Google Chrome: Performance and First Impressions
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 3, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
Performance
Chrome launches very quickly, bested only by IE7 in start time:
| Google Chrome 0.2.149.27 | Internet Explorer 7.0.6001.18000 | Firefox 3.0.1 | Safari 3.1.2 | |
| Application Launch Time | ~0.8s | ~0.7s | ~3.0s | ~1.0s |
Measuring web page rendering performance was a bit more difficult to quantify, I tried loading web pages both locally and over the web and came up with the following table (the results are an average of 3 runs, the browser's cache was cleared each time):
| Websites | Google Chrome 0.2.149.27 | Internet Explorer 7.0.6001.18000 | Firefox 3.0.1 | Safari 3.1.2 |
| www.anandtech.com | 2.8s | 2.2s | 3.3s | 4.4s |
| www.digg.com | 4.7s | 2.7s | 4.1s | 3.4s |
| www.slashdot.org | 4.1s | 4.1s | 6.4s | 4.2s |
| www.techreport.com | 1.8s | 1.3s | 2.4s | 2.6s |
| http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/csstest.html | 0.49s | 0.12s | 0.12s | 0.15s |
| http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/jslibs/oldindex.php | 1.7s | 0.5s | 1.0s | 1.0s |
| http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=red&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2 | 1.3s | 2.1s | 1.5s | 1.2s |
| Google Spreadsheet (Radeon HD 4870 Test Results) | 3.1s | 5.0s | 5.4s | 4.8s |
| Google Docs (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 Review) | 4.4s | 2.5s | 6.6s | 3.6s |
Chrome varies from being the fastest of the four to being the slowest, depending on what you throw at it. Even rendering Google’s own application pages ranges from being unbelievably fast (3.12 seconds for my Google Spreadsheet test vs. ~5 seconds for the other browsers) to average (Google Docs).
Chrome never really feels slow, thankfully non-IE browsers are much better off today than they were several years ago (not to mention that even our slowest CPUs are significantly faster - farewell Pentium 4). The simple UI actually gives off the impression that the browser is faster than it actually is in many situations.
Performance is good, well done Google.
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geeknerdwoman - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
what's wrong with all the tech sites just ignoring opera!? opera has most of those 'new features for ages and it works just fine.so except for oneProcessPerTab (which has to be proven as useful) and incognito mode (already in dev) there is nothing new at all
flame
firefox sucks by the way
/flame
KeypoX - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
get over opera there is a reason that no one uses it. FF can do all of operas features and more with addons. And opera is missing ALOT. It is ok but not top 3.cousin333 - Friday, September 5, 2008 - link
An other thing: considering the wide usage of Internet Explorer do you really think, that the size of user base matters? Anyway, based on functions, stability, security Opera has no reason to be shamed. Considering innovations, it clearly stands out from the group.Maybe Opera is not a big deal (you think), but good enough for Firefox (both "officially" and add-on wise) and Chrome to shamelessly copy it. :P
cousin333 - Friday, September 5, 2008 - link
"FF can do all of operas features"At least, I had a good laugh...
FF addons ARE powerful. After you spent half of your life searching for them. Praying for them to cooperate :)
idomagic - Thursday, September 4, 2008 - link
Try placing the tabs vertically in FF.Try having access to the same search engines via three different routes (right-click, search and url field) while keeping it dead simple adding additional engines.
Try getting even half of operas additional functions without using more memory.
ChronoReverse - Thursday, September 4, 2008 - link
While I don't know about putting the tabs on the side (there might be an extension for this, Firefox seems to have a bajillion of those), the three methods you enumerated for searching is available in Firefox (3.1 at least since I use a nightly build).LinearCannoN - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
Minimalism is just what i want out of the internet, afterall, its the content on the internet that is all a browser should show, 900 bars here, 30+ icons there, stupid bars an borders everywhere. Bleh...Anyway, there are a few things i'd like to mention, Chrome automatically imported everything from my FF3 (bookmarks, history, passwords and cookies) but not my IE (not that i mind, i imported everything from IE to FF3 when i transitioned anyway)
And as for the Downloads ? if you click the Spanner icon on the Omnibar, and choose Downloads, it shows a nice page showing all downloads and the standard Google search feature to search all of your downloads (kinda, ala FF3 albeit, not in a seperate popup (which always annoyed me)
Overall, Chrome is the browser i've always wanted, FF3 came very very close, but Chrome seems to be heading in the direction i wanted :-)
ChronoReverse - Thursday, September 4, 2008 - link
You do realize you can customize Firefox to remove most of the toolbars and such right?I do like the way the UI in Chrome uses the space of the title bar though. It gives ever more room for the webpages.
Finally - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
On the one hand you are sporting 8GB RAM machines, on the other hand you bitch around 50mb of RAM usage. It just doesn't blend.Btw, instead of going for another browser to temporarily save RAM usage, I would kill one or two of those 51 processes that are not needed. I just did a quick check on my task manager and I have 23 processes running... that's 50% less.
Consider this a great topic for an article:
Windows processes: Which ones are unnecessary and how can I speed up my PC without losing comfort while gaining security?
<-- THAT would be an interesting article!
7Enigma - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
It's a key factor in any program. More importantly this shows that when a page is closed the bloat is reduced, whereas in other browser's it stays pretty much the same. I think this is much more important obviously for laptops than desktops, and especially budget/tablet/ultralight laptops where you do not have the 8GB of ram.But I'll completely agree with you that a detailed running processes article would be very helpful. I'm still using XP until I build my next system and would like something like Viper's XP page to give me a detailed explanation of all the junk running in the background I really don't need. Even better, go into a detailed explanation of how to create different profiles/log ins with different plans in mind. For instance, a gaming profile with the bare essentials to play (maybe even 2 separate profiles, one that does not require the internet for multiplayer support, and thus can not load all the antivirus/IPblocker software), a "secure" profile for bill paying and the like, an "idiot proof" profile that the average teenager/mom/old person can't destroy.
I'd pay money for a well-written detailed article on that!