Could Chrome Achieve a Browser Coup Via Unprecedented Speed?

by Sam Dean - Sep. 17, 2010Comments (6)

Just when it seemed the neck-and-neck competition between the two open source browsers setting the innovation pace--Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox--couldn't get any more tense, Google has thrown a Molotov cocktail into the fray. According to posts on the Chromium Blog, the Chrome browser is poised to become 60 times faster in its upcoming version 7 release. As Microsoft wheels out its Internet Explorer version 9, and as Mozilla has to consider the fact that Firefox's market share seems stalled while Chrome's is growing, competitors have to start taking Chrome very, very seriously.

As PC World notes:

"Not only did Google release a slew of patches affecting various vulnerabilities in the current version of the browser on Tuesday, but it also announced that new GPU acceleration advances in the upcoming version 7 are achieving speeds 60 times faster than in version 6."

The really notable thing here is that Chrome is already setting the performance pace for browsers. Chrome opens up much faster on my Windows computers than Firefox does, has a healthy set of extensions at this point, and is generally rocket fast. If Google achieves a huge performance improvement in GPU speed, and marries that with the best Javascript performance, then look out.

As we've already noted, the Chrome browser is just one iron that Google has in the fire with its overall Chrome strategy. Don't forget that Chrome OS is imminent, and will impose the Chrome interface on many new users. Meanwhile, the latest market share numbers only show Chrome taking share from IE and Firefox.

The Chrome browser will gain sophistication as Google throws funding and developers at improving Chrome OS--which is entirely built around the browser's interface. And, as we've mentioned before, it's worth remembering that Mozilla gets the bulk of its funding for Firefox from Google in a deal that comes up for review next year. The competition between the two leading open source browsers couldn't get more interesting to watch.

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by an anonymous user on Sep. 17, 2010

This is just with GPU acceleration, not with the overall speed and performance. Chrome has been lagging behind Firefox in this and IE9 beta has really been pushing it's new integration. If you want to see an example check out http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/performance/fishIE%20tank/default.html to test your GPU acceleration in your current browser. Chrome, Opera and Safari are all still neck and neck when it comes to loading pages, javascript etc. So essentially this is just Chrome catching up to the competition.

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by Chrome schmome on Sep. 17, 2010

Even if it comes out 100x faster than Chrome 6 that would still make it far slower than IE9. That's not going to cut it Im afraid. Maybe chrome 8 will be better...

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by Sam Dean on Sep. 17, 2010

@ Chrome schmome, if you look at the latest benchmarks of Chrome 6 versus other browsers, including IE9, it's clear that if Chrome gets markedly faster it could be a coup. Here are Mozilla's own benchmarks (although granted Javascript is emphasized here):

http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2010/09/09/js-benchmarks-closing-in/

Sam

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by Jack G on Sep. 17, 2010

Firefox can take a while to load especially if you have several plugins. With the R&D going in to Chrome, it is only a matter of time before they can get the javascript/html 5 rendering really sped up.

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by wds pidb on Sep. 19, 2010

yea true i like chrome its fast, last time i used firefox they got cool features too. but due to my reason in web design

i found chrome much easier. as firefox do stuck sometime

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by Mary Ann on Sep. 27, 2010

Speed is kind. When Google came out, users love the speed in which they could get the search results. No one likes to wait. A browser that is 60X faster is going to have a lot of happy users.

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