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Google Claims Android Is Now Faster Than iPhone for Web Browsing

I prefer to use Safari but occasionally use Chrome too. Good to see this. Maybe in the future Safari will catch up.
 
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neuropsychguy said:
It's great to see any device platform make improvements in web browsing speeds.

I'm not sure where they are getting those numbers. I just did a Speedometer 3.1 test in Firefox on an M4 Mac Mini and got a 38.1 and Safari on the same computer was a 37.1 (confidence intervals overlapped between Firefox and Safari so it's unlikely the results were statistically different). I'm not sure if it matters, but that was using a wired 2 gbps internet connection. I do have ad blocking though.

Safari on my iPhone 16 Pro was only 26.7 with Speedometer 3.1.

Again, what are the test conditions and devices?
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Similar results here...and the info says it is an average of all tests in milliseconds.

So a higher number in Speedometer = WORSE performance.

On my M4 Max Studio:
  • Safari (26.4) = 31.3ms
  • MS Edge (v146.0.3856) = 41.7ms
  • Firefox (v149.0) = 22.5ms
  • Vivaldi (v7.9.3970) = 34.0ms
  • Waterfox (6.6.10) = 33.9ms
  • Brave (1.88.136) = 32.0ms

For comparison, on my iPad Pro M4:
  • Safari = 32.9ms
  • DuckDuckGo = 33.9ms
Here's a link to the LoadLine 2 WebAPI they've said they used, but it doesn't look like there's a user-friendly web-version like the Speedometer 3.1.
 
thelion7 said:
I agree, safari is good enough for my needs but I do feel like it’s lost its way a bit.

I remember every year Apple saying safari can load this and that x amount faster just through optimisation.

Honestly I don’t think it’s gotten any worse day to day outside of Apples slip is software quality but hopefully iOS and Mac OS 27 can deliver the Snow Leopard like overall we’ve needed for years.

Forget adding random new features, just deliver on what’s delayed and optimise and improve reliability on what already exists.
Click to expand...
Those were the years where they had competent software engineers.. nowadays they prioritise diversity nonsense over competence and the results are quite clear.. on a steep downward slope
 
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Ad Revenue Stats Please?
Google=
Safari=
Other=
Fastest to you and your data?
One who makes the most money wins.
And mine is bigger!
who CARES!
 
"In charts published by Google, three unnamed Android devices earned higher Speedometer 3.1 scores than an unnamed "competing mobile phone platform," which is likely iOS."

So, Chrome is faster when run on mystery phones when compared another mystery phone. This is total crap and utterly meaningless. It's like saying Android is 25% faster. Faster than what? A donut?

I've purged Chrome from my life because I don't trust Google.
 
Keymaster said:
So, Google is touting that Chrome is faster using a benchmark test developed by Google to test Chrome, and comparing it to an unknown competing operating system running and unknown OS version, unknown browser version, and unknown hardware. Is it comparing Chrome on that hardware and OS, or a different browser as well? What else was running on the other phone?

This is a laughable comparison...I can easily show that Safari is faster than Chrome if I use a five year old Android phone, but that's not really relevant if you want to know what's actually going on. If you want to compare things properly you have to lay out all of the test parameters for evaluation, without that it's just as valid as if you made up numbers. If Google really did this then they should have included all of the information of how it was done and allow others to replicate the test, if that's possible...their benchmark software just might run slower on iOS, making the whole comparison even more invalid.

I don't understand why companies do this kind of thing, it just makes me not trust anything they have to say about their products when they do things like this that appear to be obvious lies.
Click to expand...
Absolutely spot on.
 
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tyc0746 said:
Similar results here...and the info says it is an average of all tests in milliseconds.

So a higher number in Speedometer = WORSE performance.
Click to expand...
Higher is better in Speedometer. They compile the results into a composite score with higher indicating better performance.

It's hard with it to really compare between systems without holding all other things constant about the systems.

Edit: After closing all other running applications and using a fresh Safari session, I was averaging about 38 on my M4 Mini, which was only slightly higher than my previous trials.

I'm not sure what that particular benchmark really means and how Google got their results. I'm skeptical without reproducible methods.
 
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now i see it said:
Everyone knows that using an iPhone on the internet is a horrible experience for the most part. There are some exceptions of course- but it definitely sucks. Always has.
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How so? It’s been my main means of browsing the internet for about 10 years now. I only browse on my Mac when I’m working i.e. 9-5, Mon-Fri, and I don’t browse on iPad at all. It works just fine.
 
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Unregistered 4U said:
Well, considering how that’s currently a thing in the EU and no browser company has released a browser without the WebKit render engine, it would have zero effect.
Click to expand...

Mozilla has been pretty clear that the reason they don't have one is that it's too much work to have one browser for the EU, and one for everywhere else, mainly the US.

If iOS opened it everywhere, equally, we would have a better idea.
 
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neuropsychguy said:
It's great to see any device platform make improvements in web browsing speeds.

I'm not sure where they are getting those numbers. I just did a Speedometer 3.1 test in Firefox on an M4 Mac Mini and got a 38.1 and Safari on the same computer was a 37.1 (confidence intervals overlapped between Firefox and Safari so it's unlikely the results were statistically different). I'm not sure if it matters, but that was using a wired 2 gbps internet connection. I do have ad blocking though.

Safari on my iPhone 16 Pro was only 26.7 with Speedometer 3.1.

Again, what are the test conditions and devices?
Click to expand...
Maybe they have the "all else being equal" (ceteris paribus) clause in there somewhere, "corrected for processor speed, the android browser really is faster!" your iPhone 16 pro has a slow browser but compensates for it with its massively faster SoC or some such reasoning
 
alchemistmuffin said:
Yeah. That won’t cut it come in fall. iOS 27 is rumored to have new Safari that is much faster thanks to how much optimization they did on iOS, presumably making it fastest browser on mobile.

So it’ll be short lived victory for Google because technically they are already behind on WebKit.
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That is good, because I often get the impression Pixel devices seems at least as fast as iPhones (if not even faster/snappier?) despite them having slower chips on paper. Or what do you think?
 
dba415 said:
okay? you can get android phones that have better battery than the iphone
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The joke is that Chrome famously destroys battery life on MacOS (or at least used to destroy - I haven’t used Chrome in years so no idea if it’s still true).
 
Wild...i'm on my macbook and as soon as i opened this thread my mbp stopped a "GoogleUpdater" process. **** google.
 
Funny how on Mac rumors if Apple adds a 0.007% speed improvement to whatever app, they are amazing and so well optimised and so on, if another company achieves something along the same lines, it’s not noticeable by the end user.
 
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star-affinity said:
That is good, because I often get the impression Pixel devices seems at least as fast as iPhones (if not even faster/snappier?) despite them having slower chips on paper. Or what do you think?
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I have a Pixel 10. Your impression lines up with my experience. Android on it is just as snappy as iOS 26 on my 16 Pro. However, it’s also just as snappy as iOS 26 on my child’s 13 Mini. That has no lag or clear slowdowns.

In other words any premium modern phone and iOS or Android UI is plenty snappy. I had a lower midrange Samsung phone before the Pixel 10 though that was laggy.
 
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