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Safari 5 for OS X, Firefox 9 for Windows 7 crowned victors of browser benchmark battle

Safari 5 for OS X, Firefox 9 for Windows 7 crowned victors of browser benchmark battle

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Tom's Hardware crowned two new champions in its 53-test browser grand prix: Firefox 9 won out in Windows 7 Ultimate, while Safari 5 was the top browser for OS X Lion.

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Browser Benchmark Comparison Tom's Hardware
Browser Benchmark Comparison Tom's Hardware

Tom's Hardware has been running its meticulously detailed Browser Grand Prix since early 2010, and today it has crowned two new winners: Firefox 9 won in the latest Windows 7 Ultimate tests, while Safari 5 was the top browser for OS X Lion. These two winners were pitted against Internet Explorer 9 (on Windows 7 only), Opera 11, and Chrome 16 in a battery of 53 different benchmarks. Tests include simple boot up and load times; javascript, flash, HTML5, and Silverlight benchmarks; hardware acceleration performance; memory management and usage; and much more.

After previously using a custom-built PC running Windows and a hacked version of OS X, Tom's Hardware switched things up and used an 11-inch MacBook Air with a Core i7 processor and 4GB RAM. Despite testing on Apple-built hardware, OS X generally trailed Windows 7 browser performance, with a Mac browser beating all Windows 7 challengers only four times out of 35 eligible tests. As for the runners up, Chrome came in just behind Firefox on Windows, while Chrome and Firefox were nearly indistinguishable for second place on OS X. Given the rapid progression of browser technology we've seen recently, we'd expect another set of benchmarks soon and wouldn't be surprised to see the winners change completely.