It’s time to look at and compare browsers again. OS X Mavericks was just released last week, and along with all the OS improvements to help improve energy efficiency, there’s also a spanking new version of the Safari web browser. Do you wonder how the browsers stack against each other? Is the new Safari any better?
There was a time that I was an avid Safari user. Then, I moved to Chrome, and I’ve stayed there for some time. It’s the browser that’s most universally available across all device types I use: Mac notebook, Windows desktop, iPad and Android phone. By using Chrome universally, I can use any one device and still access browser tabs from any other device. It’s convenient to start reading something on one device, then continue on with another device.
Safari 7 is new in Mavericks. I tried out Safari as I explored around Mavericks. I noticed it felt quite snappy and responsive. That got me started thinking about comparing browser performance. I googled and found myself an online browser speed test at http://www.speed-battle.com. I decided to add Firefox, the 3rd browser I use from time to time, to the mix for test. I was impressed how Safari blazed ahead of Chrome. Firefox tied with Safari.
Then, I remembered about how one of Mavericks key improvements focused on energy reduction. Would Safari be more CPU friendly compared with other browsers? So I fired up the three browsers and accessed a series of webpages identically with each one of them.
Safari stood impressively in front of the Chrome and Firefox. I suppose it’s not all too surprising. Apple knows what tweaking to do. If I drill down into the process-level statistics, Safari’s ahead in many areas like page ins, context switches, etc. It seems Safari knows how to get more work done using lesser resources.
Finally, I’m one that’s quite picky about HTML standards compliance. One of the reasons I went from Safari to Chrome was about adherence to HTML standards. The benchmark tool for testing HTML compliance is the http://html5test.com website. Chrome led the way.
Here’s the summary of the three tests.
| Chrome | Firefox | Safari | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Version | 30.0.1599.101 | 24.0 | 7.0 |
| Average of speed-battle.net score | 524.27 | 745.83 | 744.58 |
| Average Energy Impact | 10.3 | 9.45 | 6.93 |
| HTML5 Test | 463 | 414 | 400 |
Safari’s quite fast, uses little energy, but trails behind in HTML5 compliance.
For now, I’ll sacrifice on the tab syncing with my Android phone. Safari did not score well in HTML5 compliance, but honestly, I’ve not seen in casual browsing any website that fails to properly render in Safari. These two issues are still important to me.
I do hope to go back to Chrome. Google has some catching up to do.
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