Opera News

We are proud to announce a browser that we believe qualifies for the title of “The Fastest Browser on Earth”, Opera 10.50 beta. Our new Carakan JavaScript engine and Vega graphics library offer impressive performance. We are really excited about what we have done, and would like you to see why.

There are many ways you can measure browser speed so I have assembled some of the more popular tests. The graph below demonstrates that Opera 10.50 beta is faster than other browsers in most performance tests.

Browser speed is important. Developers are creating increasingly complex Web applications that make heavy use of JavaScript, so the purpose of speed optimization is to expand the possibilities for dynamic Web applications that run from the cloud. Choosing a faster browser can shave seconds off of each of the pages you load – which really adds up! So why wait when you don't have to?

How can you tell which browser is really the fastest? Below are the details of the tests performed, and how to try them yourself. Please post your results in the comments and see the results your computer gets.

Popular JavaScript and rendering performance tests

A number of tests can be used to benchmark Web browsers. Some that can be easily used are: Sunspider, Dromaeo, V8, and Peacekeeper.

You can try each of these tests simply by visiting the preceding links (with the browser you wish to test) and following the instructions.

These tests show common types of JavaScript operations; each tries to gauge the speed in a slightly different way, so the results and the relative difference between browsers can vary considerably. The real question, however, is whether these benchmarks will translate into a noticeable difference in the user experience of a browser in day-to-day use. It can be argued that some benchmarks actually translate into an improved experience, while having a browser that is heavily optimized for other tests can possibly make it slower in common scenarios. The real test will be the difference you see when visiting your favorite Web sites.

We ran four tests using a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system with 4GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT, running Windows 7 32-bit. The browsers used were Opera 10.50 beta, Google Chrome 4.0.249.78, Mozilla Firefox 3.6 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 8. Here is a description of the tests and the results.

Sunspider is a JavaScript benchmark that tests only the core script language with a focus on the kinds of actual problems that developers solve with JavaScript today. It is a very popular way to compare JavaScript engines of Web browsers.

Opera 10.50 is clearly the fastest browser in Sunspider, and outperforms Google Chrome by a healthy margin.

Dromaeo is a test created by Mozilla, named after the Dromaeosaurs (meaning 'fast lizard'). It is currently considered a work in progress. It tests a subset of the tests that Sunspider uses, and it can also test DOM and CSS selector speed. We tested with the 'recommended' test that leaves out the CSS selector engine tests.

Opera excels and bests other browsers in Dromaeo. Internet Explorer 8 failed the Dromaeo test on our test platform each time we attempted running it, so we were not able to include a result for Microsoft's offering.

The V8 Benchmark Suite is made by Google for optimizing and showcasing the V8 JavaScript engine that is used in Chrome.

Opera performs very well on this test, but is behind Chrome, which was heavily optimized for this specific test.

Peacekeeper from FutureMark tests a number of aspects of browser performance, emphasizing the kinds of work browsers do in loading popular Web sites like YouTube, Facebook, and GMail. These tests are: Rendering, Social networking, Complex graphics, Data, DOM operations and Text parsing.

You can find more information about each test in Futuremark's Peacekeeper FAQ.

In Peacekeeper, Opera bests the competition in the Social networking and Text parsing tests, but trails slightly behind in some other tests. Opera 10.50 excels in Complex graphics, and is vastly faster than its closest competitors, but this is not normally taken into account because Internet Explorer 8 does not support it. With that test accounted for in the results, Opera is clearly superior, as can be seen in the graph below.

The results are quite intriguing. The new Carakan JavaScript engine has improved the performance of Opera to a point where it is definitely faster in most circumstances. In addition to the benchmarks here, our internal real-world test platform that automatically loads a series of actual highly popular pages from the Web shows that Opera is the new speed champion. And of course, on slower connections, Opera is the only browser that has Opera Turbo technology that allows you to compress Web pages before they are sent to your computer so you load pages much faster.

Browser performance will become an increasingly important factor in the experience of computing and it is important to continue to push the boundaries as developers create more demanding applications – so the race is far from over!

We believe that the improvements made in Opera are already offer a browsing experience that makes Opera the fastest browser on Earth, and the exciting part – we aren't finished yet. Opera 10.50 is merely in beta, and there may be performance improvements to come before Opera 10.50 is finalized. Feel free to try the Opera 10.50 beta for yourself and discover the speed that it offers.