Future Web Browsers At War

Back in the  old days, a Web browser was true to its name, essentially and
only a Web browser. With increasing demands from their users  and also the
advancement in technology, newer versions of browsers are hitting the market.
All the major players are out with their proposed (Beta) versions. New age
browsers are sleek, graphically rich and include improved functionality which
may not necessarily fit to the protocol for a standalone Web browser.

What's new?

Direct2D and DirectWrite technologies improve viewing of Web pages without
programmers having to make any change in the code. Existing hardware
acceleration efforts such as the Native Client, O3D, and WebGL require updation
of programming knowledge and tools.

Direct2D

Direct2D will help with complex sites that use 2D graphics interfaces such
as SVG and Canvas. The Direct2D technology lets programmers control basic
elements such as transparent boxes, curved lines, etc Direct2D calls upon a
computer's graphics processor to speed that up. It's particularly helpful for
dynamic situations that change element properties such as color, size, or
opacity.

Google Chrome fares the best in both tests. Peacekeeper benchmarked Google Chrome 4 Beta at 4853 leaving other browsers far behind. Acid 3 gave Google Chrome a perfect 100/100.

DirectWrite

DirectWrite offers a graphics chip boost to the task of displaying text.
DirectWrite offers a  mechanism for displaying text to take advantage of
sub-pixel positioning of letters. The older GDI permitted some sub-pixel
positioning, but only smoothed letters in the horizontal direction; DirectWrite
smooths curves vertically as well.

Complex Graphics test use 'Canvas', a new web technology for drawing and manipulating graphics without external plugins.

Almost everything on a webpage uses Javascript arrays. These tests measure the browsers ability to add, remove and modify data stored in an array.

Benefits to Programmers

Using the graphics chip in Direct2D and DirectWrite operations brings
several advantages. First, performance in  some operations are faster or
smoother, and having more power on hand lets programmers tackle more ambitious
projects. Second, the general-purpose central processor, relatively inefficient
at handling graphics tasks, is unburdened, freeing it up for other tasks and
saving battery power.

DOM (Document Object Model) is the standard API which Javascript uses to create dynamic webpges. These tests emulate methods used to create typical dynamic webpages.

Our test bed

We analyzed  all of the above capabilities and more in the latest versions
of five browsers. Our test bed included a PC with an AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.22
GHz) processor, ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card, 4GB RAM, a 7200 RPM HD drive
and 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate. We used an online benchmark called Peacekeeper,
designed to test various aspects of a  browser inlcuding rendering, social
networking, complex graphics, text parsing, DOM operations, data (string
operations). You can access the benchmark online at http://tinyurl.com/ycapktd
from the browser to be tested. Acid 3 test was also run on all the browsers.
This benchmark test  is available at http://acid3. acidtests.org/.

Firefox Minefield (Firefox 3.7a1pre)

The Firefox Minefield 3.7  is currently available as an extractable zip file
and can be extracted at the destination of choice. This is important as this
helps not to mess up the existing Firefox version profile. For now, the biggest
difference between Firefox 3.7 and its previous versions is that the former
features a newer version of the Gecko rendering engine. Eventually Firefox 3.7
may introduce a tweaked theme with redesigned toolbars. Firefox developers claim
of incorporating the Direct2D and DirectWrite technology much before Microsoft,
although, the latter was the first to talk about it. Direct2D and DirectWrite
provide an easy way to use graphics cards' computing power.

The Mozilla Firefox Minefield garnered a healthy 3443 in Peacekeeper and a
not so bad 96/100 in Acid 3.

Google Chrome 4 Beta

Google Chrome 4 Beta combines minimalist design with some new technologies.
The  environment shows only the  basic controls for navigating the Internet.One
unified box displays all information including search, history, bookmarks, and
the address bar.  This version of Chrome allows you to use Web apps without even
opening the browser. You can upload your favorite online applications directly
from the shortcuts. You can drag tabs from the browser to create new windows,
gather multiple tabs into one window and arrange your tabs easily. Every tab  in
the browser  runs independently, so if one app crashes it will not affect the
remaining tabs. The incognito mode for private browsing helps you hide pages you
visit to show up in your sites.

The summary window shows thumbnails of your most visited pages, your recent
bookmarks, a history, etc. Google Chrome speeds up address entry pages showing
you more views, different query terms, in your favorite pages or sites
previously visited. Google Chrome steals the show with the best rating.

Rendering measures the browsers ability to Render and modify specific HTML lements used in typical web pages.

Opera 10.20 Beta

Opera Widgets takes the stage with Opera 10.20 Beta. First introduced as
part of the Opera browser back in 2006, 'Opera Widgets for desktop' breaks this
dependency between widgets and the browser, thereby giving competition to
existing platforms for Web based apps  -mainly Adobe AIR. As long as you have
Opera installed on your machine, you can run any widget of your choice, without
even opening the browser, just like any other application.  Opera Widgets are
getting a complete makeover -from being small, single-purpose gadgets to
standalone applications with the power to replace native applications.  Opera
10.20 Beta was billed at 2004 by the Peacekeeper and 100/100 from the Acid 3.

Safari 4

The current stable release of the browser is 4.0.4 for both Mac OS X and
Windows. It includes Nitro JavaScript engine to add to the JavaScript
performance. Also this includes a built-in Web feed aggregator that supports RSS
and Atom. Other features include Private Browsing,  the ability to archive
(using the proprietary .webarchive format) and e-mail web pages etc. Beginning
with Safari 4, the address bar has been completely revamped visually. The button
to add a bookmark is now attached to the address bar by default.  Safari 4
includes other new features; it displays up to 24 thumbnails of the most
frequently visited pages on startup, Cover Flow browsing for history and
bookmarks, native Windows look with standard Windows font rendering, support for
CSS image retouching effects, support for CSS Canvas, speculative loading, where
Safari loads the documents, scripts, and style information required to view a
Web page ahead of time,support for HTML 5. Safari 4.0.4 came second  with  3946
from the Peacekeeper and 99/100 in Acid 3 test.

Internet Explorer 8

IE 8 is the only build that is present online till date. Microsoft has not
yet released any Beta or Alpha builds which could provide us with an insight to
the technology that they would be using. IE 8 is fast fading away due to the
lack of any upto date technology and got a disappointing 735 in Peacekeeper and
only 20/100  in Acid 3 test. IE 8 does not support complex graphics and thus
received a '0'  by Peacekeeper benchmark. However, reports suggest that, soon
Microsoft will be out with a hyper improved version of the IE. Upon the
shoulders of the IE 9 rest Microsoft's hope of surviving in the browser market.
Direct2D and DirectWrite  are supposed to be the pillar stones of IE9.

Benchmarking of the available beta versions is an attempt to  analyze  the
potential winners  in the browser market.  However, it is important to note that
once the final releases are out, we may observe significant difference in the
look, feel and performance of the respective browsers.

Social Networking sites use Javascript to provide navigation,forms and other features. These tests measure typical webpage functions,such as loading,sorting and searching for data.

These test measures the browsers performance in typical text manipulation such as using a profanity filter for chats, browser detection and form validation.

Bottomline: With all
browsers except IE 8 in Beta and are supposed to change dramatically till  their
stable versions are released, giving a final verdict as yet won't make enough
sense. However, Google Chrome seems to have occupied a stable position.