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Google's Chrome Browser Gets 'Highest Score Ever' on Speedometer Performance Test

woolypants said:
Honest question for the experts:

Why is browsing the web today still laggy and slow like it was 20 years ago?

e.g. I visit a page, then visit another page on the same site, and then click the back button. It takes maybe 2-3 seconds for that previous page to load again. Until that point, the page is frozen. I can't scroll.

What's going on there? Why is it so slow? Even just requesting the complete page afresh would be quicker. A cache look-up can't be that slow on a modern computer. What's happening in those 2-3 seconds? And why can't web browser developers get rid of it?
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because everything has to be an "app" nowadays so instead of a pre-rendered page with cached assets it has to re-download lots of stuff and then re-render the whole page... 99% of the web could be mostly static page sprinkled with a tiny amount of dynamic JS but no... wwbdevs think they are creating the Next Facebook and the page has to be complete app even it if only display static text and images... 🤦‍♂️
 
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falainber said:
Yes, unless you believe that slower web browsing is better.
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Actually I do. Slowing down enough to read an entire page or article, rather than flipping from site to site and only looking at headlines, like my father would flip channels on the TV remote? Yeah, slower is better.
 
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I use Safari as well, but Google Chrome is the best browser for searching. Its performance and quality of search results are much better.
 
Apple needs to catch up…. I remember when Chrome was the slowest browser…. Cmon Apple 🍎 Speed Up!!

On a complete side note should software be getting faster and more stable with AI?

With AI writing optimized code at the system level for speed and function- shouldn’t we be seeing a jump in performance and the shrinking of the OS since it’s been redesigned?
 
maxdefcon said:
Do you have a source? I seen a post from late 2024 where Chrome did a little better than Safari. Not a fan boy and use Firefox most of the time myself.

Everyone says Chrome devastates Mac battery life, but does it? I tested for 36 hours to find out.

Long time Birchtree readers know I love data, and love data even more when I can throw it into a graph. I’m also a fan of testing things that everyone generally agrees are true, but no one seems to have any data to back up. That brings us to
birchtree.me birchtree.me

Edit: I think Chrome, Safari, and Firefox have improved in the battery life area that most wouldn't notice a difference.
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Do you use chrome on your iPhone and never notice the battery drains faster than most apps?
 
I don't care. Chrome isn't even installed on my Mac. I use DDG and a Pie Hole. (Sorry MR.)
 
DHagan4755 said:
But it consumes energy like a drunken sailor compared to Safari.
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I switched to Safari from Chrome a couple of weeks ago because of Google's plans to remove support for uBlock Origin (using Wipr2 in Safari now instead). With the same daily workflow, I now have to charge my M2 MacBook Pro twice a day instead of once. With Safari, I also have to refresh pages quite often because they don't load correctly, which I never had in Chrome. No idea where all praise for Safari being energy/RAM efficient and being super fast is based on.
 
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I'm not using Chrome for anything but one extension that doesn't work in Safari. I will no longer need it as of the end of the month, so Chrome gets the heave-ho on July 1st. I couldn't care less about Chrome's ability to go slightly faster than Safari temporarily. Google is almost as bad as the criminal enterprise Meta.
 
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It is still a Google product designed to capture your personal data and the least privacy friendly of the most popular browsers.
 
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maxdefcon said:
Do you have a source? I seen a post from late 2024 where Chrome did a little better than Safari. Not a fan boy and use Firefox most of the time myself.

Everyone says Chrome devastates Mac battery life, but does it? I tested for 36 hours to find out.

Long time Birchtree readers know I love data, and love data even more when I can throw it into a graph. I’m also a fan of testing things that everyone generally agrees are true, but no one seems to have any data to back up. That brings us to
birchtree.me birchtree.me

Edit: I think Chrome, Safari, and Firefox have improved in the battery life area that most wouldn't notice a difference.
Click to expand...

People dont test and simply trust whatever media have been feeding them. It was true Chrome wasn't exactly battery efficiency in late 201x to 2020. They were prioritising performance over energy. But they have since made lot of improvement from memory to efficiency to the point Chrome / Blink is actually a better browsing engine in most cases.

Firefox still wins if you do lots of tabs. ( Hundreds to Thousands )
 
Thank you Google, this is why I love Chrome! The innovation never stops!

Just think...
  • Fewer users will give up on bloated web sites!
  • Website owners will be able inject more ad services ... and with only a semi-major decrease in performance!
  • Decreased growth curve for the popular ad blockers!
  • SEO results will improve!
 
woolypants said:
Why is browsing the web today still laggy and slow like it was 20 years ago?
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Because financially motivated web sites pull in an ever-increasing number of external dependencies, including but certainly not limited to advertising and tracking.

There is a significant security, reliability, performance, privacy, and resource utilization penalty for doing so, but speed-to-develop and ad revenue are worth more to the executives.

Happily, I work in an industry where all this is very much shunned. Most are not so lucky.
 
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Six0Four said:
I try Safari and Firefox like every year but I still keep coming back to Chrome. Just works 99% perfect.

Safari on iPad tho since extensions will work.
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I do the same. Safari is just so bad in so many places (on Mac).

I recently made the switch from Chrome to FireFox yet again and will be sticking with FireFox for now.

Chrome is starting to foook around with too much stuff and breaking it. They killed off the autoplay extension I used, so now videos auto play. They tried to kill off the reader mode extension I was using as well but it still kind of works. In Google Meet, I get black video for people in the meetings unless I click on them and that is because the manifest 3 Ublock extension, which does not work as well as Ublock Orgin, is messing something up.

With Firefox all of this works, including Ublock Orgin. The problem is FireFox has probably got a shelf life now, exspecially if Google has to stop giving them money.
 
Sheepish-Lord said:
Any browser other than Safari stutters when scrolling, not sure how you all deal with it.
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I guess I just can't see this? I have this site open to this very page in both Safari and Firefox. I use a logitech MX whatever and when scrolling with the wheel I do not see any difference?????

Safari is just so bad. It has more problems with various websites, especially government sites. You can't theme it in any way really. The bookmarking features/management is just horrible compared to any other browser.
 
TheMacDaddy1 said:
Brave seems like some odd cult member browser, with all of its Crypto mining etc stuff.
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Exactly, give me Brave without the weird wallet, crypto junk, rewards, etc…just seems sketchy.

Safari is just really hard to beat due to the ecosystem syncing and I don’t want to create accounts for just a browser. Maybe once iOS allows for actual browser support and not reskinned Safari versions it will open up more options.
 
steve333 said:
I actually downloaded it since Facebook just not work well with Safari and Firefox.
Chrome was no better. I dumped it immediately
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Facebook is your problem
Sophytaylor6@ said:
I use Safari as well, but Google Chrome is the best browser for searching. Its performance and quality of search results are much better.
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Are you saying you get different results for a google search based on the browser? That's the first time I've heard that. I just ran five searches on four different browsers and got the same result in every instance on each browser.
 
I'm never going back to Chrome. I used to like Brave, but it's built in ad blocker kept triggering too many "please disable Ad Blocker" pop up.

I use Firefox now mainly due to having PDF editing feature built in. I have to fill out PDF form a lot--everything from IRS forms, to fuel tax forms, to insurance forms to employee benefits form. The built in PDF editing has saved me from having to download PDF, open in Acrobat, edit, save PDF again. Now it's open PDF from the website, edit and save.
 
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