RE: Javascript performance in browsers
September 7th, 2007 | Published in Linux, Review | 16 Comments
This post is just a quickie in response to Mike Hommey’s recent blog post titled “Javascript performance in browsers“. His post was in response to a Javascript Speed Test ran by CelticKane.com. So far, they have listed all of the browsers that I don’t use. So I decided to test my preferred browser, Konqueror, with this speed test. And without further ado, here are the results:

As it stands, and taking into consideration the results displayed by Mike, Konqueror would roughly be in 4th place. I must say that, Opera is damn fast, and it looks as if the GdkWebKit is looking fairly impressive in speed results.
Now I know that Javascript isn’t that big of a deal, and if anyone knows of some other browser speed tests, let us know. It would be kind of cool to test different browsers on my same machine here to see just how fast the free software browsers are in comparison to the proprietary ones.





September 7th, 2007 at 16:29:04 (#)
Just thought i’d throw my 2p in the pot ..
Safari results on the speed test (javascript)
Try/Catch with errors
7
Layer movement
49
Random number engine
45
Math engine
69
DOM speed
29
Array functions
15
String functions
17
Ajax declaration
12
Total Duration 243 ms
September 7th, 2007 at 17:11:55 (#)
that beats them all
September 7th, 2007 at 17:38:07 (#)
There’s a lot of variation in these results. I just ran konqueror through the test and got a score of 635! That’s a 50% difference to your score.
If the Safari score was on a 8-core Mac Pro that proves nothing other than faster computers are faster.
September 7th, 2007 at 18:30:04 (#)
Swiftweasel (Firefox with CPU-specific performance enhancements)
64-bit Ubuntu Gutsy Alpha
Try/Catch with errors – 47ms
Layer movement – 156ms
Random number engine – 162ms
Math engine – 173ms
DOM speed – 249ms
Array functions- 63ms
String functions – 7ms
Ajax declaration – 160ms
Total Duration – 1017ms
September 7th, 2007 at 18:30:16 (#)
Er, you can’t just run one test and compare it to tests that others have done.
You’d need to do all the tests on the same computer.
September 7th, 2007 at 18:38:22 (#)
Just tested konqueror 3.5.7 vs Firefox 2.0.0.6 on Ubuntu Gutsy. Firefox did in 1600 and Konqueror on 1900. My webkit epiphany handled it in 600.
That’s life on laptops that have to sweat for a while before the cpu speed will be increased to maximum.
September 7th, 2007 at 18:43:02 (#)
And Opera, 800.
September 7th, 2007 at 18:53:33 (#)
Konqueror’s JavaScript is quite a bit faster in KDE 4 on my PC when running this test.
Konqueror/KDE 3: 920ms
Konqueror/KDE 4: 390ms
(both are compiled in release mode)
September 7th, 2007 at 19:00:50 (#)
Here are some more tests, mostly Javascript and DOM:
http://nontroppo.org/timer/kestrel_tests/
September 7th, 2007 at 19:33:01 (#)
ya, I have run a couple different ones on the system hardware. Opera is kicking some arse. I need to check out Epiphony, that is probably my 2nd favorite free software browser. I did notice that Konqi on KDE 4 was twice as fast (half the original score). I also noticed fluctuation after going back and running the test 10 times in a row. The lowest score was 743, and the highest was 1201, with Konqueror.
Konqi, Epiphony, and Opera have always seemed faster than anything else I have tried before. I tested IE 7 on Vista, the same machine that has a Kubuntu Gutsy install. IE 7 score 1900+, Konqi scored a 507, and Opera score around 300. This is a dual core system with 2gb of ram. My lappy, well I get the same sort of results when I have CPU scaling turned on as erik does.
@Janne: thanks for that link, now I will waste all night playing around testing stuff. For what reason I have no clue
I tried to test some settings w/o any noticeable results as well.
September 7th, 2007 at 22:31:15 (#)
Opera 9.5 alpha is out, you can try it: there are 64bit builds too, a qt4 static version , alors compiled with GCC 4 now !
Opera is getting better and better on unix !
September 7th, 2007 at 22:40:02 (#)
Well I ran the test on Safari 3.0.3 and I got 211ms. Running it with firefox on the same computer yields 994ms. Tested on a macbook core duo 2, 1.83Ghz.
September 8th, 2007 at 04:50:29 (#)
Zyga, I have to admit ..
i ran the test (1st comment on a Core Duo 2 , 1.83Ghz (hardly the fastest CPU now) and Safari was 4 times as fast as Firefox which came in at 1015ms!
I dont have KDE/ Gnome running natively on the macbook so i can’t comment ! ..
September 8th, 2007 at 05:05:45 (#)
Swiftfox was just as slow or fast as Firefox.. And ordinary Gecko Epiphany is exactly as slow. Damn, I’d use Opera constantly if it just had sane advertisement blocker… It still requires (the current ad blocking feature is plain USSR if you compare it to ablock plus) filtering proxy at front of it or it will break your sanity. Same might go for Konqueror as well – the lack of real ad blocking features are a blocker.
September 9th, 2007 at 05:57:11 (#)
Test Description Duration (ms)
Try/Catch with errors
15
Layer movement
41
Random number engine
51
Math engine
78
DOM speed
12
Array functions
12
String functions
18
Ajax declaration
12
Total Duration 239 ms
With safari, on a Macbook 1.83GHz Core Duo, 2GB RAM
December 17th, 2007 at 17:35:46 (#)
yep. these results don’t mean alot since diff. PCs have varying degrees of processor speeds, RAM speeds, video card speed, etc. bla bla. you dig??