A slow browsing experience could hamper your tasks, especially when you use websites that run applications on them. And now with most applications moving towards the cloud computing platform, it is necessary to have a good browsing experience. Apart from Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Chrome and Opera, there are several other alternative browsers available for Windows 11/10/8/7.
While most of us use select browsers based on personal experiences, features offered, or old habits, the geeks among you may want to test how good your browser is actually performing on the Internet. To achieve this aim, you could make use of free browser benchmark & speed test tools to compare the performance of different browsers. Benchmarking tools run several tests on browsers like Javascript, HTML5, and other tests. Let’s look at a few browser performance benchmark tests being offered online.
Browser Speed Online Test Tools
Here are some of the best browser speed tests that will tell you how your browser performs:
- Peacekeeper
- Lite Brite
- Octane
- Dromaeo
- Speed-battle
- HTML 5 TEST
- Acid 3
- Browsermark
- SunSpider
- WebXPRT 3.
1] Peacekeeper
Peacekeeper is one of the most widely used benchmark tools for browsers. Not surprisingly, it comes from Futuremark, the inventors of benchmarking tools such as 3DMark and PCMark. Apart from performing a JavaScript benchmark, Peacekeeper makes use of HTML 5 canvas and video while testing. Peacekeeper gives an overall view of how fast a particular browser is; It performs a test for about 5 mins and once completed it gives out a benchmark number for each result.
2] Lite Brite
Lite Brite is the benchmark tool from Microsoft. It is designed to measure the performance of your browser by lighting up your screen with dozens of HTML, CSS and JavaScript features. When you start the test you will see a Lite-Brite toy lighting up the logo of the browser. This modern lighting-up technique, though measures the performance of your browser.
3] Octane
Octane 2.0 is the latest version of Octane, a browser benchmark by Google. The benchmark measures the JavaScript engine’s performance. For testing the performance, the benchmark runs a suite of tests that are suitable for the latest and most complex web applications. Octane mainly measures the performance of JavaScript code that is found in huge-sized real-world web applications and which runs on modern desktop and mobile browsers.
4] Dromaeo
Dromaeo is Mozilla’s benchmarking test suite that is based on SunSpider tests. SunSpider is also a benchmarking suite that measures JavaScript performance on tasks performed using JavaScript. These tasks include current as well as near-future relevant use of JavaScript like text manipulation and encryption. Dromaeo may take a considerable time for measurement. However, it displays very detailed information about every single test task.
5] Speed-battle
Speed-battle is a free online test for measuring browser speed and computer performance. It provides an answer to the following questions.
- Which browser is on my computer fastest in completing the SPEED-BATTLE test tasks?
- Which operating system is faster when using the same computer and browser version?
- Which computer is faster when using the same operating system and browser?
The test score of Speed-battle provides reference values for the performance of hardware and software.
6] HTML 5 TEST
HTML 5 Test gives an indication of well your browser supports the upcoming HTML5 standard and related specifications. The HTML 5 Test score is calculated by testing for the many new features of HTML5. Each feature is worth one or more points. Apart from the main HTML5 specification and other specifications created by the W3C HTML Working Group, this test also awards points for supporting related drafts and specifications.
The HTML 5 test is updated whenever the specification is updated. In case some features are removed, they get deleted from the test also and newer tests are created. The maximum score that a browser can score is 555.
7] Acid 3
Acid3 test is a browser benchmarking application developed by ‘The Web Standards Project’. The benchmark tests the web browser’s compliance with DOM (Document Object Model), JavaScript and various other web standards. The typical identification of Acid 3 is the result it displays after the test is performed.
The rest results are displayed as a gradually increasing counter that is represented by colored rectangles. Each rectangle indicated the completion of a particular test. Finally, when all tests are performed, the graph shows 100/100 as the results; of course, if everything is fine.
8] Browsermark
Browsermark 2.1 is the next and more improved version of the browser benchmark with the same name i.e. Browsermark. This benchmarking application is developed by Rightware, a Finish software development company. The application focuses on real-life performance measurement for different test groups such as CSS, DOM, Graphics, JavaScript and JavaScript frameworks.
Browsermark 2.1 tests the browser’s conformance in which it tells how well the browser did on CSS3 and in HTML5 support tests. It tests other factors such as screen resizing ability, page loading ability, ability to support modern website development techniques and overall performance of the browser.
9] SunSpider
SunSpider is also a popular JavaScript benchmarking application. However, SunSpider tests only the core JavaScript language and it does not test DOM or other browser APIs. That’s because it is built to compare different browsers with each other and different versions of the same browser. SunSpider from webkit.org performs the real-world test that focuses on the problems developers need to tackle when working with JavaScript.
The performance of browsers is likely to vary across different benchmark test tools, as it is not only dependent on the operating system, but also on the hardware plugins.
10] WebXPRT 3
WebXPRT 3 contains six HTML5- and JavaScript-based scenarios created to mirror the tasks you do every day: Photo Enhancement, Organize Album Using AI, Stock Option Pricing, Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan, Sales Graphs, and Online Homework.
Other free online browser speed test tools:
- Speed-Battle is a free online browser speed test
- JetStream is a JavaScript benchmark suite focused on the most advanced web applications.
- Dromaeo is Mozilla JavaScript performance test suite.
Test your browser today and let us know which browser benchmark test you chose, and how it performed against the competition.
PC Stress Test freeware and these free online firewall tests may also interest you.
Thanks for this reminder about browser speed and usability tests!
I just tried the lot of them using only the current Pale Moon browser, which has my plugins, Noscript ABE rules, configuration tweaks and usual tracker blockers popular in Mozilla browsers; on most of the tests, I came in about the same as Firefox and slower than Chrome due to tweaks.
I also have a recently new plugin which allows blocking of canvas fingerprinting which I’ve been testing (unlike one in TOR which returns a blank canvas); not that I am desirous of Torrifying, just blocking inane trackers ala Ghostery…it’s surprising to see how many sites are using “sign up with zip and email for discounts” popups as part of a silent canvas fingerprinter.
Anyway, the MS “Lite Brite” and Browsermark tests wouldn’t run, each telling me I had a browser which didn’t allow me full advantages of CSS3, recommending I upgrade to IE11 or other “modern” browser. To my knowledge, CSS3 separates fonts, colors, and layouts to facilitate accessibility, but is not dependent upon canvas fingerprints to figure out how to best serve browsers…as my ability to take the remaining tests, and ability to use the web generally, would support.
Hope these coincidental observations re canvas fingerprinting as “essential” are useful to those interested in adblocker plugins for FF/Chrome, as such canvas in other reports appears to be gaining swiftly in site deployments for state of the art tracking; thanks again, cheers!
Thanks for the inputs and observations Dan. As always – they are useful! :)