Opera hits speed peak
Last week it was Chrome. This week it is Opera. The ongoing battle among web browsers to be labelled “the world’s fastest” is a constant game of leapfrog. And right now it is Opera 10.5 that is laying claim to that title, even though the browser is still in beta.
According to tests run by ComputerWorld using the SunSpider Javascript testing tool, Opera’s latest browser was nearly 15% faster than Safari on Windows, 20% faster than Google’s Chrome, previously the two top spot holders. Opera 10.5 was also twice as fast as Firefox 3.6 and more than eight times faster than its own Opera 10.10 browser, the current stable version. Internet Explorer 8 was significantly outpaced by the speedy Opera release.
In the past Opera has consistently been an also-ran in speed tests, rarely warranting notice. But now Opera has a new Javascript engine and the changes are showing. The engine, called Carakan, also includes a built-in vector graphics library, called Vega, which handles all graphics rendering.
To date Opera has used its Futhark javascript engine but has never fully realised its potential. With an increasing focus on script-intensive web applications most browser makers have spent considerable time refining their Javascript engines. Safari’s Nitro engine, introduced in version 4.0, gave that browser a considerable speed boost making it one of the fastest browsers available. Google’s Chrome also has its engine: V8.
Until now the V8 engine pushed the upper limits of browser rendering speeds winning it lots of support. Firefox’s Tracemonkey engine, introduced in the early 3.x series, has also consistently kept the browser in the top spots as far as speed goes.
Opera 10.5 is currently only available in beta for Windows. Alpha versions of 10.5 for Linux and Mac OS X are available from the Opera website.
Some of the changes included in Opera 10.5 include a slimmed down interface with less menu clutter, support for some of Windows 7’s features such as Aero Peek, an address bar that includes history and bookmark previews, and a per-tab privacy switch. There is also support for some of the HTML 5 specifications, including native video. The beta version doesn’t yet include geolocation or downloadable font support but is expected to in its final release.
Opera Internet browser << Good enough to beat Firefox/Chrome?
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