Dreaming Of Beetles

A Misanthropic Anthropoid With Something to Say

Browser Battle Round Three, Fight!

Posted by Chris Latko On June - 9 - 2009
Gort!

Gort!

Update: It seems that I’ve over-optimized a bit on the latest build. I’ve toned it down and made it Tiger-compatible. The new build is on the downloads page.

With a few new browsers released this past week, I thought I’d redo the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark on a couple (sorry Opera), and report the results. As usual, I disabled all add-ons, extensions, InputManagers, etc. The benchmarks were run on the same machine as the previous tests.

I also created another Intel Optimized Build of Firefox 3.5 RC preview (Shiretoko) using an updated .mozconfig file based on several reader contributions (including Mozilla employees). This new config is heavily optimized (that’s your warning). You can download both of those files on the downloads page.

Safari and Shiretoko did better than their previous incarnations, while Chrome OS X suffered in it’s jump from Chromium. The breakdown looks something like this:

  • Safari: 20.9% faster
  • Shiretoko: 13.6% faster
  • Chrome: 16.7% slower

And the neat graph looks like this:

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark Results

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark Results

Oh, and to find out what Gort is all about, go to about:robots in Firefox.

Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!

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24 Responses to “Browser Battle Round Three, Fight!”

  1. Ike says:

    Great!

    I guess I should move to one of the speed demons, but I'm sort of married to some of the firefox extensions. Hopefully the firefox contributors continue making the plumbing better/faster with every release

  2. Rizwan Kassim says:

    What do we do with the mozconfig.tgz?

  3. Patrick says:

    Might be a little too optimized? I noticed stuff like TabMixPlus isn't working and I'm not sure if it's that particular development release or the result of some optimizations here. It is blazing fast though. Feels snappier than Safari 4.

    Would it be possible to get a reference of what each of the options in your mozconfig do?

  4. Hippocrates Noah says:

    Smae here. TabSideBar is broken. It’s not in official pro build (3.5b99).

  5. kriskhaira says:

    Latko’s new Intel-optimized Firefox flies http://bit.ly/2P964D. If you incompatible extensions, try this trick http://bit.ly/4y6O4n

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  6. kriskhaira says:

    Latko’s new Intel-optimized Firefox flies http://bit.ly/2P964D. If you have incompatible extensions, try this trick http://bit.ly/4y6O4n

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  7. vengoroso says:

    Your new Shiretoko doesn't work on Tiger. Are you only compiling for Leopard from now on?

  8. David says:

    A question: how did you make the nifty red block graph comparing the JavaScript Benchmark results? I usually don’t like 3D graphs, since they distort using perspective, but I like the clean look of your graph.

  9. Chris Latko says:

    You don't have to do anything with it unless you want to compile a build yourself.

  10. Chris Latko says:

    I've toned the optimization down a bit. This build spun out of control on me and filled my disk with random Firefox profiles, destroying my main profile. I am currently rebuilding and should have the new version up within 20 minutes.

    As to the compile options, almost everything was pulled from the resources at mozilla.org. I've spent many, many hours going through the options and understanding what they do. I will try to write a post on it.

  11. Chris Latko says:

    That was made using Numbers in iWork '09. These graphs are actually pretty fun to make and I usually spend too much time tweaking them…

  12. Chris Latko says:

    I changed it to be Leopard-only, but have reverted it to being Tiger-compatible. Once Snow Leopard comes out, I'll probably drop the Tiger support.

  13. Chris Latko says:

    I over-optimized a bit and am currently compiling with a less aggressive mozconfig. I will have the new version up shortly. This is the 3.5b99, revision 3f775c3bb24a.

  14. oliver says:

    Just installed the latest optimized build of Firefox for OS X from @clatko. http://tr.im/ofoo

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  15. bensonlee says:

    intel optimized build for firefox 3.5 rc preview download (shiretoko). optimized like cra cra and it’s fast. http://bit.ly/2P964D

    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  16. John says:

    I’ve been using these builds for quite a while. No matter what I try, these builds are faster than Safari 4 or the regular Shiretoko builds ( noscript and adblock plus extensions) Keep up the great work.
    Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1pre) Gecko/20090625 Shiretoko/3.5pre Beetle ID:20090625093310

  17. Chris Latko says:

    Thank you. I've been working on WebKit optimization lately but do not have anything significant yet.

  18. Adam says:

    Is there any chance of us getting 64-bit optimized builds?

  19. Chris Latko says:

    Update: It appears that Shiretoko will not compile to 64-bit OS X. After trying numerous options that failed, I stumbled upon a statement that this will not be possible until Namoroka. I have a pre-alpha (32-bit) on the downloads page, but at this point I’m not going to spend the time trying to build a 64-version. I’ll wait until there is some hope that it will work.

    I'll post one this weekend, though I don't think a 64-bit build is going to make much of a difference. I compiled 64-bit WebKit and benchmarked against a 32-bit WebKit and there was only a minor, minor improvement. I'll give it a shot.

  20. BrDan says:

    I downloaded your Shiretoko 3.5.2 build on my Intel iMac; running Snow Leopard and I cinged
    my eyes. Great work!!! please keep it updated. 3.5.3 comes out in a few days and I hope you
    keep your builds up to date.
    THANK YOU!!!

  21. @clatko says:

    Thank you. I haven't yet tried these builds on my Snow Leopard machine so I'm glad they're working for you. I'm usually pretty on top of new releases and get builds up pretty quickly, though I wasn't aware 3.5.3 was imminent.

    I know that 3.7 pre Alpha 1 is now available and will build that at the same time as the 3.5.3 update. Also, when I get the time, I'll redo these builds using Clang and redo the benchmarks.

  22. benjer712 says:

    I've generally been loving your intel optimized firefox 3.5 but i'm really confused about one thing. the site I use for my school displays text normally in the standard firefox build, but in the optimized build some of the text is so small that its unreadable? I dont' get it.

  23. Chris Latko says:

    Very odd. 3.5.4 release is coming shortly. When I do that build, I'll dig around a bit on your issue.

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Interested in all things tech. Apple, iPhone, OSX, Xcode, LAMP, Obj-C, Cappuccino, Atlas, Sproutcore, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, GNU/Linux.

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