A follow-up of this. Note: I am just comparing Javascript. This is no longer a good way to benchmark a whole browser, if it ever was… but it is just interesting to me, and gives one metric that is an important one. Environment is Ubuntu 10.10 64bit on Core2Quad@2.66Ghz
Browser
Version
Sunspider result
Chromium
10.0.634.0
277.2ms +/- 1.8%
Midori
0.2.9
388.5ms +/- 1.0%
Epiphany
2.30.2
382.0ms +/- 2.4%
Opera
11.00
352.6ms +/- 1.8%
Firefox
3.6.14pre
1883.8ms +/- 2.6%
Swiftfox
3.6.12
1068.2ms +/- 2.3%
Firefox
4b10pre
283.6ms +/- 5.0%
All the browsers have advanced pretty well. Once Firefox 4 finally ships I’d say the playing field is pretty level for javascript performance in browsers on Linux. In real world usage I just don’t know that anyone would be able to distinguish a speed difference between the browsers when it comes to javascript. The next pieces browsers need to keep working on are HTML5 and CSS3 implementations, Hardware acceleration for 2D and 3D rendering, and additional browser features, like extensibility and ‘installable’ web apps. As a web developer I am excited about where things are going, and how the web as a platform is advancing. Native (meaning native to the OS/Desktop environment) applications aren’t gone yet, and probably won’t be for a long time yet, but they are needing a better and better excuse to not move into the browser. What would be the benefit of that you ask? The same that Java Swing, Adobe AIR and others have tried to achieve. OS independence. You write it for Firefox according to defined standards and it should work on all browsers that implement the same standards on all the OS’s. That is a big deal! I think a couple prime candidates for proof of concept browser apps would be all the little games normally included in Ubuntu. Mines, Solitaire, Tetris clones etc. and maybe the social networking client like Gwibber. If only I had more time to play… Update: I played some with Tetris in a browser idea