Apple’s browser does not measure up

Jun 8, 2010 14:35 GMT  ·  By

The very same day that Apple released the latest version of its WebKit-based browser, Microsoft produced a comparison with the next iteration of Internet Explorer, which is still early in the development process. And although Safari 5 is applauded by Apple as the world’s fastest and most innovative web browser, the RTM release offered to the public yesterday doesn’t really measure up to Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 2.

The Redmond company has put together the video embedded at the bottom of this screen, comparing IE9 Platform Preview 2 and Safari 5 in relation to tests available via the IE Test Drive website. The first test ran is Flying Images, which is designed to take advantage of hardware acceleration capabilities, as well as background compiled JavaScript. While IE9 deals with no problem with the test, offering even over 60 frames per second, Safari 5 stumbles and can barely reach 10 FPS, going as low as 1 FPS.

“Since the release of the first Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview at MIX back in March and the second in May, we’ve shown a lot of demos of IE9 with other browsers. Today, Apple announced and released Safari 5. We figured we would show IE9 and Safari 5 together running some of the demos from the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive website. Watch the Frames Per Second (FPS) Counter,” Brandon LeBlanc, Windows communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team, explains.

The second test is Flickr Explorer, and, again, Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 2 beats Safari 5 in terms of the performance and user experience. This in the context in which Apple claims that Safari 5 also offers hardware acceleration on Windows.

“Hardware Acceleration for Windows - Tap into the graphics processing power of your PC while browsing the web. Safari 5 adds hardware acceleration support for Windows, so rich media and interactive graphics execute smoothly and speedily in the browser,” an excerpt from Apple’s description of Safari 5 reads.

Interested in reading about how Firefox 4.0 Alpha and Chrome 5 Beta stack up against IE9 Preview 2 when it comes down to hardware acceleration? Then read this.

Google Chrome 5.0.375.70 Beta is available for download here.

The Alpha previews of Firefox 4.0 (Firefox-3.7a5pre) are available for download
here.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 2 Build 1.9.7766.6000 is available for download
here.

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@MariusOiaga.

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