Written by james | 28 January 2010
Posted in Web Design

Google Chrome, the new lightning-fast browser, has been around for less than two years and it's already snapped the title of fastest browser, by a considerable amount according to Kevin Purdy. It's managed to beat the likes of Firefox, Opera and Safari, which cant be an easy task.

Purdy, from Lifehacker.com, put the leading browsers through extensive testing. The browsers and versions that were tested are as follows: Firefox 3.5.4, Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 4.249.78 (stable), Google Chrome 4.302.3 (developer version), Opera 10.1, Opera 10.5 (pre-alpha release) and Safari 4.0.4. What they tested was load times, JavaScript, DOM/CSS, and memory use.

Each category was scored between 1 and 7, 7 being highest and 1 being lowest, and then these scores were amalgamated to give a result out of 35. Then they are scored against each other and they will be ranked from 1st to 7th.
And the results are:

• Google Chrome (developer): 1st
• Google Chrome (stable): 2nd
• Opera 10.5 (pre-alpha): 3rd
• Firefox 3.5.4: 4th
• Firefox 3.6 (new version): 5th
• Safari 4.0.4: 6th
• Opera 10.01 (stable): 7th

Well if you have anything out of the last 3, then consider upgrading (or in Firefox’s case, downgrade to the previous version). If you are a chrome user, then don’t worry about upgrading to the developers version, there was hardly any difference.

Thousands of people have seen these test results, either direct from the testers, or plastered over the web, and may of them have tried Google Chrome as a result, those who are looking for a browser that excels in speed and not another area, anyway. So if you’re looking for speed, go Chrome!