I found this link and tried my 3 browsers: Iron 3.0189, FF3.51 and K-Meleon 1.53. I didn't try IE6 because I hate it and don't use it.
http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper/results.action?key=1tki
Iron got the first place: second- Firefox -1/2 Iron scors and third place (unfortunately)-K-meleon: 1/5 Iron scors only. K-Meleon uses FF 2.0 agent.
Try it yoursef.
I am very disappointed.

Please look at last comparision chart.

http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper/results.action?key=1tki

Race proceeds...

This compares only the javascript speed.
Javascript is not everything, personally I use it rarely,
and enable it only, if a website does not work at all
without it, or if I need a certain function that I
want on a particular website.
The javascript speed also depends on the power of your
computer.
I also presume, that my variations KM-F354 and KM-SM2pre, that
use Gecko 1.9.1.x would be very close to Firefox 3.5 series
and the new Seamonkey 2.0 , because they use already the
same Gecko engine.
If you should try these variations, set the user agent to
Firefox or Seamonkey in the menu tools/user agent, or else the
benchmark might not even work, because it does not yet
know K-Meleon with Gecko 1.9 .

Fred

fprget about benchmarking and acidtests. benchmarking is all about js speed.. there are more things to consider when it comes to real browsing.

when km updates to the next trunk(1.9+), it will be at par with ff3.0 if not slightly better.. but js speed means nothing when your browser has memory leaks or hogging ram. what really matters is how responsive your browser is which is very well demonstrated in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXgmzO-nQKs&feature=related

js speed is important ofcourse with many sites cloud computing but overall feel, responsiveness, and resource management are what really makes a browsing session enjoyable and that what makes browsers like opera and km better choices.

I tried Fred's variations F353 and F354 with User Agent as Firefox 3.5.
You can see these results in comparision chart. Speed test for F354 was a little worse than for F353 (-20 scors) but it may be a fluctuation of measurement.
@Fred.
The biggest difference depending on computer power is only for Google Chrome browser and browsers using Webkit engine. For browsers on Gecko and Trident engines this difference is insignificant. Maybe I am wrong.
All the best.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2009 04:04AM by oldnavy.

K-Meleon with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.23) Gecko/20091019 = 327 on my PC

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.24pre) Gecko/20090826 BonEcho/2.0.0.22pre (.NET CLR 4.0.20506) = 290 on my PC

Not exactly the same engine - but close enough.

The normal result I found up to recently was slightly closer to 5%+ in favour of K-Meleon. Reason I guess: Firefox has to manipulate its XUL (using JS!) and moves a bigger GRE including mail dll (!) - so he'll always loose some.

For a real competition between a K-Meleon that uses 1.9.x and FF, You'd have to build a modular (non static) GRE, then kill mail components & several MB chrome etc. files. That gives K-Meleon an extra edge (role play language?). It would be probably the same gap of 5%+n.

Actually K-Meleon could have the same options for compilation as Pale Moon except perhaps SS2. So Pale Moons specs +/- SS2 & the normal 5%+? can be achieved in theory.

Chrome's V8 is IMHO by far the fastest JS engine currently. On all modern PCs it can outperform the other JS engines. It is IMHO almost a must on JS heavy pages, if You go there a lot.


For older PC with e.g. with limited RAM to use - You'd probably choose K-Meleon or Opera, depending on surfing habits etc. AFAIK they have an edge on these systems.

Thank you, Guenter, for your detail explanation. You pushed my old brains to think better.
I have a quite old machine with Prescott 3.2 Ghz (overclocked to 3.6), 3 GB memory and Windows XP SP2. Results for FF3.5.5, SRware Iron (ver. 3 and 4), Minefield 3.7, KM 1.53(as FF2.0) and Fred's KmFF354(as FF 3.5) were obtained on this rig.
My default browser is FF 3.5.5 ( for banking, etc...), K-Meleon 1.5.3 for browsing and SRware Iron 3.0.197 for my grandson online game using SandboxIE. These browsers cover all of my needs now.

Regards

Quote
oldnavy
I have a quite old machine with Prescott 3.2 Ghz (overclocked to 3.6), 3 GB memory and Windows XP SP2.

Sounds like a fast system - on XP

Chrome/Iron will be fast on that for JS Games and all that uses js heavily.

Quote
Fred
This compares only the javascript speed.
Javascript is not everything, personally I use it rarely,
and enable it only, if a website does not work at all
without it, or if I need a certain function that I
want on a particular website.
The javascript speed also depends on the power of your
computer.
Fred

I agree. I have Javascript disabled, (using KMLite 1.1.2), and only enable it if a website won't load. Currently I only have to enable Javascript for my online banking site, and any site where I want to load flash. (Not many flash sites worth loading! LoL!) Okay, maybe the odd Youtube video.

I have tested the benchmark of some browsers on Peacekeeper .
System : Linux with Wine , not installed, working completely in ram.
I have given Firefox 3.5.5 Windows (in Linux with wine) 100% as the base value.
Note that this tests only the speed of Javascript, other capabilities are
as least as important, and there K-Meleon is a lighter browser,

Firefox Windows 3.5.5 in Linux with Wine : 100 % (using 1.9.1)
Firefox Windows 3.7.1 alpha in Linux with Wine : 132 % (Minefield, using 1.9.3)
K-Meleon-F-371-alpha in Linux with wine : 139 % (personal test version using 1.9.3)
K-Meleon-F-354 in Linux with wine : 94 % (using 1.9.1)
K-Meleon-SM2pre in Linux with wine : 85 % (using 1.9.1)

Native Linux versions to compare :
Firefox Linux 3.5.5 : 117 % (using 1.9.1)
Firefox Linux 3.0.14 : 89 % (using 1.8)

The results may be different on other computers, because they depend on the computer power.
That is the reason why I give no absolute values, but only relative percentages.
Chrome and its clean relative Iron are probably the fastest regarding javascript.
Iron for Linux works only with at least libc2.8 installed, that means for example
that it will not work yet in the long time supported Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy .

Fred

those results are similar to my previous gre 1.9.x km testing, although i didn't use a benchmarking website but km generally felt faster than the equivalent ff.. but what i found to be very interesting besides js speed is how km managed memory/cpu cycles with 1.9 which was much better than ff even though km was a home-built completely buggy version using an alpha 1.6 binary with a half-finished chrome

http://kmext.sourceforge.net/tests/testresults1.htm