We compare four recent web browsers
The release of Firefox 57 "Quantum" in mid-November caused a stir in the IT community. The Firefox browser was once a state-of-the-art browser, with a huge market share and millions of loyal followers, but over the years, newer and more advanced alternatives have taken away some of the limelight. After years of development and 12 months of re-engineering, the Mozilla developers think they have what they need to get back in the game. The new Firefox is described as twice as fast as the version released a year ago, with a 30 percent savings in memory usage. In addition, Firefox 57 is supposed to be as fast as Google Chrome.
The word on the street is that Firefox is ready for a head-to-head performance comparison. We decided to test Firefox versions 51 and 57 against Chrome 62. We also tested the Opera 49 and Vivaldi 1.12 browsers. Opera, Vivaldi, and Chrome all use the Blink rendering engine – a WebKit fork – so we did not expect any big differences between Blink-based contestants.
We ran the tests on a mid-range Lenovo ThinkPad X220 laptop with 4GB of main memory. The browsers were installed in their default configuration on a newly installed Debian "Sid." We put all test candidates through a series of special browser benchmarks and ran the benchmarks five times on each browser to ensure that no outlier distorted the mean.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible Office 365 Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft's Office 365 to LibreOffice.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.