Safari To Get JavaScript Speed Enhancements

[elppa]

I have JavaScript turned off in Safari. Webpages take much, much less time loading now. I'm learning to live without it entirely.

This is not the best idea, although they really shouldn't some sites rely on them. If you are writing a .NET web application and use the built in components then javascript is hard to avoid.

Oh, how about Flash speed and stability first. That would be nice. The web seems to be seeing flash as the future, yet when my PowerBook visits a site with even a flash ad on it, I feel as if my machine is about to take off and leave my lap.

Apple is trying to eliminate proprietary standards from the web i.e. flash, silverlight which means the web stays open, interoperable and not controlled by any one vendor.

It's quite a noble effort and some of the stuff you can do with CSS in webkit (which will get rolled into standards) can rival some flash stuff (annimation, masks, vector graphics etc.). Apple's website is flash free, yet still has interactivity.

That said I doubt they appreciate the flash experience is bad on the Mac, but this as Arn correctly points out, this is Adobe's problem to solve and they probably won't get much help from Cupertino.

I did some speed tests using the latest webkit (whcih includes the new squirrelfish stuff) and a bunch of other browsers. I posted the results at my blog for anyone who is interested:

http://gthing.net/new-javascript-engine-in-webkit-nerd-stuff/

The bottom line is that it is almost twice as fast as Safari, and not even in the same ballpark as firefox 2, 3 beta, internet explorer, etc. This thing is smoking!

Smokin'. Thanks for the stats, that's pretty interesting. Bookmarked.

 

[Tsurisuto]

Oh, how about Flash speed and stability first. That would be nice. The web seems to be seeing flash as the future, yet when my PowerBook visits a site with even a flash ad on it, I feel as if my machine is about to take off and leave my lap.

I have been using the Flash Player 10 beta since it's release, and I have to say that it is a GREAT improvement over the current Flash Player.

 

[abrooks]

I have been using the Flash Player 10 beta since it's release, and I have to say that it is a GREAT improvement over the current Flash Player.

Except the majority of websites now claim that I don't have Flash installed at all and it still takes up 60-70% CPU to play a YouTube video.

 

[dernhelm]

SquirrelFish promises 1.6 times faster JavaScript interpreting as compared to Webkit/Safari 3.1. This is accomplished by using "a register-based, direct-threaded, high-level bytecode engine" which aims to eliminate the overhead associated with traditional syntax tree walking interpreters like the one currently used in Safari 3.1.x.

register based, direct threaded... Sounds like Intel only. Probably hit GA around the same time as 10.6?

 

[Compile 'em all]

Please merge with https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/493314/ me reported it first

 

[gzfelix]

Come on, please solve Safari's memory leak problems first..

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

The faster they can make Safari the better. I may even switch from Firefox if things continue.

 

[Shadow]

Except the majority of websites now claim that I don't have Flash installed at all and it still takes up 60-70% CPU to play a YouTube video.

Absolutely. That was why I downgraded to 9 again.

Ontopic: I tried the latest nightly and I only get 99 in the Acid3 test. Can anyone verify that or is it just me?

 

[72930]

Absolutely. That was why I downgraded to 9 again.

Ontopic: I tried the latest nightly and I only get 99 in the Acid3 test. Can anyone verify that or is it just me?

I'm getting 100, it may be a plug-in you have. Try resetting Safari from the Safari menu item

 

[angelwatt]

Most visibly, it will speed up the loading and processing of interactive web sites and web applications.

You can't be serious. So you guys apparently don't ever use javascript-based/AJAX web applications. It seems as if nearly every popular web application on the internet uses AJAX/Javascript in some form. Google/MSN Maps? Gmail? Google Reader? Google Docs? Meebo?

I'm a web developer, and if a site is designed correctly it won't require JavaScript to be enabled to be used. You may not have the same experience, but the functionality should still be there (some exceptions exist of course). Many sites have to provide non-JavaScript capabilities to meet accessibility requirements such as Section 508. I use Firefox with the NoScript extension so I can disable JavaScript except for certain sites, and I notice a dramatic difference in load speeds. So many sites have a craptacular amount of JavaScript they try to load, which does nothing.

More on topic, speeding up JavaScript is nice, but I find the biggest slowdowns come from browser-to-server communications like "real" AJAX. I've never had JavaScript be anything but fast so this news doesn't mean much too me.

 

[salohcin]

you resisted it with all your might, didn't you....


the real answer, of course, is: it will make Safari snappier™

And Leon Larrrrger.

 

[Fiveos22]

SquirrelFish, eh? I can't wait to go hunting for one of those. I'll get it stuffed and hang it between my Jackalope and FurFish.

 

[shen]

if they keep this up...

in another seven or eight versions javascript will be usable!

 

[chickenninja]

"squirrelfish" .... that is the most beautiful name for a piece of software i have ever heard. its like fireworks

 

[aforty]

I know, just a general statement. As stated by somebody else, I just have Javascript disabled. Matter of fact, it appears to be used so little that I completely forgot I disabled it.

What sites do you visit?

Web 2.0 = javascript + spinners.

 

[bytethese]

Snappier Safari? You don't say!

 

[clevin]

Apple is trying to eliminate proprietary standards from the web i.e. flash, silverlight which means the web stays open, interoperable and not controlled by any one vendor.

I don't believe so, first flash and silverlight are not web-standards, silverlight is not even a practical using standard since not many ppl use it after all.

Also, apple can first open its QuickTime, if they really want to fully open the web.

Its naive thinking to portray apple as "holier than others", Apple isn't trying to do anything that doesn't benefit itself.

To talk about open to others, last time I checked, SUN opened JAVA, Adobe started Open Screen Project to gradually open flash. M$ tried and opened up partially the office format.

What did apple open? again?

 

[chameleon]

This is very interesting.

I'd be curious to see how this compares to the latest build of Firefox 3, which is supposed to be very fast too.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

This is very interesting.

I'd be curious to see how this compares to the latest build of Firefox 3, which is supposed to be very fast too.

Did you look at the link sam-i-am posted? (Repeated here for brevity.) It shows that Firefox 3 RC1 isn't even close to matching SquirrelFish in JavaScript performance.

 

[clevin]

Did you look at the link sam-i-am posted? (Repeated here for brevity.) It shows that Firefox 3 RC1 isn't even close to matching SquirrelFish in JavaScript performance.

it is accepted by all teams that sunspider is currently most fair javascript speed test. There is a reason for that since there are many ways you can generate any numbers you want....

The competition should be between SquirrelFish and Tarmarin+SpiderMonkey 2. Which is quite pre-mature since Mozilla is still focusing on getting Firefox 3 out of the door. and SquirrelFish has just been announced.

Firefox 3 will be compared with other shipping browsers, and we can wait for next gen of browsers before making other comparisons.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

it is accepted by all teams that sunspider is currently most fair javascript speed test. There is a reason for that since there are many ways you can generate any numbers you want....

The competition should be between SquirrelFish and Tarmarin+SpiderMonkey 2. Which is quite pre-mature since Mozilla is still focusing on getting Firefox 3 out of the door. and SquirrelFish has just been announced.

Firefox 3 will be compared with other shipping browsers, and we can wait for next gen of browsers before making other comparisons.

You make a very valid point. I didn't know Tarmarin+SpiderMonkey 2 existed - it's good to know that the Firefox team is working on getting their JavaScript interpreter to perform better.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple releases Safari 3.2 sooner rather than later. It probably won't include SquirrelFish, but that's okay - SquirrelFish is a feature good enough to put in Safari 4

 

[ChrisA]

i don't exactly know how "slow" javascript has ever been... seems to have always been as instant as a site loading.

Yes it's fast on a multi-ghz 64 bit Intel processor. But now Apple is putting Safari on the iPhone. The little CPU inside the iPhone is not so fast

 

[TCM333]

I am not really technical and stuff. What exactly will this do for the user?

it will make Safari snappier!!!

 

[twoodcc]

well the more speed, the better

 

[shawnce]

register based, direct threaded... Sounds like Intel only. Probably hit GA around the same time as 10.6?

Go download the nightly and you will find it works just fine on PowerPC systems.