Gauging the speed of an application depends on several related factors, including the operating system, services running, applications open, OS uptime, the software versions used, whether a VPN is installed — and much more. You should always keep these in mind when considering which software represents the fastest option available.
Such is the case with web browsers.
I put several browsers through tests for startup and page rendering times to see which ones are the fastest. I tested every browser (except Arc and Safari) on Pop!_OS Linux; I tested Arc and Safari on an iMac.
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I won’t lie: The results were disappointing because my default Zen Browser scored quite poorly, while Chrome (a browser I don’t generally recommend because of poor security and tab management) blew all the other browsers away.
Keep in mind that speed shouldn’t be your sole criterion for judging a browser. To gauge a browser’s effectiveness, you should think about all the following:
- Speed
- Security
- Features
- Ease of use
- Configurability
If you consider all the above, I’d say that Zen Browser and Opera are your best browser options, even though both tend to perform on the slower side. However, both Zen Browser and Opera offer solid security (with Opera getting the nod because of its built-in VPN) and their customizations are exponentially better than the competition.
With all of that said, let’s get to the tests.
Start times
The first test I ran was a simple stopwatch timing of browser startup. For this test, I waited only until the browser window was open and didn’t take into account whether it had rendered whatever page was set as the startup.
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From slowest to fastest, the results were as follows:
- Zen Browser: 2.20 seconds
- LibreWolf: 2.16 seconds
- Chromium: 1.95 seconds
- Firefox: 1.93 seconds
- Arc: 1.81 seconds
- Microsoft Edge: 1.31 seconds
- Safari: 1.29 seconds
- Thorium: 1.23 seconds
- Brave: 1.17 seconds
- Opera: .81 seconds
- Chrome: .70 seconds
It’s interesting to note that three of the four slowest browsers are based on Firefox. Also, note the big difference between Chrome and Chromium. Remember, Chrome is based on Chromium, but Google’s flagship browser started considerably faster than Chromium.
Speedometer 3.0 results
The next test was done with Speedometer 3.0, which measures the responsiveness of web applications by timing simulated user interactions on various workloads. The Speedometer 3.0 benchmark runs a series of tests that mimic real-world scenarios, such as todo list management, text editing, chart rendering, and news website navigation. It uses popular frameworks, such as Next.js, Nuxt, Observable Plot, chart.js, React stockcharts, CodeMirror, and TipTap. The higher the score, the faster the browser.
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Here are the results (again from slowest to fastest):
- Safari: 19.5
- Opera: 20.8
- Zen Browser: 21.4
- Arc: 22.3
- Thorium: 25.0
- Firefox: 25.0
- Microsoft Edge: 27.2
- Brave: 29.3
- Chromium: 30.7
- Chrome: 31.5
- LibreWolf: Infinity
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Here we have a tale of two opposites. Where LibreWolf was one of the slowest to start, it received the highest possible score (Infinity) for Speedometer 3.0, which means it’s considerably faster than all the other browsers.
Don’t select your browser based on speed
From my unscientific tests, the conclusion is obvious. LibreWolf is the fastest browser on the list (by far), even though its startup time is slower. Chrome, however, is the fastest all-around browser, with Zen Browser being the all-around slowest browser.
Of course, there are other browsers on the market I didn’t test because those browsers are so unknown — or serving such a niche market — that they aren’t going to move the needle much.
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I will say this: Don’t select your browser based on speed.
The margins between the winners and losers here are fairly small. The only reason you might switch to the fastest all-around browser (Chrome) is if you regularly visit websites that demand speed in ways that require switching browsers. Or maybe you’re a power user who simply wants to ensure you’re using the absolute fastest browser on the market. In that case, the choice is easy… Chrome.
Source: Robotics - zdnet.com
