August 14th, 2009
Pre-alpha Google Chrome: Fastest Mac OS X browser by 34%
The speedy Google Chrome web browser has been available on Windows PCs for quite some time, but is not yet finalized for Mac. But recent testing on the latest pre-alpha build, numbered 4.0, reveals that it might just blow all other OS X browsers out of the water.
According to tests performed by CNET UK, Chrome is now “the fastest browser in the world on both PC and now on Mac OS X.”
Nate Lanxon writes:
When benchmarking Chrome 4.0’s rendering speed on a PC last week, it obliterated its previous record and scored 100/100 on the Acid3 standards-compliancy tests. On the Mac, it only gets better. It completed the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark in just 657ms. Only 4 per cent faster than its PC brother, sure, but 34 per cent faster than Safari 4.0.3, which scored 886ms on the same 2.0GHz Intel MacBook.
Keeping things in some sort of context, Firefox version 3.5.2 on OS X scored 1,508ms and Opera 10 beta 3 scored 5,958ms.
In addition to its tested speed, the latest Mac build adds several new features: a faster version of Google’s V8 Javascript engine, themes to skin Chrome, better (but not great) Adobe Flash support, improved bookmarking and the customizable ’speed dial’ homepage.
Make no mistake, though — Chrome for Mac still has plenty of bugs to be worked out, and Lanxon notes “frequent crashes” and a “lack of rudimentary functionality.”
Still, as Mozilla experiments with Chrome-style tabs in its Firefox browser and Safari increasingly resembles Chrome, the web browser wars continue to heat up.
Do you anticipate Chrome for Mac?
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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