Tested: Chrome, I.E. and Firefox

I've used Chrome for a couple of days now and it is working very well. One of the features claimed by Google is that it is 'faster' than other browsers. How can you test that claim?

My first test involved opening four identical tabs in each browser and testing the load and refresh speeds. I have to say that this test was inconclusive. All of the browsers were equally quick in opening and refreshing pages. The results were hard to measure as the load times were often less than one second. This type of test is not reliable because the response rate depends on not only the browser but also the speed of the server and the connection across the web.

My next test looked at the use of systems resources. How much memory and processing power did the browsers consume? Using task manager, I compared the browsers with the same four tabs open:

Browser	Mem Usage	CPU
Chrome	174,076 K	5 - 15%
Firefox	121,436 K	2 - 5%
I.E.	161,260 K	0 - 1%

(the chrome browser showed up as seven chrome.exe instances - I added these up)

The results here are mixed. Firefox uses the least amount of memory while I.E. puts the least load on the CPU. Chrome is using a lot of processing power even when nothing is happening!

The third test was more rigorous. I used an online tool for testing the speed of JavaScript functions. You can try it yourself at SunSpider. This tool makes the browser repeatedly perform a wide range of JavaScript functions and then gives a total score in milliseconds. Here are the results on my machine:

Browser	Score
Chrome	3,023.8ms
Firefox	4,282.4ms
I.E.	41,118.8ms

There is a huge difference! Chrome is 40% faster than Firefox and an incredible 13 times faster than I.E. at performing the same functions. During the test, I.E. caused the processor to hit 100% for long periods while the other browsers at most used 30%.

Chrome is clearly optimized for JavaScript which is not surprising as this is the technology that Google Docs and other sites of theirs such as Google Reader rely on. Chrome will allow Google to deploy much richer web based applications that will be quick and responsive.

Another feature that Google has introduced is 'Application Shortcuts' you can now easily create icons on your desktop or the start menu that take you to your favorite web applications. Now a web app will look just like a locally installed program.

Google's strategy here is clear. Chrome will facilitate and support the adoption of web based applications and minimize the advantages of locally installed software. The clear target here is Microsoft Office. Interestingly, Google has so far only bothered to release Chrome for Vista and XP… hmm… I think we are going to see some very interesting competition!