So I downloaded yesterday the latest Software Update for Mac OSX and it included an update of the Safari Web Browser, which I had taken for dead ages ago, I’m a hardcore Firefox user.
Today I read about the new updates, and I read something that caught my eye at Mackinando.com.
it executes JavaScript six times faster than the rest
I go to the Safari Site, and they compare themselves with a previous version, Firefox, and Opera (not IE, not even worth mentioning)
I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I googled for “JavaScript Benchmark“, and tried the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark onboth Firefox 2.0.0.12 and the shiny new Safari 3.1.
The machine used for this test is a MacBook Pro running Mac OS X Version 10.4.11 with a 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM.
Here are the results side by side:
FIREFOX 2.0.0.12
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RESULTS
(means and 95% confidence intervals)
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Total: 15365.4ms +/- 1.7%
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3d: 2386.6ms +/- 7.9%
cube: 733.0ms +/- 20.8%
morph: 1269.8ms +/- 9.4%
raytrace: 383.8ms +/- 37.1%
access: 1386.2ms +/- 4.8%
binary-trees: 201.6ms +/- 0.6%
fannkuch: 294.8ms +/- 5.4%
nbody: 691.2ms +/- 8.9%
nsieve: 198.6ms +/- 1.5%
bitops: 3461.2ms +/- 0.4%
3bit-bits-in-byte: 275.8ms +/- 0.6%
bits-in-byte: 248.2ms +/- 0.7%
bitwise-and: 2765.2ms +/- 0.5%
nsieve-bits: 172.0ms +/- 4.7%
controlflow: 153.4ms +/- 0.7%
recursive: 153.4ms +/- 0.7%
crypto: 527.2ms +/- 0.5%
aes: 230.8ms +/- 1.2%
md5: 147.4ms +/- 0.5%
sha1: 149.0ms +/- 0.6%
date: 2551.8ms +/- 0.3%
format-tofte: 1449.6ms +/- 0.3%
format-xparb: 1102.2ms +/- 0.8%
math: 1312.6ms +/- 12.8%
cordic: 497.4ms +/- 12.0%
partial-sums: 501.6ms +/- 1.6%
spectral-norm: 313.6ms +/- 36.1%
regexp: 501.0ms +/- 0.2%
dna: 501.0ms +/- 0.2%
string: 3085.4ms +/- 10.3%
base64: 914.6ms +/- 3.4%
fasta: 676.0ms +/- 35.4%
tagcloud: 441.4ms +/- 0.6%
unpack-code: 846.8ms +/- 25.4%
validate-input: 206.6ms +/- 1.1%
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SAFARI 3.1
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RESULTS
(means and 95% confidence intervals)
-----------------------------------------
Total: 3368.8ms +/- 1.0%
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3d: 414.8ms +/- 1.9%
cube: 132.2ms +/- 2.4%
morph: 144.6ms +/- 4.1%
raytrace: 138.0ms +/- 0.6%
access: 520.4ms +/- 4.1%
binary-trees: 78.6ms +/- 11.3%
fannkuch: 231.4ms +/- 2.0%
nbody: 149.2ms +/- 8.1%
nsieve: 61.2ms +/- 3.9%
bitops: 449.6ms +/- 2.4%
3bit-bits-in-byte: 69.8ms +/- 9.6%
bits-in-byte: 99.2ms +/- 4.6%
bitwise-and: 167.2ms +/- 2.3%
nsieve-bits: 113.4ms +/- 6.7%
controlflow: 91.2ms +/- 4.7%
recursive: 91.2ms +/- 4.7%
crypto: 247.2ms +/- 2.3%
aes: 81.2ms +/- 2.5%
md5: 83.8ms +/- 4.6%
sha1: 82.2ms +/- 2.0%
date: 306.4ms +/- 0.5%
format-tofte: 146.6ms +/- 1.4%
format-xparb: 159.8ms +/- 1.0%
math: 454.8ms +/- 1.3%
cordic: 174.4ms +/- 1.6%
partial-sums: 193.8ms +/- 1.2%
spectral-norm: 86.6ms +/- 4.4%
regexp: 209.6ms +/- 0.7%
dna: 209.6ms +/- 0.7%
string: 674.8ms +/- 2.2%
base64: 103.8ms +/- 9.0%
fasta: 177.0ms +/- 1.0%
tagcloud: 136.0ms +/- 4.6%
unpack-code: 136.0ms +/- 1.7%
validate-input: 122.0ms +/- 2.6%
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Comparing with Firefox, the overall result of this test was that it’s 4.56 times faster.
However, if we look test by test, there are areas where I feel embarrassed for Firefox.
Bitwise Operations
For example, Bit-Operation tests in Safari 3.1 are 7.7 times faster in Safari, being the case of the bitwise-AND (&) operator the worst of them, Safari performed bitwise-and’s 16 times faster than Firefox
OUCH!!
String Operations
So you’d be curious now about String operations, which is probably a lot of what goes on with Javascript, and Ajax, parsing those XML results and what not, maybe the bitwise & won’t hurt us that much given that not many programmers today are smart enough to use them for web programming.
When it comes to String operations, Safari 3.1 was 4.5 times faster than Firefox 2.
Kudos to the Safari Team, I thought there was no point in having Safari until I did this benchmark. I guess they don’t want to let go of Web Browser users, maybe they make millions every month with ad-clicks on Google generated with the search field they have at the top of the browser which is set by default to do Google search.
Once again the saying proves it self
“Competition is good”
Let’s hope this will make the Firefox team think more on Javascript improvements with the upcoming Firefox 3. Once it’s release ready, it’ll be worth it running this benchmark again and see where it stands.
Update (March 20th, 2008)
I’ve made tests on Firefox 3 beta 4, You can see the results here. Tests have been made again on the same Macbook Pro. The improvements of Firefox 3 are notable, however, on the mac, Safari still wins.
if you have tried firefox 3 beta 4, or beta5pre, you would know its 17% faster than safari 3.1 on windows, 19% faster than safari 3.1 on mac 🙂
Cris, I’ve posted a second article with the same benchmark on Firefox 3 beta 4
http://www.gubatron.com/blog/2008/03/20/safari-31-benchmark-part-ii-vs-firefox-30b4/
It’s almost there (on mac)