The best browser for your desktop could be one you’re not using. Whether Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, or Safari is your current choice, our tests found distinct differences in speed and ease of use. We also compared how each browser uses system resources, a near-invisible trait that could be discreetly bogging down your PC. For the online lifestyle, the right browser could save you time and frustration.
See how they run
Browsers largely look and act the same: They render HTML in multiple tabs or separate windows, let you bookmark pages, support HTTP and FTP file transfer, or offer private browsing (no data is stored). Deep inside each one, however, are operational differences that may or may not fulfill your needs.
Opera had a long-standing and well-deserved reputation for being fast, but not rendering all pages correctly. A switch from a proprietary HTML layout engine to free and widely-used WebKit (currently version 537 as with Chrome) has made that a thing of the past.
Internet Explorer has a history of being exploited by bad guys, both because of its immense popularity and its ActiveX technology. Give Microsoft credit: It’s doggedly improved the Trident layout engine, adopted standards, and improved security. IE is no longer something I advise users to avoid.
Firefox is a longtime worthy IE competitor, and Chrome’s a strong newcomer. As Safari was installed with iTunes for years, many Windows users have it, but have never tried it—possibly because Apple has never given it a truly Windows-like look.
I’ll be comparing browser performance and resource usage as well as features and ease of use.
Chrome 36 (WebKit 537): Stable and speedy
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Google’s Chrome browser has gained traction quickly against longstanding competitors like Internet Explorer.
A lot of people use Google’s Chrome browser, because lots of people use Google’s search engine. Chrome is fast and generally reliable. It was my go-to for a couple of years, partly because of a great text-to-speech add-on called SpeakIt! that I used to proofread articles. Recently, however, it revealed a propensity for playing the video and audio portion of some popup windows without actually showing the popup. This is an interaction with Adobe’s Flash player that also currently affects Firefox.
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Chrome posted the fastest Browsermark score in our browser comparison tests.
There’s no denying that Chrome is fast: It scored 5773 on Browsermark, took 150.4ms to complete Sunspider, and scored 5627 on Peacekeeper. That’s two first places and a third. To achieve those results, however, it uses a lot of memory and separate processes: 775MB and 14 processes in my hands-on, nine tab test. And there was nothing special going on in any of the tabs.
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Chrome is one of the fastest browsers for rendering HTML, but it spawns a lot of processes to achieve that.
Additionally, relatively simple options such as changing your homepage are distinctly unintuitive. You might even get the feeling that Google doesn’t want you to change things. Another issue with Chrome, as well as Opera and IE, is that it spawns a number of processes, making it harder to shut down when things go bad.
Minor issues aside, Chrome is still a top browser option because of its stability and speed.
Firefox 31 (Gecko): Looking good, running fast
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Mozilla Firefox just got an interface makeover and offers many useful add-ons.
Firefox is the long-time competitor to IE that staved off a Microsoft browser monopoly for years until Chrome showed up to “help.” It’s fast and very reliable. Despite a longstanding memory leak that forced the occasional restart, it was the browser I recommended for many users to avoid the malware attacks that once plagued IE.
The memory leak in its Gecko rendering engine seems to be gone and Firefox has recently received an upgrade that was radical enough to rile a few longtime users. (There is a way to bring back the old-style menus.)
I prefer the new look and find it the most intuitive of all the browsers for bookmarking and changing options. Firefox also has a vast array of add-ons, including one of the best video downloaders out there, the aptly-named DownloadHelper.
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Firefox was the slowest among the browsers we compared in Browsermark, though its score was still decent.
In our performance texts, Firefox tucked neatly into third place overall: It scored 4540 in BrowserMark; took 134.4ms to complete Sunspider (better than Chrome or Opera); and scored 3956 in Peacekeeper.
The feel is slightly slower than Chrome or Opera, but not enough that it should irritate you. It uses fewer resources than Chrome or Opera, spawning only a single process, and using only 510MB of memory. Only the super-thrifty Safari used less memory.
Keep reading for details on Internet Explorer 11 and more…
Internet Explorer 11 (Trident)
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Internet Explorer remains the most widely distributed browser, and the one most targeted by malware.
IE remains extremely popular and useful—if for nothing else that downloading your browser of choice with a fresh install of Windows. It’s decently fast with HTML, exceptionally fast with Javascript, and renders pages reliably.
Also, because of its ActiveX technology, IE is sometimes easier to use with business-related sites such as Webex and HTML IT consoles such as Kaseya. These sites can seamlessly integrate their functionality into IE. With other browsers you must sometimes download and install an extension or background app. Windows User Account Control can prolong that process, so in a pinch I often simply switch to IE.
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Internet Explorer 11 can be easier to use with business sites because of its ActiveX technology.
IE was unable to complete BrowserMark, a problem noted only after a recent update, but it did score 3670 on Peacekeeper. More notably, it took a mere 74.1ms to complete Sunspider, making it easily the fastest browser for running Javascript.
Sadly, it’s every bit the memory hog that Chrome and Opera are, using 714MB in my nine-tab test. On the other hand, it used “only” 7 processes, half that of the WebKit-based Chrome and Opera.
Opera 23 (WebKit 537)
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Among the browsers we compared, Opera is worth a look for its easy configuration.
After a long, dark age of badly rendered pages, Opera’s now near-perfect in that regard. I say this even after uninstalling it just a few months ago due to its incompatibility with PCWorld’s own web tools. Updates have smoothed out those kinks, and it’s only a hair slower than Chrome.
Unlike Chrome and Firefox, Opera 23 doesn’t suffer invisible popups. It does use the same Webkit engine and run as multiple processes, and it’s more difficult to shut down. It also lacks a home button, instead relying solely on a launch page of oft-used sites (Speed Dial).
Image: Jon L. Jacobi In our browser comparison running Browsermark, Opera was nearly as fast as Chrome.
Speed Dial is great if you work off of multiple sites, but it adds another step for those who work from a single page. My minor complaint: There’s no native feature for emailing a link to a page. You must install an extension for this functionality.
For HTML rendering, Opera was only a hair slower than first-place Chrome, scoring 5625 on BrowserMark and 5447 in Peacekeeper. It was a hair faster with Javascript, completing the Sunspider test in 150.1ms. Overall, you’d be hard-pressed to notice the difference between the two WekKit 537-based browsers in a hands-on.
Despite the list of minor complaints, Opera is currently my main work browser because it’s nearly as fast as Chrome, but easier to configure.
Safari 5.1.17 (WebKit 534)
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Among the browsers we compared, Safari is easy to use and runs with very low processing overhead.
Though king on the Mac, Safari is probably the least popular of the top browsers under Windows—a bit sad as it’s competent, easy to use, and light on the memory profile. Apple apparently ceased supporting Windows as of version 5.1.17, but we tested it anyway because of its thrifty use of memory.
And ‘thrifty’ is understating the case. It spawns only a single process and in my nine-tab hands-on test, required only 115MB of memory to display it. What happened between the WebKit 534 that Safari uses, and WebKit 537, the current choice of Chrome and Opera is quite amazing. The latter offers way more speed but sucks up a lot of resources.
Image: Jon L. Jacobi Safari posted a slower score in Browsermark than most of the competition, but it’s still reasonably peppy.
Safari could be very handy on older systems with only 512MB or 1GB of memory. It has all the standard features found in the others, so you’re not giving away anything.
Performance in BrowserMark and Peacekeeper was decent: 4831 and 3062, respectively. It lagged in the Sunspider Javascript test, with a score of 179.9ms.
In our browser comparison, the Browsermark test showed pretty close performance by all products (except IE, which Browsermark could not run).
Test Results
To gauge each browser’s rendering performance, we ran Rightware’s Browsermark and FutureMark’s Peacekeeper HTML5 tests, as well as the Sunspider Javascript benchmark.
If you want the fastest browser for rendering HTML—by far the majority of the actions that a browser performs—you have a choice between Chrome and Opera. They both spawn a lot of processes and memory to accomplish it. Of the two, I’d pick Opera for overall easier configuration.
In our browser roundup, Chrome 36 posted the fastest time on Peacekeeper, while Safari was almost twice as slow.
If Javascript is a priority, Internet Explorer is easily the fastest running it. IE uses a lot of memory as well, if about half the processes of Chrome and Opera.
A big shout-out to Safari which used by far the least amount of memory to present the same nine tabs. If you’re working on a computer with only 512MB or 1GB of system memory, its spend-thrift ways might come in handy.
However, if I had to pick just one to keep on my system, it would be Firefox. It’s fast enough, it has the slickest interface, it uses considerably less memory than Chrome, IE, and Opera, and it’s just generally the easiest to use.
Internet Explorer emerged as the fastest browsers running the Sunspider Javascript test, with Safari limping in at more than twice as slow.
Performance and memory usage may be moot if your needs extend beyond the ordinary, in which case the browser you choose as your mainstay may come down to add-ons.
Fortunately, as all the browsers we tested are competent, free and export and import bookmarks, you can use any, or all of them. Yes, life is good in the browser world.