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2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44
Lifehacker conducted his own test of 15 popular mobile web browsers. Its results will surely surprise you.
UPD. Updated on August 8, 2019.
Users increasingly prefer Where is the Mobile vs. Desktop Story Going? for surfing the Internet smartphones, not desktops. Therefore, the choice of a good browser for mobile surfing is especially acute. We decided to find out which one is the fastest and ran a series of tests.
How the tests were conducted
The purpose of our tests is to find the browser that renders web pages the fastest. To do this, we have selected 15 of the most popular web browsers:
- Google Chrome;
- Mozilla Firefox
- Opera;
- "Yandex browser";
- UC Browser;
- Dolphin;
- Naked Browser;
- Puffin Browser;
- Samsung Internet Browser;
- Brave;
- DuckDuckGo;
- Ghostery;
- Via Browser;
- Microsoft Edge;
- Kiwi.
The experiments were carried out on a Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S smartphone running Android 9.0 Pie (MIUI Global 10.3.4). Before starting the test, the gadget was reset to factory settings. During the tests, the smartphone did not have any third-party software except for the above browsers and the Simple System Monitor utility for measuring the amount of free RAM.
Before each stage of the test, the smartphone was rebooted, after which all data, settings, cookies and cache of the tested browser were cleared. The checks were carried out with the screen on and off the sleep mode. During the benchmarks, the display of the smartphone was not touched - for the purity of the experiment, since some Android devices slightly increase the frequency of the processor if you touch them. All tests were run three times for better accuracy.
Thus, we can talk about fairly clean experimental conditions in which the influence of foreign elements was minimized.
What characteristics did we check
JavaScript execution
As the first test, we used a benchmark that measures JavaScript performance in real-world scenarios in a browser. Measurements are taken in milliseconds. The lower the value, the better.
In this test, the browser Puffin unexpectedly won by a rather noticeable margin. It was followed by a web browser from Samsung (installed by default on all smartphones from Korean vendors). Then comes the familiar Firefox.
Chrome, which is positioned as one of the fastest browsers, shows very modest results. But for some reason, the US Browser failed the test, not displaying the final results even after many attempts.
After the first JavaScript speed test, we decided to do another one using an alternative tool. is based on the code of the SunSpider test suite, but Mozilla programmers have modified it quite significantly. In their opinion, this is the only way to achieve the most correct results, reflecting the speed of performing those tasks that are encountered in real life. In Kraken Benchmark, totals are also shown in milliseconds. The lower the value, the better.
And in this benchmark, Puffin wins. And again, by a significant margin. Chrome suddenly found itself in the underdog. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the benchmark was developed by Mozilla specialists, and they do not like Chrome.
Working with 3D graphics
is a benchmark that tests how well your browser performs with the Canvas 3D and WebGL standards. In the process, the web browser renders 3D graphics, and points are awarded based on how well they do it. The bigger, the better.
Here again, Puffin is ahead of everyone. It is followed by Yandex Browser, slightly ahead of Chrome. Firefox and Opera are average, and Ghostery is at the very end (he brags about privacy, not 3D graphics).
Overall performance
For this test, we have chosen. It tests the speed of completing tasks that we encounter during daily surfing: loading a blank page, changing the screen orientation, working with a browser with JavaScript, CSS, DOM, WebGL and Canvas. Points are awarded for all tests passed. The bigger, the better.
Google Chrome takes the lead. Puffin, previously ranked among the best, failed the test. It stuck on the fourth step (loading and rendering textures). Ghostery faced exactly the same problem.
Support for HTHL5 standards
Strictly speaking, the benchmark is not used to measure browser speed, but to evaluate accuracy when implementing HTML5 web standards, Web SQL database, and WebGL standard. In the end, speed is great, but pages must also render correctly. The more points the browser scores in this test, the better.
And Chrome is great again. However, other browsers are not much inferior to it. Puffin is lost in the middle.
Memory consumption
The consumption of RAM is an important characteristic, especially for those devices that have a small amount of it. In the first test, we measured using the Simple System Monitor application how much RAM each browser requires when opening one blank tab.
Here an outsider won an unexpected victory at all previous stages of DuckDuckGo. Obviously, because it does not try to show the user bookmarks, history and articles that may be interesting at the start. Only an empty search string - nothing superfluous. But the UC Browser, overloaded with functions, is in last place here.
When you open five tabs with different sites, the picture changes. The least memory was occupied by Naked Browser. As the name suggests, this is an absolutely "naked" browser, without a beautiful interface and any unique features. The favorite of the "high-speed" tests, Puffin, is in fourth place, but it still consumes memory quite modestly. UC Browser, on the other hand, took the most RAM and ended up at the bottom of the list.
Outcomes
The graphs of the results of our tests show that Puffin Web Browser claims to be the fastest browser for Android. The public's favorite Chrome is average everywhere, but it ranks first in the web standards test. The rather popular UC Browser has shown itself not in the best way: it failed the first test, performed poorly in others and turned out to be too gluttonous in terms of memory. And the little-known Naked Browser is quite mediocre in terms of the speed of processing web pages, but it takes up little memory, so it will come in handy for owners of old Android smartphones.
Why was Puffin the fastest, and even showing such a lead? Presumably the reason is in the way it renders the pages. Here's what its developers say:
Puffin speeds up browsing by offloading the load from mobile devices that have limited resources to our cloud servers. So, resource-intensive web pages on your phones or tablets will run very quickly.
It can be assumed that on older and slower smartphones, Puffin will show an even greater lead over the competition. However, it cannot be called the browser of dreams, because it likes to display ads asking you to buy it for a paid version and is equipped with functions of little use like a built-in virtual gamepad for controlling games on web pages.
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