Internet Browser

Benchmarking 11 Internet Browsers

UPDATE: Please note that we posted a newer browser article that was done in June 2010 that can be read here that shows newer web browser versions!

When it comes to benchmarks Legit Reviews has run our fair share of them over the past seven years, but we've never run a benchmark that is dedicated to looking at the performance of internet browsers. Futuremark Corporation today unveiled Peacekeeper, a free online benchmarking tool for measuring and comparing the performance of common internet browsers. Futuremark claims that the benchmark realistically simulates the load placed on the browser by common JavaScript functions as used by popular, modern web 2.0 websites. For users who prioritize speed and performance, Peacekeeper helps answer the question of which browser is best for them. The press release that Futuremark sent out with the announcement talked about benchmark results using a PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor, so I figured we'd look at entry level performance numbers on a system like a Netbook. After all, if anyone needs to know how to make their PC experience better it is someone on a system that runs slowly! If you've ever used a netbook with an Intel Atom processor you'll know that the platform works, but is slower than what you are used to on a traditional PC.

Rather than testing out the browsers on an ASUS Eee PC or MSI Wind netbook we are going to do one better for you. We actually happen to have one of the prototype NVIDIA Ion platforms on the test bench this week, so what better to benchmark than it! The NVIDIA Ion platform has been one of the most anticipated platforms since it was shown off at CES back in January 2009 and even more so when the performance numbers were released later that same month. Since then the NVIDIA Ion uses the Intel Atom 230 processor, a single 2GB DDR2 533MHz SO-DIMM memory module, and the GeForce 9400M 256MB graphics processing unit it is basically what one will find in many netbooks. If you want to see the specifics on the test platform click here; otherwise we are headed straight to testing the 11 browsers that we downloaded and benchmarked.