Released in 2008, the better-late-than-never Google Chrome web browser continues to impress despite a small audience. Historically, Chrome has produced results in our browser comparisons that often came in equal to or superior to competitors. But the tests this time seem to have produced a different outcome altogether.
Chrome’s score in our JavaScript SunSpider tests show a tepid 666.5 ms, a very average score, although it should be repeated that the variation among all the browsers we tested was not all that remarkable. Surprisingly though, in our previous comparison just six months ago, Chrome scored the best marks for javascript management of all the browsers we tested. It seems they’ve regressed a bit with this latest version. As for the Acid3 test, we weren’t surprised to see Chrome’s 100% score, as this has been a consistent mark since it’s release.
With respect to the management of HTML5, Chrome’s results are average. The score of 2.54 frames per second in the test vector puts Chrome in last place on this test. The browser ranks a little higher in the Bitmap Gaming and dynamic text tests, where it scored marks of 8.52 fps and 8.34 fps respectively. Overall, these results are average among the browsers we compared, but again it’s interesting to note that they are below what we found in the tests we performed six months ago.
Finally, a surprise with regard to memory consumption. Despite having concluded in our last browser comparison that Chrome was remarkable for its lightness, our tests this round showed the browser sucking up an average 256MB as it browsed the web, easily ranking as the greediest browser of any we tested.