This is the end of Opera
I've predicted previously that Javascript perfomance will be a decisive criterion for the acceptance of browsers in the near future. I erred in the time frame for the future, however.
Javascript performance is of relevance here and now. Yesterday, I went shopping for my new gaming rig. Most online shops heavily rely on Javascript for their PC configurators -- as an example, see the configurator of Alternate. When configuring a system, I often switch between the actual configurator, the product overview and the users ratings. Using Opera 10.01 on my Core 2 Duo E6600 with 8 GB of RAM, the resulting browsing experience was unbearably slow.
I then switched to Midori and could hardly believe my eyes ... with or without Javascript seems to make no difference for this browser. See, that's how it's done! Yippie-ka-yay, Opera 😄
| Midori 0.2.0 |
native |
586.4 ms +/- 17.2% |
| Safari 4.0.4 531.21.10 |
Windows 7, VirtualBox
3.0.12 |
613.0 ms +/- 57.7% |
| Iron 3.0.197.0 |
Windows XP SP3, VirtualBox
3.0.12 |
819.4 ms +/- 16.3% |
| Midori 0.2.1 |
ArchLinux 2.6.31 x86_64,
VirtualBox 3.0.12 |
880.8 ms +/- 4.5% |
| FF 3.7 alpha |
native | 1580.4ms +/- 3.5% |
| Konqueror 4.3 |
native |
2214.2 ms +/- 2.8% |
| FF 3.5.5 |
native | 2274.8ms +/- 2.9% |
| FF 3.7 alpha |
ArchLinux 2.6.31 x86_64,
VirtualBox 3.0.12 |
3579.2 +/- 5.9% |
| Opera 10.10 1893 |
native | 4428.8ms +/- 4.3% |
| Opera 10.01 1844 |
Windows 7, VirtualBox
3.0.12 |
4761.4 ms +/- 9.6% |
| Opera 10.01 1844 |
Windows NT 4 SP 6, VMWare Player 2.5.3 | 5015.0 ms +/- 1.4% |
| FF 3.5.5 (Arch build) |
ArchLinux 2.6.31 x86_64,
VirtualBox 3.0.12 |
5828.0 ms +/- 16.1% |
| FF 3.5.4 (Suse build) |
OpenSuse 11.2, VirtualBox
3.0.12 |
5872.0 ms +/- 7.4% |
|
|
|
|
| FF 3.5.5 (Mandriva
build) |
native | 6238.4ms +/- 1.1% |
| IE 8.0 6001.18702 |
Windows XP SP3, VirtualBox
3.0.12 |
6418.4 ms +/- 6.9% |
| IE 8.0 7100 |
Windows 7, VirtualBox
3.0.12 |
6999.8 ms +/- 14.4% |
| Seamonkey 1.1.17 |
native |
11945.2 ms +/- 12.0% |
| IE 6.0 |
Windows NT 4 SP6, VMWare Player
2.5.3 |
62990.4 ms +/- 1.8% |
Native means: Mandriva 2010.0 x86_64 on a Core 2 Duo E6600 and 8 GB RAM. For comparison: Chromium 4.0.252 on my Mini (Ubuntu Karmic on an Atom N270) needs 2216.8 ms to complete the test. Faster than all non-Webkit browsers on my main machine ...
Webkit-based browsers are by far the fastest, beating Gecko by a factor of three and Presto almost by an order of magnitude. This performance difference is quite perceptible in everyday applications as outlined above. What's more: in comparison to my last browser snapshot, both Webkit and Gecko improved their Javascript performance. Opera, instead, is getting worse.
For years Opera talked about a JIT for Javascript in the 'next' version. Now, Opera is the only browser (besides IE) to not have this feature. "The fastest browser on earth" is a long time ago ...
On a sidenote: Mandriva seems to provide particularly slow builds (see FF 3.5.5, Mandriva build). That, of course, makes me particularly happy. 😞
Update: I forgot to switch off adsweep (wich costs a lot of perfomance, since it is a Javascript 😉 ) in the native Opera test. The new values are consistent with those obtained in the virtual machine, but don't change any of the statements above.