Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2 RC Faster than Google Chrome

Firefox 3.1 codename Shiretoko Alpha 2 Release Candidate is faster than Google Browser (Chrome), according to Brendan Eich, chief architect, Mozilla. The fact of the matter is that the comparison involves only the two browsers’ respective JavaScript rendering engines, namely TraceMonkey for Firefox and V8 for Chrome. In the first tests Eich ran with the two JavaScript engines on SunSpider, Shiretoko Alpha 2 RC managed to come on top of Google Chrome Beta.

“We win by 1.28x and 1.19x, respectively. Maybe we should rename TraceMonkey “V10.” OK, it’s only SunSpider, one popular yet arguably non-representative benchmark suite. We are not about to be braggy. “Don’t be braggy” is our motto here at Mozilla,” Eich stated.

Google Chrome comes with the V8 virtual machine, which is essentially an open source JavaScript engine built at the Google office in Aarhus, Denmark. According to Google, the V8 JavaScript engine has been designed with nothing but performance in mind, especially when it comes down to the way it handles web-based applications.

“The cornerstones of the V8 design are: compilation of JavaScript source code directly into native machine code; an efficient memory management system resulting in fast object allocation and small garbage collection pauses; and an introduction of hidden classes and inline caches that speed up property access and function calls,” revealed Lars Bak, software engineer, Google.

Eich praised the work Google has poured into Chrome, and especially V8. According to Mozilla’s Chief Architect, there is even more room for JavaScript performance improvements in Google Browser. But this does not change the fact that, for the time being, TraceMonkey is faster than V8.

“TraceMonkey is only a few months old, (…) which we’ve built on and enhanced with x86-64 support and other fixes. We’ve developed TraceMonkey in the open the whole way. And we’re as fast as V8 on SunSpider,” Eich added.

Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 is available for download here.

Google Browser Chrome is available for download via this link.

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