A new series of tests reveals that Chrome is still the leading browser on the market

Nov 16, 2012 07:35 GMT  ·  By

A new series of tests conducted by Cross Browser Handbook has revealed that Internet Explorer 10 is indeed faster than Firefox 16, Opera 12 and IE9, but not fast enough to beat Google Chrome 23.

Google’s very own browser remains the fastest app of its kind for the time being, while Internet Explorer 10 comes second with pretty impressive results.

Just as usual, the research involved three different tests: Sunspider, Octane and HTML5. Google Chrome snatched the leading position in the last two, while Internet Explorer 10 got the top spot in the first one.

“As indicated above Chrome is still the fastest and most up-to-date browser out there. Regarding JavaScript performance IE 10 is up to the standard but the lack of implemented HTML 5 features is disappointing,” Cross Browser Handbook wrote in the results.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 10 had previously been available on Windows 8 platforms exclusively, but given its “outstanding” performance, as the Redmondians have claimed so many times before, the company rolled out a special version aimed at the older Windows 7 OS.

This particular version is still in preview stage for the time being, so it’s not as fast as its Windows 8 sibling, but the final build is expected to be released either later this year or in early 2013.

Of course, Windows XP and Vista users can’t deploy IE10, but instead, the previous release, Internet Explorer 9, is available either as a standalone package or delivered via Windows Update.

“It has taken Microsoft 19 months to create the new Internet Explorer version. Unfortunately there are not that many improvements to show for this huge amount of development time. Still comparing to IE 9 Microsoft was able to close the gap between IE and the other modern browsers. If Microsoft can manage to switch to an rapid release cycle IE could get quite a good browser again,” the results read.