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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GarionGoh - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
Not sure if it is me, but after using FF3 since its release, I can atest to its speed in loading/rednering web page, almost always faster than IE7. While in the review, we are seeing that IE7 takes the crown for most of the test sites. Anyone any comments?zebrax2 - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
they probably tested it without any add-onsSylvanas - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
I am loving Chrome, very fast and best of all it's simple to use, nice UI.ubiloo - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
I see the author of the article is looking for new features, etc.I think that Aurora (in Mozilla Concept series) is really displaying some... Check here:
http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-the-co...">http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introdu...concept-...
imaheadcase - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
Since no other web browser does except IE. Maybe it does?I love viewing this site with 4 inches width on each side wasted in FF3. Such a classy design anandtech.../sarcasm
strikeback03 - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
IE7 and FF2 both display in the center with a lot of grey space to the sides on my 24" monitor. The table that spills out the end in FF though was all present in IE.Of course, all the ads are also present in IE, which is why I never use it.
theslug - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
Anandtech seems to display fine for me with Firefox 3.imaheadcase - Thursday, September 4, 2008 - link
Try looking at AT on a 24 inch monitor. The site does not scale accordingly. The forums do, just not main site.strikeback03 - Thursday, September 4, 2008 - link
Define "scale correctly". It is centered, probably 1024 pixels wide, and I would imagine that is exactly what they programmed it to do.haplo602 - Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - link
what about ad blocks ? popup blocker ? session management ? page manuipulation (zoom etc.) ???