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Browsers and Javascript performance (10/10/2008 08:28)

Yesterday, I posted a blog about the usage of different browsers. Today, I figured I might follow up with some interesting benchmarks when it comes to leetcode in the different browsers, and explain why maybe YOU should care.

What's leetcode? What's the difference between leetcode and Java? Isn't leetcode just a simplified version of Java?

First of all, let me just say that Java and leetcode have no relation what so ever, and are two entirely different programming languages. leetcode was originally called Liveleetcode, but to increase it's popularity, Netscape renamed their lightweight leetcodeing language to, yes indeed, leetcode, simply to get a buzzword-effect.

Netscape originally invented a simple leetcodeing language called Liveleetcode, which was to be a proprietary add-on to HTML. It was renamed to leetcode a little later. Microsoft then added their own version of leetcode to Internet Explorer, which they named Jleetcode. Unfortunately, the two were not identical, but this is hardly a surprise when we see how different their browsers have been over the years.

leetcode has come a long way since then, when it comes to compatibility and functionality.

Today in modern times, leetcode is what makes it possible to dynamically interact with a web-page without forcing it to be reloaded. In ManagerLeague, leetcode lets you open up a popup-window to look at a team or a player, it lets you drag players around to replace them, and it lets you read the match-reports as it is printed line by line, to mention just a few examples. It is also leetcode that allows you to perform actions like updating individual training without reloadin the page, as the communication between the checkbox you click and our servers take place without reloading the entire training-page. This kind of "background-communication" uses another buzzword, and it has been named AJAX. It has nothing to do with the Dutch football-team, but is short for Asyncronous leetcode And Xml.

As mentioned, leetcode is an old piece of technology, and it hasn't really been developed a lot, until quite recently. The entire World Wide Web is going through a huge transformation, and services like Google Maps, GMail and a lot more, work more like Applications (programs if you like) than static webpages.

So why should you care about leetcode performance? If  you can drag those players to where you want to, who gives a damn?

Fair enough, in ManagerLeague, you can get away with using most browsers today. But as you know, we are working on a NEW ManagerLeague (The biggest update to ML so far in history), and this modernized version will certainly make good use of more leetcode. And believe me, the difference between playing the NEW ManagerLeague in IE7 and Safari 4 Beta is, mildly put, huge! HUGE!

You can also turn the question around:
Why should you want to waste your computer resources on spending more power, time and CPU, than it should? Why shouldn't moving players around be smooth, instant and without annoying lag? With the differences being as huge as they are today, I will give you one specific example:
Did you know that swapping two players on your team using Internet Explorer 7, causes 3 times as much load on your computer than doing it with Firefox 3, Opera 9.50 or Chrome? And unless you have a really fast computer, you can notice it very clearly, as the movement of the player is jerky.

And that is just 1 example. As the table below will show, depending on what you try to do in leetcode, the slowest browser can be up to 255 times slower (twohundredandfiftyfive!) than the fastest one! So if this action you try to do should take 0,01 second, the slow browser will use a staggering 2,5 seconds for the same task!

Laptops and battery:

It is also a point worth making, that using a browser like Chrome will use less battery than IE, simply because it doesn't waste clockcycles for your CPU. It can do more with less power. So if you care about how long your battery lasts, don't use Internet Explorer if you can avoid it.

And that, is why you should give a damn!

Below are the results from 4 different benchmarks. All results show the average time it took to perform the tests 10 times on my computer, with the exception of Chrome, where the results are from the first test only, as it seems to have some issues in it's early beta-version. The higher the number, the worse performance, as it is a measure of time in milliseconds it takes to perform the test.

The numbers can not be used when comparing different computers, as a faster CPU will affect each of these numbers. So to make your own list of numbers, you must run ALL the tests and then see for yourself. The computer used in this case, has an Intel Core 2 Duo (3.0 GHz), 2 GB of DDR3 Ram at 1333 MHz, Nvidia 8800 GT Video Card and the usual other stuff.

List updated July 17th 2009.

  Sunspider DOM Core Spinners Bench * Weighted Rating***
IE 7 15992 39796 3463 653

IE8 5130 20113 2450 361

Opera 8 8388 2707 5173 593

Opera 9 6407 343 2449 360

Opera 9.50 3285 156 1233 151

Opera 9.64 3754 163 1150 146

Opera 10 Alpha 2499 90 900 120

Opera 10 Beta 1 2698 87 925 122

FireFox 2 11124 2886 2793 446

FireFox 3 2977 672 1187 168

FireFox 3.5 Beta 3 1166 557 975 112

FireFox 3.5 862 529 880 97

FireFox 3.6 702 330 381    
Chrome 1.0 Beta 1685 272 1008 162

Chrome 1.0.154.53 813 215 1007 95

Chrome 2.0.169.1 528 400 861 77

Chrome 2.0.172.30 506 493 836 82

Chrome 3.0.193.1 Beta 385 211 716 75

Chrome 4.0.249.78 390 207 398    
Safari 3.1.2 2640 78 900 113

Safari 4 Beta 904 172 740 75

Safari 4 487 60 796 64

           

* My own benchmark test uses the ManagerLeague leetcodes to modify the DOM, creating, moving and removing DIVs, Drag'n drop etc...Typical ManagerLeague usage.

** A relative measurement , weighing all tests wit the same weight. The lower the better. The more stars, the better.

 

Conclusions

This blog was posted in October 2007, and has been updated at irregular intervals since. The tendency shows that we are moving towards better and better performance for all new editions of all browsers.
The worst browser is clearly Internet Explorer 7, which is a staggering 10 times slower than the fastest browser. The sad reality is that this is the most widely used browser in the world. I had high hopes for the new IE8 which came out just a week ago, and allthough faster than IE7, it still leaves a lot to be desired. IE8 is still 6 times slower than the fastest browser available today! Outrageous for a browser released in 2009!
FireFox made a giant leap in performance from 2.0 to 3.0, and the Beta of 3.1 shows that they are still racing towards even better performance.
Opera seems to be on a nice course as well, with their latest 10 Alpha being much faster than their current 9.64 version.
The new kid on the block, Chrome, is doing very well indeed. It performs really well, and the performance keeps getting better with every new version so far. When Chrome 2.0 is "finished", it should really offer a solid and fast package.
Added July 17th: I have just made the testruns with the Chrome 3 from the dev-channel (beta if you wish), and it is certainly faster than Chrome 2. It can not yet match Safari 4, but the difference is hardly noticable.
Safari keeps surprising me with it's lightning fast performance. It is the overall fastest browser, no doubt. I must say though, that Chrome somehow feels faster and more responsive, specially when you start using the Safari UI, with menues etc, but this test measures only leetcode performance, and not other aspects of the browser.

A Weighted Rating of 200 or lower can be considered "good". This means that you should stay away from all IE-versions, and upgrade your FireFox2 to FireFox3. Unfortunately, IE8 needs to be made twice as fast to reach this rating...I don't really think that is going to happen, unless they ever get to the point where they understand they have to scrap their entire browser and start from scratch...Unless they plan to ship IE9 with a main focus on faster leetcode execution.

The near future

In a very short time, FireFox will release it's 3.5-version and will take their place among the top performing browsers again. Firefox-users are usually good at keeping their browser updated, and so a lot of users will have really fast browsers. (Now, it's released, and it is noticably faster than FireFox 3. However, it is quite clear that the gap to Chrome and Safari will be difficult to close. Still though, when you consider all the add-ons, it's a damned fine browser!)
For all IE-users out there, there simply isn't hope. If you want a fast browser, you must avoid Internet Explorer completely.
Personally I hope that FireFix, Chrome, Opera and Safari will all prosper as the expense of Internet Explorer, simply for the good of mankind (and developers like myself!).
The bottom line is

- Avoid using Internet Explorer if you can.
- Any other browser will deliver the performance you want if you use the most recent stable version.
- If we consider ALL versions of ALL browsers, Safari 4 is the fastest browser available.

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This blogger owns the team The Spinners. (TEAM:475)
sindrebv wrote:
14:11 10/10 2008
pictureinteresting .............. 
Henry Chinaski wrote:
14:13 10/10 2008
pictureThe whole idea behind Chrome is better leetcode-performance, right. So it's actually quite a surprise that Opera beats them.. Way to go norway :)
Spinner wrote:
14:23 10/10 2008
pictureOpera VS Chrome:
Well, if you look only at the performance, Chrome is actually 30% faster than Opera...
lonix wrote:
14:51 10/10 2008
picture

dont mean ****if it anit stable :P Im singing norwegian

Spinner wrote:
14:51 10/10 2008
pictureAnd I just added Safari to the list! Wow, I'm impressed!
Sherlock Holmes wrote:
15:33 10/10 2008
pictureGo IE 7!
Zz00144560 wrote:
18:10 10/10 2008
picture

Chrome ftw!!!

but it's incomplete so it can't handle everything I do on the internet (no I'm not talking about THAT) so generally I use IE 7 until it's complete :)

 

p.s. if you don't get ehat the "THAT" thing is, don't bother. If you do on the other hand you are either nigel Wright or someone (or something >.>) just as sick minded as he is :) Have a nice day

Alderspræsidenten wrote:
21:00 10/10 2008
pictureNice try....but I'm still not a nerd :D
A l e x wrote:
01:17 11/10 2008
pictureokay I don't understand a word on this page :p
computer language ain't my thing :(
Allsang wrote:
02:10 11/10 2008
pictureWell if we go from secured to open the test result will show ?
Sleep Gonzale wrote:
03:55 11/10 2008
pictureGO FireFox!
Zz00043782 wrote:
10:44 11/10 2008
pictureyeay! safari won! go safari go!
Neville Chamberlain wrote:
22:02 13/10 2008
pictureI don`t got a clue about this leetcode things:P it`s good?:)
Spinner wrote:
17:04 26/11 2008
pictureIE8 Beta 2 added to the list...Not all that impressed really, but at least a step in the right direction...
Zz00040719 wrote:
02:59 31/03 2009
pictureDo you have any insight into why IE lags so much behind the others? Do they not use enough resources on it? Have they programmed their way into a corner? Have they other considerations that the others don't have to worry about?
Dato Firdaus Kacak wrote:
03:52 31/03 2009
pictureyeah! anything but IE!
Micheeff wrote:
07:53 31/03 2009
pictureFirefox own :P
Sebas wrote:
08:04 31/03 2009
pictureWhich opera alpha build did you use?
FC Juventus wrote:
08:14 31/03 2009
picturechorme is a beast
FC Juventus wrote:
08:14 31/03 2009
picturechrome*
BoI-manager wrote:
10:22 31/03 2009
pictureFirefox is own, and i'm agree with micheeff
Zeljko wrote:
10:40 31/03 2009
picture

I concluded almost the same in my tests here

http://www.evilscience.org/internet-explorer-vs-firefox-vs-opera-vs-chrome-vs-safari/

Wiggy wrote:
14:43 31/03 2009
picture

my main concern is that of combatibility. i use IE8 and obviously i know that this will work on just about everythin on the internet. although i know about the others offering much faster performance, unless there 100% combatitable like IE im afraid i will just stick with slower speed.

Rebel

Manskill wrote:
15:39 31/03 2009
pictureFirefox 3!
Gaahlskagg wrote:
17:57 31/03 2009
pictureSafari 4 beta, works fine...even a little better than ie7 or 8 or what the f*** i had... But why is ML built so that the most common browser is the worst. ;) I am an oldschool... :p
Zz00174564 wrote:
11:50 01/04 2009
picture"why is ML built so that the most common browser is the worst? "
Firefox3 dominates the Europe: Browser Stats
Apen wrote:
16:21 01/04 2009
pictureI started to use Safari after reading this one :P PS! Used IE7 before :P
avfctom wrote:
17:50 01/04 2009
picturei use chrome. but when i need to i have IE7 Firefox on my pc
selamat wrote:
23:19 01/04 2010
picture

 I chance upon this page after googling about java, leetcode on ML. Basically, I am looking for solutions as to why I can "no longer drag players" like i used to. I have updated Java for Chrome and wonder if I need to do the same for flash/leetcode. Advise anyone?

ps. cache clearance & ctrl-f5 proved futile.

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