Browser Startups

I’ve finally gotten the dual-boot part of my dual-boot system working (Ubuntu 8.10, Windows XP) and this means that I finally got to try out Google Chrome. That’s a different story in itself–I’m developing rather an opinion on it. But it also means that I have the Big Three installed–Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7, and Chrome.

I decided to do some startup tests–just timing how long they took to start up.

A few notes on the procedure:

I opened all three of them without timing them, and then closed them all. Then I did:

• Open A
• Close A
• Open B
• Close B
• Open C
• Close C
• Repeat a few times
• Disregard page load time–just measure actual startup.
• Use stopwatch on wrist–KMandla’s “Timex Method” (I’ll also give him credit for planting the seed of this post in my head a few months ago.)

And the results were:

Chrome: Consistently ~1.5 seconds. The fastest of the bunch.

Internet Explorer: About 3.5 seconds.

Firefox: Surprisingly lame–it was just under 4 the first time, 6 the second time, and repeated tests showed it levelling in the 3.5-3.9 range. I really thought it would beat IE….guess not. To it’s defense, it had to deal with the SU toolbar as well. If I keep getting bothered by this, I might repeat the experiment without.

So congratulations, Chrome!