

Release The Kraken - brandonkm
http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2010/09/14/release-the-kraken/

======
bd
Here are my results (Win7 64b, Core2 Duo 2.4 GHz):

    
    
      Minefield 4 b6           9737.7ms
      Opera 10.62             14490.8ms
      Chrome 7.0.517.5 dev    18375.4ms
      Firefox 4 Beta 5        21721.1ms
      Safari 5.0              22168.6ms 
      Firefox 3.6.9           30053.3ms
      Explorer 9 PP4          64817.2ms
    

Though, usual caveat, it's kind of expected that the creator of the benchmark
will perform the best (see my older comments on browser benchmarks [1][2]).

What's probably more interesting is the order of other browsers (for which
this benchmark should be less tuned) - again Opera performed very well (and
better than Chrome).

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676456>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1458529>

~~~
epochwolf
My results (OSX 10.6, Core2 Duo 2.4GHz)

    
    
        Safari 5            13939.9ms +/- 1.6%
        Chrome 6.0.472.55   19155.2ms +/- 1.3%
        Firefox 3.6.4       23567.1ms +/- 2.8%

~~~
msbarnett
Yeah, on my MacBook Pro (OS X 10.6, Core i5 2.4GHz) I got

    
    
      Safari 5               11018.2ms +/- 0.3%
      Chrome 6.0.472.55      15342.7ms +/- 1.0%
      Firefox 3.6.8          18917.6ms +/- 0.1%
    

Interesting (but maybe not surprising) to see that Safari is consistently
being reported as faster than Chrome on OS X, but not on Windows.

~~~
sigzero
My iMac with Safari 5 was a little more 14ms...

------
modeless
I see what's going on here. Mozilla's trace compilation approach has a lot of
startup overhead but produces extremely fast optimized code for inner loops.
Therefore, their benchmark includes compute-intensive tests with long-running
inner loops to amortize out the costs of JIT compilation and focus on the raw
speed of the generated code, where they beat Chrome.

(Note that I'm not saying this is unfair or biased at all. This is a good set
of benchmarks to have.)

------
DiabloD3
I think JS performance on Firefox has now reached the point where its good
enough. All I ask for now is parts of the UI to become multithreaded so as to
prevent the random issues one gets when having in the neighborhood of 150
tabs.

~~~
chc
I don't think there's a software solution for the issues someone with 150 tabs
open must have.

~~~
blasdel
Yes there is. It's called Google Chrome. I presently have 164 tabs open in it
across 6 windows. It works just fine.

I am regularly amused by the stream of inane blog posts from "UX
Professionals" declaring bankruptcy because _oh god they have 22 tabs open_ —
and then they go on to propose some ridiculous unbuilt UI that's even less
capable, but makes them feel designery.

Chrome does start to bog down eventually, and I can respond to that by killing
off worker processes, which leaves the swath of tabs it was responsible for
dead, but still in place with their URL and I can just hit refresh. With
Firefox the whole browser will repeatedly lock up for seconds at a time at a
much lower usage threshold and eventually crash completely, taking 5 minutes
out of my day. Before I switched to Chrome, I would have Firefox would crash
at least 10 times per week. That and their regular releases baking
AwesomeBullshit into Firefox instead of releasing extensions was more than
enough to compel me to ditch it.

~~~
trafficlight
I still don't understand why you could possibly need 164 different web pages
open at the same time. What kinds of things are you doing that simple
bookmarks can't solve?

~~~
blasdel
They form stacks of things that haven't been finished with yet. If I bookmark
something in that state, it just falls off the end of my brain. In a tab it
remains in my periphery.

I shall attempt to document what I am presently filling all those tabs with:

    
    
      * Personal Gmail and Google Reader, along with a dozen or so links opened from them
      * Several work-related OWA mailboxes and Google Apps mail and docs accounts
      * 10 Hacker News discussions, including the one I'm making this comment in.
        Normally there would be two for this discussion as I open the 'reply' link
        in a new tab to not lose my place, but this tab was from a Notifo growl
      * A couple dozen tabs are for music, TV, games, and films to investigate/pirate
      * A dozen profiles of people to get in contact with on social networking sites
      * Another dozen active threads on several phpBB forums I am a member of
      * Several dozen tabs of product pages from manufacturers, alibaba, and ecommerce
        sites for several physical projects I'm working on.
      * A dozen tabs of research for software projects I'm working on
    

Depending on what I'm doing at any one time, any one of the things counted in
_dozens_ could dominate. If you'd caught me during a RSS binge, there'd also
ba a whole bunch of extra small windows each containing a single flash video
embed, generated by the "Popout" functionality in Google Reader.

Of the tabs presently open, about half are new in the last 24 hours. Chrome's
chrome://history/ page only lets me page back through 450 items
chronologically, which is about a third of my average daily usage.

I've tried a number of tools to collect links in — bookmarks, social
bookmarks, Google Docs, Google Wave, etc., but I always end up falling back to
tabs because I'm already using them anyway! I'm currently giving the
Chrome/GDocs bookmark syncing a shot for things that are 'out of mind'.

~~~
aboodman
Do you only have one computer? Is it a notebook or desktop? It's hard for me
to relate to these kind of use cases, because I use many computers, several of
which are notebooks. I could never use a workflow like you because I'd always
be losing all that state.

~~~
blasdel
Right now I use a 27" iMac at home almost exclusively, but there's a handful
of other computers that I use in various locations, and several have
persistent sessions (which makes gchat think I am available almost 24/7). It
was more of a problem when I commuted every day, but I mostly just had
different sets of things that I was looking at on each compy.

The Google Bookmark sync actually works pretty well between all of them for
things that aren't transient. I just realized that there's probably a decent
'bookmarks sidebar' extension out there, and combined with "Open All Bookmarks
in New Window" that could alleviate a lot of my project-related tabcruft.

I have indeed "lost all that state" many times over the years, but it hasn't
happened since I switched to Chrome (It did corrupt its session once, but it
keeps a backup). It happened every couple months with Firefox on Linux, though
I couldn't dig as big of a hole since it crashed more than once per day on
average.

Years ago when I used Safari as my main browser it didn't have session saving
yet, I used a SIMBL extension that continuously saved all state (including the
full DOM with no redownloading), but ironically caused it to crash much more
frequently. In those days I would rotate between Safari, Camino, and Shiira
using two at a time, so that when the primary started to fall over I could
start a fresh session and let the tabs dwindle in the old ones until they
could be quit.

------
patrickaljord
Firefox4 is faster than chrome here on ubuntu lucid x86_64 on an i5 with 8g of
RAM.

Results for firefox 4 beta7:

[http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/kraken-1.0/results.html?%...](http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/kraken-1.0/results.html?%7B%22v%22:%20%22kraken-1.0%22,%20%22ai-
astar%22:%5B822,823,833,918,808,806,930,893,794,906%5D,%22audio-beat-
detection%22:%5B950,945,939,964,959,994,1015,855,929,985%5D,%22audio-
dft%22:%5B524,522,533,546,576,557,574,507,532,500%5D,%22audio-
fft%22:%5B896,808,862,908,868,886,803,893,904,887%5D,%22audio-
oscillator%22:%5B400,405,398,396,431,420,416,408,396,426%5D,%22imaging-
gaussian-blur%22:%5B669,711,679,675,672,675,686,687,761,679%5D,%22imaging-
darkroom%22:%5B287,261,267,265,267,262,261,265,260,263%5D,%22imaging-
desaturate%22:%5B631,617,666,628,615,621,637,659,626,648%5D,%22json-parse-
financial%22:%5B270,269,260,258,262,263,258,279,259,275%5D,%22json-stringify-
tinderbox%22:%5B76,77,81,73,75,77,71,71,70,74%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
aes%22:%5B455,481,446,439,457,471,430,431,439,455%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
ccm%22:%5B347,376,358,341,363,391,334,351,361,345%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
pbkdf2%22:%5B876,854,743,725,858,920,811,754,823,834%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
sha256-iterative%22:%5B125,122,119,126,119,133,121,118,119,119%5D%7D)

Results for chrome 7.0.517.0 dev:

[http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/kraken-1.0/results.html?%...](http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/kraken-1.0/results.html?%7B%22v%22:%20%22kraken-1.0%22,%20%22ai-
astar%22:%5B730,728,722,706,782,718,707,712,709,693%5D,%22audio-beat-
detection%22:%5B1316,1243,1286,1311,1362,1245,1310,1309,1286,1307%5D,%22audio-
dft%22:%5B1954,1820,1933,2047,2151,1838,2022,1901,1986,1868%5D,%22audio-
fft%22:%5B1191,1156,1314,1199,1281,1148,1181,1174,1243,1199%5D,%22audio-
oscillator%22:%5B470,436,442,436,461,425,472,442,442,455%5D,%22imaging-
gaussian-
blur%22:%5B3258,2979,3169,2845,3094,2934,3424,2943,2953,3057%5D,%22imaging-
darkroom%22:%5B1356,1340,1375,1353,1359,1391,1417,1384,1369,1387%5D,%22imaging-
desaturate%22:%5B1458,1383,1429,1472,1366,1387,1417,1420,1364,1354%5D,%22json-
parse-financial%22:%5B241,245,252,250,276,241,272,249,236,232%5D,%22json-
stringify-
tinderbox%22:%5B177,203,194,221,177,180,176,176,180,175%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
aes%22:%5B110,120,108,160,111,117,108,112,112,133%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
ccm%22:%5B102,101,92,114,98,92,104,95,97,114%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
pbkdf2%22:%5B286,224,244,264,231,232,255,241,225,243%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
sha256-iterative%22:%5B100,99,102,145,110,96,100,102,96,98%5D%7D)

------
nitrogen
The beat detection section was most interesting to me, as I spent a lot of
time trying (and mostly failing) to do reliable beat detection when I was in
high school for an XMMS plugin. It amazes me that this is now possible in a
web browser.

------
kingkilr
It'd be nice if one of the JS benchmarks actually POST'd the results back to
the server, with current browser, and had a UI that allowed comparing the
results for different browsers on different tests.

~~~
mbrubeck
Both Kraken and Sunspider provide results in a form that you can copy and
paste, and a UI for comparing results from different browsers. (But they don't
let you view results from previous users, which I guess might be what you're
asking for.)

~~~
kingkilr
Right, I'm asking for a way to see results in aggregate. Admittingly there's a
problem of differing hardware (which I somehow overlooked).

~~~
Someone
Also, given the number of 'fans' on the Internet, I suspect that such a tool
would have serious issues with users tweaking the benchmark and uploading fake
data.

------
harshpotatoes
On mine, I notice Opera performs the worst by more than double.

(Win7, AMD Athlon XP2400 2.0GHz)

    
    
      Chrome 6.0.472.55 beta:      46946.5ms
      Opera 10.62:                234444.6ms
      IE9:                         71864.8ms

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Those results would be roughly similar to the other poster's if you removed
one of the four 4s in the Opera results. Maybe just a typo?

~~~
harshpotatoes
Not a typo (hopefully the links don't break):
[http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/kraken-1.0/results.html?%...](http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/kraken-1.0/results.html?%7B%22v%22:%20%22kraken-1.0%22,%20%22ai-
astar%22:%5B32513,32341,32777,32656,32514,32441,32704,32735,32496,32702%5D,%22audio-
beat-
detection%22:%5B13392,13352,13439,13441,13468,13511,13512,13498,13591,13636%5D,%22audio-
dft%22:%5B12617,12492,12488,12542,12532,12588,12705,12653,12566,12596%5D,%22audio-
fft%22:%5B13001,13100,12974,13096,13036,13063,13088,12788,12819,13257%5D,%22audio-
oscillator%22:%5B12034,12029,11974,12173,11964,11932,12063,11961,11938,12027%5D,%22imaging-
gaussian-
blur%22:%5B84502,83618,83081,84435,83552,83328,83933,83664,84429,83362%5D,%22imaging-
darkroom%22:%5B15763,15860,15790,15747,15667,15709,15792,15644,15779,15767%5D,%22imaging-
desaturate%22:%5B27018,27016,26940,26925,26871,26824,27091,26932,26850,27274%5D,%22json-
parse-financial%22:%5B224,212,213,214,213,213,222,213,213,214%5D,%22json-
stringify-
tinderbox%22:%5B401,405,409,401,430,393,381,392,394,392%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
aes%22:%5B5217,5219,5314,5262,5297,5350,5074,5077,5107,5485%5D,%22stanford-
crypto-
ccm%22:%5B3409,3473,3318,3367,3281,3564,3336,3315,3362,3305%5D,%22stanford-
crypto-
pbkdf2%22:%5B11301,11372,11370,11354,11403,11575,11476,11482,11477,11485%5D,%22stanford-
crypto-
sha256-iterative%22:%5B3533,3516,3507,3708,3739,3511,3529,3532,3514,3803%5D%7D)

[http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/kraken-1.0/results.html?%...](http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.com/kraken-1.0/results.html?%7B%22v%22:%20%22kraken-1.0%22,%20%22ai-
astar%22:%5B32873,38682,41930,42621,40265,42050,41002,41858,44168,34591%5D,%22audio-
beat-
detection%22:%5B13517,17093,17228,17621,17567,17224,17318,17332,15772,13988%5D,%22audio-
dft%22:%5B12805,15290,16651,16159,16030,14956,16213,15753,15162,13041%5D,%22audio-
fft%22:%5B13026,15952,15898,17424,16019,16492,16187,16463,13189,13610%5D,%22audio-
oscillator%22:%5B12022,14719,14995,15875,15098,15246,15764,15612,12454,12490%5D,%22imaging-
gaussian-
blur%22:%5B84288,106911,104806,109762,120613,106632,105434,103935,111242,86459%5D,%22imaging-
darkroom%22:%5B15848,19121,18561,20218,20333,19419,19091,20191,19862,16294%5D,%22imaging-
desaturate%22:%5B28567,34460,34010,34522,33539,35851,32458,34620,35079,27922%5D,%22json-
parse-financial%22:%5B235,277,265,262,251,302,262,266,221,223%5D,%22json-
stringify-
tinderbox%22:%5B392,599,569,545,503,614,467,522,576,397%5D,%22stanford-crypto-
aes%22:%5B5261,6902,6406,6670,7511,6824,6681,6517,8541,5568%5D,%22stanford-
crypto-
ccm%22:%5B3498,4475,3944,4195,4174,4632,4483,4555,6196,3401%5D,%22stanford-
crypto-
pbkdf2%22:%5B11501,14601,14147,14569,14840,14723,14418,15278,21103,11818%5D,%22stanford-
crypto-
sha256-iterative%22:%5B3535,4333,4665,4679,4590,4783,4664,4519,5316,3977%5D%7D)

Of course it performs much worse on this benchmark than other browsers on my
old hardware, but I haven't noticed any problems while browsing.

------
wmf
Is there any documentation? What are the components of this benchmark?

~~~
mbrubeck
If you run the benchmark, the results include a list of the tests with links
to short explanations.

EDIT: Click to the results page and explanation links: <http://bit.ly/cXTBUb>
(using a redirect because HN broke when I used the real URI)

Here's the list:

    
    
      ai:                          922.9ms +/- 3.2%
        astar:                     922.9ms +/- 3.2%
    
      audio:                      5564.5ms +/- 3.4%
        beat-detection:           1996.1ms +/- 5.2%
        dft:                       821.8ms +/- 6.8%
        fft:                      1965.6ms +/- 6.0%
        oscillator:                781.0ms +/- 0.9%
    
      imaging:                    2875.9ms +/- 1.4%
        gaussian-blur:            1271.2ms +/- 1.1%
        darkroom:                  510.1ms +/- 0.7%
        desaturate:               1094.6ms +/- 4.0%
    
      json:                        365.9ms +/- 1.6%
        parse-financial:           235.5ms +/- 1.6%
        stringify-tinderbox:       130.4ms +/- 2.1%
    
      stanford:                   2392.1ms +/- 3.2%
        crypto-aes:                468.7ms +/- 2.0%
        crypto-ccm:                656.2ms +/- 3.5%
        crypto-pbkdf2:            1063.0ms +/- 4.5%
        crypto-sha256-iterative:   204.2ms +/- 2.9%

~~~
wmf
Looks like a heavy focus on compute-intensive tasks. A* is definitely worth
optimizing since it will help games.

