenge Chrome". TechRepublic. California, USA. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
  8. Muchmore, Michael (18 June 2008). "Review: Firefox 3 Stays Ahead of Browser Pack". PC Mag. Archived from the original on 5 July 2008. Retrieved 6 September 2008 via Fox News.
  9. "SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark". WebKit Open Source Project. Archived from the original on 20 January 2022. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
  10. Stachowiak, Maciej (18 December 2007). "Announcing SunSpider 0.9" (blog). WebKit Open Source Project. Retrieved 6 September 2008.
  11. Atwood, Jeff (19 December 2007). "The Great Browser JavaScript Showdown". Coding Horror (blog). Archived from the original on 6 June 2013. Retrieved 6 September 2008.
  12. Resig, John (3 September 2008). "JavaScript Performance Rundown". ejohn.org (blog). Retrieved 21 May 2015.
  13. Stachowiak, Maciej (7 April 2010). "Announcing SunSpider 0.9.1". Surfin' Safari (blog). WebKit Open Source Project. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
  14. Stachowiak, Maciej (7 April 2010). "Announcing SunSpider 1.0". Surfin’ Safari. WebKit Open Source Project. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
  15. "The Benchmark—Octane". Google Developers. 22 August 2012. Archived from the original on 29 September 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  16. "The Benchmark—Octane". Google Developers. 6 November 2013. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
  17. "Retiring Octane". V8 JavaScript Engine. 12 April 2017. Retrieved 24 August 2017.