As a result, over the past few years major browser vendors have been slowly dropping support and updates for their products in these operating systems.
For instance, the most “recent” version of Internet Explorer that can be run on Windows XP is IE8 (MIDAS requires at least IE9). For a while this wasn’t a major issue as XP/Vista users could simply switch to either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox instead. Both of which were still being actively updated by the respective vendors on these operating systems.
However, Google announced back in November 2015 that Chrome would no longer be supported or receive updates on Windows XP or Windows Vista after April 2016.
Since then, Firefox has been the only major browser to continue supporting and providing updates on Windows XP and Vista.
This week, Mozilla have now announced that Firefox 52 (due for release in March 2017) will be the last version of their browser to receive updates on Windows XP and Vista.
Whilst Firefox 52 will still work on XP/Vista after March 2017, it will no longer receive updates. At this point, none of the modern major web browsers that are supported in MIDAS will continue to be updated on these operating systems.
We are therefore advising any MIDAS users who still access their scheduling systems via Windows XP or Vista to upgrade their operating systems as soon as possible. This will ensure their web browser(s) are kept up-to-date and they’re able to continue using MIDAS in the future.
Now, twelve months on, and less than a week since Internet Explorer 11 became available for Windows 7, Firefox celebrated its ninth birthday, and just a day after Google Chrome 31 is released, we decided it was high time to once again put the latest web browsers offerings “head-to-head” and independently, rigorously test and benchmark them to find out which one of the five major browsers is currently “the best”….
Browsers Tested
Google Chrome 31
Mozilla Firefox 25
Internet Explorer 11
Opera 17
Apple Safari 5
The Tests
We broadly tested four key areas of browser performance: Speed, Memory Usage, Compliance with standards, and Javascript Performance.
1. Speed
The “Cold Start” test measures the time taken to load up the browser upon its first run after a computer reboot. This is measured from the point at which the browser is executed until the point at which its user interface (UI) is ready to accept input.
The “Non-Cold Start” test measures the time taken to load up the browser on second and subsequent runs after its first run after a reboot. This is measured from the point at which the browser is executed until the point at which the user interface (UI) is ready to accept input.
With the browser open, an empty cache, and showing a blank page (about:blank), the “Page Load Time (No-Cached Load)” test measures the time taken to completely load a complex web page. This is measured from the point at which the “Enter” key is pressed on the URL in the browser’s address bar until the point at which the test web page has fully loaded (as reported by an “onLoad” event on the test web page).
With the browser open, and the test web page already loaded in a single tab, the “Page Load Time (Reload from Cache)” test measures the time taken to reload a complex web page. This is measured from the point at which the F5 key (refresh) is pressed until the point at which the test web page has fully reloaded (as reported by an “onLoad” event on the test web page).
2. Memory Usage
The “Base Memory Usage (Blank Tab)” test measures the amount of memory used by the browser with just a single blank (about:blank) tab open.
The “Memory Usage (10 open tabs)” test measures the amount of memory used by the browser with 10 tabs open, each displaying the home page of a popular website.
3. Compliance
The “HTML5 Compliance” test measures how well each browser conforms to the current state of the HTML5 specification.
The “CSS3 Compliance” test measures how well each browser conforms to the current state of the CSS3 specification.
4. Javascript Performance
There are a number of different Javascript Performance Benchmark tests available today, all of which give quite different results. We’ve analyzed results from 6 of the most popular Benchmarking Tests and aggregated the results below:
Individual details of each of the 6 individual Javascript benchmark test suits used to arrived at these aggregated scores may be found in our full test report, available to view/download at the end of this page.
Summary
Category
Test
Winner
Runner-Up
Speed
Cold Start
Non-Cold Start
Page Load Time (Non-Cached Load)
Page Load Time (Reload from Cache)
Memory Usage
Base Memory
10 Open Tabs
Compliance
HTML5
CSS3
Performance
Javascript Performance (Aggregate)
Results
1st Place
2nd Place
3rd Place
4th Place
5th Place
Google Chrome 31
Opera 17
Internet Explorer 11
Mozilla Firefox 25
Apple Safari 5
The above overall positions were derived based upon the sum of the positions that each browser finished in, in each of our tests. For example, in our HTML 5 compliance test, Chrome came first and so was assigned 1 point, Safari came 5th and so was assigned 5 points. Browsers were then ranked according to the lowest number of points to give the 1st-5th places above (1st being the best)
Analysis
Google Chrome When we last tested the five major browsers back in November 2012, Chrome came first in 8 out of 13 our tests, making it a clear winner! A year later, and Chrome is still going strong, coming top in 8 out of 15 tests, and second in a further two tests. Where Chrome still doesn’t perform quite as well is when it comes to its memory usage, using well over 3 times as much memory with a single blank tab open than Internet Explorer 11.
Mozilla Firefox We were a little surprised that Firefox only came top in 3 out of 15 tests, and only once came runner-up. To Firefox’s credit, its main strength still seems to be in its memory usage. With 10 websites open in separate tabs, the amount of memory used was less than half that of Chrome with the same ten sites open.
Internet Explorer We were pleasantly surprised by the improvement of Internet Explorer 11 over previous versions as well as other browsers. IE11 came top in a couple of our tests, and runner-up in a further three. Where IE11 appears to have improved most over earlier versions of Microsoft’s browser in is the length of time taken to load and pages (either from a server, or from the cache) as well as start/restart the browser itself. In our tests, starting IE11 took just 0.01463 seconds! – some 280x quicker than Opera started. That said, in general Internet Explorer 11 still has a way to go to come up to par with the other major browsers in terms of HTML 5 compliance.
Opera A lot has changed with Opera since we last tested browsers twelve months ago. Since then, Opera have switched from using their own “Presto” layout rendering engine to instead using the same engine as Chrome. Whilst this change has been received with mixed reviews by Opera users, with some unhappy that many of Opera’s original features were dropped, our test results actually show that the “new” Opera is a browser to be reckoned with, out performing Internet Explorer 11, Firefox 25 and Safari 5 in our tests. Opera 17 came top in 3 out of our 15 tests, and runner-up in 6. The browser also scored highly on HTML5/CSS3 compliance and in our aggregated Javascript performance tests, however, Opera’s memory usage was fairly high, second only to Chrome. Opera 17 was slow to start, however, once running it loaded and rendered web pages swiftly.
Safari Our browsers tests were performed on a Windows machine (test specifics are included at the end of this report). Whilst the latest version of Safari is 7, Apple took the decision after the release of Safari 5.1 to no longer continue developing Safari for Windows users – a mistake in our view! Therefore, the most recent version of Safari available to Windows users is 5.1.7, which was used in our testing. Given that Safari 5.1.7 is now the oldest of the 5 browsers tested, it follows that is doesn’t perform as well as its peers. However, surprisingly, it did come runner-up in both our memory tests as well as our non-cold start test.
Conclusions – From a Developers Perspective
From our perspective, as developers of a leading web-based room booking and resource scheduling solution, perhaps the most important factors in determining which browser is “best” are compliance with the latest HTML5 and CSS3 standards. As we work hard to ensure our software works well in all the major browsers, this is where having universal standards between browsers becomes so important. In theory, a website (or in our case, a web app), should look and behave the same regardless of the browser being used, which should in theory happen if all browsers complied 100% with standards! Chrome 31 currently comes the closest to the HTML 5 standard with 93% compliance, but as can be seen, CSS3 compliance still has a long way to go for all browsers, with the winning browser in the CSS3 compliance test (Opera 17) only achieving 58% compliance.
Speed (page load time) and Javascript Performance are also important factors for us, as we want our web app to be as fast and responsive as possible. Opera 17 and Chrome 25 loaded pages faster in our tests, with Internet Explorer 11 following close behind. As for performance, both Chrome 25 and Opera 17 outperformed other browsers in our aggregated Javascript performance test scores.
A few surprising finds:
Microsoft have made some significant steps forward with Internet Explorer 11 over earlier incarnations of their browser.
Opera 17 performed better than expected
Firefox 25 performed worse than expected, finishing an overall 4th place in our tests.
MIDAS, our popular Browser-Based Room & Resource Scheduling Software is currently supported in all browser versions we’ve tested here. Find out more at https://mid.as
Conclusions – So which browser should I use then!?
• If you work with lots of browser tabs open at once, and/or the amount of available memory on your system is limited, Firefox 25 would seem a good choice of browser to use, as this used the less memory than other browsers under the same conditions.
• If you regularly open and close your browser, Internet Explorer 11 or Firefox 25 would seem a good choice as these browsers start up quickly. If, however, you tend to keep your browser running most of the time, Opera 17 would be a better choice, as even though its start-up time is considerably longer, initial page load times are the quickest of all the browsers we tested
• If you’re still using an earlier version of Internet Explorer – it’s certainly worth upgrading to IE11, or if that’s not possible (for example, if you’re using Windows XP, you won’t be able to update your Internet Explorer past version 8!), maybe it’s time to try a different browser!?
• At the end of the day, use the browser that you feel most comfortable with! …BUT make sure you keep it up-to-date, and don’t ignore the competition – if you do, you risk being left behind as other browsers overtake yours in terms of their speed, security, memory usage, standard compliance, and performance!
• In recent years, browsers such as Internet Explorer and Opera have been somewhat overlooked by many regular internet users – but if you’ve not used these browsers for years having previously dismissed them – a lot has changed, and it’s certainly worth giving them a second look again now!
Browsers Tested: Chrome 31.0.1650.48 m | Firefox 25.0 | Internet Explorer 11.0.9600.16428 | Opera 17 (Build 1652) | Safari 5.1.7 (7534.57.2)
Browser tests were performed on an Intel® Atom™ CPU D525 @ 1.80GHz system, with 4GB Ram, running Windows Home Server 2011 SP1 (Windows Server 2008 R2) 64-bit. Each browser was a clean install, using default install and browsers settings, and with no extensions/addons installed or enabled.
Speed tests were measured using Rob Keir’s millisecond timer and PassMark AppTimer v1.0. Each speed test was performed 10 times for each browser, and the results averaged to provide the data presented in this report.
Memory usage was measured 60 seconds after tabs had finished loading and was measured through the Windows Task Manager. Memory usage includes all associated processes running with the browser (for example, running Safari spawns both “Safari.exe” and “WebKit2WebProcess.exe” processes, the memory usage of both is taken into account)
It’s been a busy few weeks in the world of web browsers! There’s been some major changes in the browser landscape too! So here’s our take on what’s been happening..
Internet Explorer – IE11 coming later this year? / IE10 available for Windows 7 / Farewell IE8
Firefox – v20 now available… and a new rendering engine on the horizon?
Chrome – v26 out now… and ANOTHER new rendering engine on the horizon?!
Opera – 12.15 now available… and a change in rendering engine to.. WebKit? no wait.. Blink?
Safari – What will all these rendering engine changes to other browsers mean for Safari?
Internet Explorer
Microsoft are busy working on their next update for Windows 8, currently billed as being “Windows 8.1”. It’s expected to be available in the latter half of this year. Windows 8.1 will almost be a kind of “service pack” for Windows 8, but will also contain a number of improvements and updates to apps & software. Perhaps the most exciting updating coming with Windows 8.1 will be Internet Explorer 11.
Yes, that’s right, no sooner is IE10 out of the door, and Microsoft are following it up with IE11 in a relatively short space of time (well, for them anyway!). We think this is great to see from Microsoft! In the past, updates to their flagship browser have been few and far between. Compare that with Mozilla’s current release cycle for Firefox, churning out a new version of Firefox every 6 weeks!
MIDAS will be supported in IE11 when it becomes available. It remains presently unknown as to whether IE11 will be “exclusive” to Windows 8.1, or if like IE10, it will also be made available for Windows 7 users as well.
…and yes, you did read that right – Internet Explorer 10 is available for Windows 7 right now! (and has been for over a month). If you’re a Windows 7 and Internet Explorer user, we strongly recommend that you update to IE10 get the best out of MIDAS.
Finally, if you’re still an Internet Explorer 8 user please read our “Saying farewell to Internet Explorer 8” post. Essentially, please upgrade your browser… as we won’t be supporting MIDAS in IE8 indefinitely!
MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla’s rapid release cycle means that we’re now up to Firefox version 20! In a tweet yesterday, the Firefox team claim that with their latest version of Firefox “you can get the web up to 7 times faster than older versions”.
Mozilla also announced last week that they were collaborating with Samsung on a new rendering engine, named “Servo”. A “rendering engine” is essentially what converts raw web page code into what you actually see on your browser screen. Mozilla’s long standing rendering engine has been “Gecko”, but according to Mozilla;
“Servo is a research project to develop a new web browser engine. Our goal is to create an architecture that takes advantage of parallelism at many levels, both on the CPU and GPU, while eliminating common sources of bugs and security vulnerabilities associated with incorrect memory management and data races. With Servo, we aim to take the kinds of fluid, richer multimedia experiences expected in today’s smart phone and tablet applications to the next level on tomorrow’s web and tomorrow’s hardware.”
“Servo” is still in its early days and according to Mozilla;
“It’s too early to say how [Servo] will be adopted going forward. No decision has been made as to whether Servo will replace Gecko. Gecko remains the ‘productised’ web engine for Mozilla.“
So it may be that Servo ends up being a rendering engine for Mozilla’s smartphone/tablet browsers, and Gecko remains for desktop Firefox editions. This could get confusing, but it’s more likely over time that Mozilla will standardize their rendering engine across all platforms.
MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v20+ recommended)
Google Chrome
The current version of Google’s Chrome browser is v26. Ever since its first release – which was only 4 years ago! – Chrome has always used the WebKit rendering engine, most notably used by Apple’s Safari web browser. Chrome’s subsequent input into the WebKit project has really driven WebKit development forward in the last four years. WebKit is now arguably the most standards-compliant of all the rendering engines currently used by the major browsers.
However, Google recently announced that they would be developing a new rendering engine for Chrome, called “Blink”. Blink is expected to make it into builds of Chrome within just 10 weeks! Unlike Mozilla’s “Servo” engine, which is being built from the ground up, Blink is heavily based on the WebKit project.
Google have released a Blink Q&A video if you’re interested in learning more about this new rendering engine and its implementation
MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v26+ recommended)
Opera
Opera are having a bit of a turbulent time of late, and in some respects appear to be loosing a sense of focus and direction! The Opera browser was first released in late 1994. This makes it the longest running browser that’s still in active development and current use today.
Apart from its longevity, what also makes Opera unique is their own “Presto” rendering engine.
Now, you may remember that back in January, we reported that Opera were making a switch from Presto to WebKit. Well, at least for their mobile browser offerings.
Then in February, it was confirmed that Opera would drop Presto for their entire range on browsers (not just mobile).
This was a move that surprised a lot of analysts, and received a mixed response from Opera’s loyal user base.
Whilst it would have been sad to see a very mature rendering engine being put out to pasture, it would have meant that with Google and Opera both contributing to WebKit (along with Safari). This would provide more continuity between browsing experiences on the three browsers. Also with three major organizations contributing to the development of WebKit, it would have become very powerful. It would certainly have Mozilla and Internet Explorer (who don’t use WebKit) quaking in their boots!
…but this was before Google announced Blink… and shortly afterwards, Opera changed their minds. Opera decided to jump on the Blink band-wagon too, after having gone all out and confirming they were moving to WebKit!!
So it’s a little confusing at the moment as to the direction that Opera are going down! ..but as things stand, here are the list of rendering engines that the five major browsers are using/will be using in the near future:
Browser
Current Rending Engine
Future Rendering Engine
Internet Explorer
Trident
Trident
Mozilla Firefox
Gecko
Servo?
Google Chrome
WebKit
Blink
Opera
Presto
Blink?
Apple Safari
WebKit
WebKit
MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)
Safari
As you’ll know from our previous Web Browser Roundups – it’s been pretty quiet on the Safari development front in recent months. There’s not much happening on the face of it!
Safari’s rendering engine is WebKit, and last month it looked like both Google and Opera would begin contributing code to the WebKit project. In fact, Opera even began contributing code to WebKit.
This was before Google announced it was moving away from WebKit in favor of a new rendering engine, Blink. Then Opera followed suit and announced it was also teaming up with Google for the new Blink rendering engine.
So what will this mean for WebKit and the Safari browser that will soon be the sole user and primary contributor to the WebKit project?
Well, it remains to be seen! WebKit was successfully developed without Google’s input in the days before Chrome. It may well survive without Google’s input in the future. But with Google and Opera pooling resources into Blink, and Firefox potentially introducing a new rendering engine too, the WebKit team (and Safari) are going to be facing a tough challenge to keep up!
MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)
There was some speculation that IE10 may have been pushed through Windows Update on 12th February to coincide with Microsoft’s monthly “Patch Tuesday”, when they were already planning on releasing some “critical updates” to Internet Explorer.
Whilst the critical updates for IE were included in this month’s Patch Tuesday, IE10 itself wasn’t. This isn’t entirely surprising, given that the update blocker (which prevents IE10 from being downloaded/installed via Windows Update) was only made available 13 days earlier. 13 days is hardly enough time for corporate environments (for which the blocker is aimed) to deploy the blocker throughout their IT infrastructure.
It’s instead more likely that IE10 will make a proper appearance for Windows 7 users at the end of the month, or in early March. This is based on when previous “IE blockers” were released. That’s assuming of course the IE team can be dragged away from devoting their time/energy/resources to developing endless web-based games, such as Contre Jour, to showcase how “great” Internet Explorer is. Instead, we think they really should focus instead on developing their actual web browser!
MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)
Google Chrome: Chrome continues to receive regular updates – in fact the Stable channel was updated only yesterday for Linux users to fix *another* Flash vulnerability!
These frequently discovered Flash vulnerabilities are not confined to Chrome. They can affect any browser on a computer with Flash installed. This is also why Microsoft pushed a couple of “critical updates” to Internet Explorer yesterday.
In our opinion, the sooner Flash is killed off the better! For today’s modern web browser, it serves no real purpose! Everything that Flash can do can these days be accomplished through a use of HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript.
You won’t find any Flash on our website, or within our scheduling web app
Anyway, back to Chrome; So far this month, there have been no fewer than 3 updates to the “Stable” channel. If you’re a normal Chrome user, you’ll automatically receive updates from the “Stable” channel. Two updates were made to the Chrome Beta for Android, two to the “Dev” channel, and one update to the “Beta” channel… and we’re only halfway through the month!
Google Chrome is arguably the most “actively” developed web browser at the present time.
MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v24+ recommended)
Mozilla Firefox: At the start of the month, Mozilla, released Firefox 18.0.2.
Primarily a security & stability update, 18.0.2 does have a handful of new features/improvements, most notably:
Faster JavaScript performance
Better image quality when scaling
Improved browser start-up time. (Chrome already has the fastest start-up times out of all the major browsers we tested a couple of months back to determine “Which Browser is Best?“)
Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up
In recent times, Mozilla have been releasing a “major” update to Firefox every six weeks or so. However, we wonder if this release cycle may now start to slow down whilst the Mozilla team focus more of their attention on their upcoming “Firefox OS” project.
MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v18+ recommended)
Safari: Sadly, once again, there’s no new Safari news to report! As you’ll know from our November update, Safari development has taken back seat over at Apple in recent times. Apple instead have been seemingly more focused on their hardware offerings, than on their web browser. As we reported at the end of last year, they’ve currently ceased development on the Windows version of Safari.
And with other browsers, such as Chrome or Firefox available (and soon to become available) for iPad and iOS users, you do have to wonder whether Safari’s days are numbered? Will it be long before Apple take the decision to cease Safari development completely?!
MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)
Opera: Last month we reported that Opera were dropping their own rendering engine, “Presto”, in favor of “WebKit” for a new mobile browser “Ice”. WebKit is the rendering engine already used by the likes of Safari and Chrome.
At the time, there was no word as to whether this move would mean that “Presto” was to also be ultimately phased out of their desktop browser offering as well.
Well, now this has been confirmed in an official Opera Press Release. The primary reason for the press release was to mark the fact that Opera now has an impressive 300 million monthly users across its various browser products. In the release CTO of Opera Software, Håkon Wium Lie, also writes:
“The WebKit engine is already very good, and we aim to take part in making it even better. It supports the standards we care about, and it has the performance we need. It makes more sense to have our experts working with the open source communities to further improve WebKit and Chromium, rather than developing our own rendering engine [Presto] further.”
No timescale has been given for this transition. It’s likely though to be a gradual progression over to WebKit rather than a sudden overnight switch.
In some respects it will be sad to see the “Presto” engine go. The more different browser rendering engines there are, the more competition there is to be the “best” and most up-to-date standards compliant browser. But in many other respects, this could actually be a very good move!
WebKit is actively in development by both Apple and Google, and is what powers their respective browsers. Add to this mix the extensive development expertise that the Opera team have. We do mean extensive too! Opera has been in constant development since 1994!). It will likely have Firefox (which uses its own “Gecko” engine), and Internet Explorer (which uses its own “Trident” engine) pretty worried!
Because Chrome, Safari, and soon Opera too, will use the same rendering engine, in theory web pages (and apps) should look identical in which ever of these browsers you use. This should make life easier for web developers! (In practice this isn’t quite true, as each browser has a different release cycle, so new features in the WebKit engine itself make it into one browser weeks, if not months, before another).
MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)
If you’re still accessing your MIDAS room booking system via a Windows XP or Windows Vista machine, you’ll want to read this!
