When you run the test in various web browsers, you will notice that both Google Chrome and the Opera web browser score a perfect 100/100 score in the test, while the Firefox web browser seems to be stuck with a score of 97/100 for some time now. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer scores 95/100.

Many Internet users argue now that Firefox is less web standards compliant than Opera and Chrome. That’s true if you only look at the test results of the Acid3 test, and not beyond.

Mozilla engineer Boris Zbarsky some time ago commented on the missing three points. He mentioned that they test the SVG Fonts support of the web browser which Mozilla does not support because “it gives no benefits to authors or users over the existing downloadable font support”.

Robert O’Callahan has this to add:

SVG Fonts — at least the subset implemented in Opera and Webkit — don’t offer anything significant over downloadable Opentype (or WOFF) fonts … except the last three points of the Acid3 test :-(. And people keep asking for it “because it’s in SVG 1.1″. But I don’t think those are good enough reasons on their own to make SVG Fonts an essential part of the Web platform.

SVG Fonts and WebSQLDatabase would actually be very easy for us to implement. SQLite is already embedded in Firefox and even exposed to non-Web Javascript. The SVG Fonts subset implemented by Opera and Webkit is very simple

Mozilla’s main motivation not to add support for SVG Fonts, and subsequently fall three points short in the Acid3 test are the better alternatives that they have added to the web browser instead.

Microsoft is actually also not supporting SVG Fonts which explains 3 of the 5 missing points in the browser’s Acid3 test.

Alex Limi finally, Firefox UX Lead at Mozilla points out that “he woff font standard is more appropriate, works in more browsers, and is a better way to handle custom font support in browsers”. He continues by saying that the Acid3 standard was useful at the time it was first published but not anymore, considering that all major browsers support the majority of features.

Time for a now Internet browser benchmark comparison. All benchmarks are run on a 64-bit Windows 7 Professional PC with an Intel Core i7 860 Ghz cpu, 8 Gigabytes of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 display adapter.

The following browsers have been included in the benchmark comparison:

• Firefox 3.6.15
• Firefox 4 RC
• Google Chrome 11.0.696.12 Dev
• Google Chrome 12.0.705.0 Canary
• Opera 11.01
• Opera 11.10 Beta
• Internet Explorer 9
• Safari 5.0.4

The following benchmarks have been utilized:

• HTML5 Test
• Acid 3 Test
• Sunspider JavaScript Benchmark
• Fish IE Tank

Results

Both Google Chrome versions are leading the HTML5 test. They are the only browser that reach a score higher than 300 on the test. Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 3.6.15 bring up the rear with scores below 200 points.

The three browsers Safari, Google Chrome 12 and Opera 11.10 Beta manage to score 100 out of 100 points in the Acid 3 test. The remaining browsers all score more than 90 points, with Firefox 3.6.15 bringing up the rear with 94 points. It is a little surprising that the current Dev version of Google Chrome scores 96 points.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 scores the best result in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. It took the browser 196.9 ms to complete the benchmark. Firefox 4 RC, Google Chrome and the Opera browsers all completed the benchmark in less than 235 milliseconds. Only Apple’s Safari with more than 300ms and Firefox 3.6.15 with more than 650ms scored considerably worse in the benchmark.

The last benchmark, Microsoft’s IE Fishtank, benefits highly from hardware acceleration. All browsers with hardware acceleration ran the demonstration in 35 fps or more, with Internet Explorer 9 reaching the maximum of 60 fps.

Firefox 3, Opera 11 and Safari do not utilize hardware acceleration yet which explains the mediocre score of 2 respectively 3 fps in the benchmark. Opera Software did however release a special build of the browser not long ago that supports hardware acceleration. The test ran in 60fps in that version of the Opera web browser (see Opera Hardware Acceleration Demo Is Blazingly Fast).

And here are all results in one chart. Red values indicate the lowest test result, green the highest.

Click on the screenshot to see it in its original size.

Closing Words

Benchmarks are not everything, especially since all companies and developers have improved the speed and web standards support of their browsers significantly. Some of the benchmarks may increase in importance over time, the HTML5 benchmark for instance or the Fish Tank demo that benefits from hardware acceleration. They become more relevant when websites start implementing technologies on their websites that make use of those features.

Internet Explorer 9 and Google Chrome have the best scores in two of the four different benchmarks. The browser with the worst scoring is Firefox 3.6.15 which will soon be replaced on many systems with the upcoming Firefox 4 which scored significantly better in most benchmarks.

All browsers have improved significantly when looking back at the test results of the benchmarking test in 2008. Both Google Chrome and Firefox were the two only browsers that completed the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark in less than 1000ms. That’s almost five times as much as today’s browsers need.

The browsers were tested running the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, Kane’s Web Browser Javascript Benchmark and the Acid 3 test. Feel free to run the tests with your web browsers but note that results will vary as the computer’s hardware influences the test on different systems.

The only way to compare results is by running the tests on the same computer system using the same environment. The first two tests are testing the JavaScript engine of the web browser while the Acid3 test is a web standards test.

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark (Less is better, time in ms)

Kane’s Web Browser Javascript Benchmark (Less is better, time in ms)

Acid 3 Test (more is better, max is 100)

All values:

Google Chrome managed to beat the competition in both Javascript tests. Opera 10 Alpha on the other hand was the only browser that scored a perfect score in the Acid 3 web standards test.

Internet Explorer 7 was last in all three tests. Microsoft has made advancements in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 but is still way behind in comparison to the other web browsers.

Who cares which browser was able to pass the test as the first browser ever ? Who actually knows what the Acid 3 test does and what it means if a browser passes it ? Passing that test does not mean that the browser is able to display all websites correctly. Far from that. All that it means is that the browser is able to pass this test, nothing more, nothing less.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice that the browser developers are making an effort to pass the test but guys, it’s just a test. The developers have a right to be proud of it but the users ? If you want to test your browser just visit the official Acid 3 website.

Update: The majority of modern browsers now pass the recently modified Acid3 test. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Google’s Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox and Opera all pass the Acid3 test with a perfect score.

Here is Opera’s Acid3 test result as of today. The test has been run with Opera 11.60.

The Acid3 test in its current form is no longer a distinguishing factor. It basically has been replaced by other tests, for instance the HTMl5 test, various JavaScript and general browser benchmarks.

Considering that HTML5 is not that widely used on today’s Internet, it is fair to say that the new browser test tells users more about a browser’s future compatibility than current one.