Google Chrome vs. Apple Safari [Beta4]
Posted at 2:12pm EST on 02/25/2009
Google Chrome was launched in September of 2008. To date, Google Chrome is still not yet available for OS X or Linux version of the browser. Google continues to tell everyone “we are working on it,” yet still offers no product for these two operating systems.
Apple wanted to take advantage of Google’s sluggish OS X release time and they decided to release an updated version of their own browser, sporting a radically faster Javascript engine. The new engine is named “Nitro.”
The benchmark between Safari 4, Google Chrome, Firefox 3.1, Opera 10 Alpha, Safari 3, and IE 8, still shows Safari 4 as a sluggish browser. Chrome 2.0 and Firefox 3.1b are still showing faster engines than Safari 4. CNet has more of the coverage on it.
And what else is new with Safari 4? You guessed it! Still no extensions!
Why Apple continues to create a browser that doesn’t support extensions is beyond me. Microsoft can get away with it because they own so much of the market share. Chrome was initially launched without extension support, but as we have seen, it is being added very soon.
But lastly, why would Apple create such a heavy application? Safari 4 sits at 107mb while Google Chrome sits at just under 9mb.
Benchmarking Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10171145-2.html
Colin Seton
Feb 25th, 2009
On my Mac, Safari 4 beta is 13.4mb.
Jonathan Dingman
Feb 25th, 2009
The download is that size, but when expanded as an app, it’s much larger.
still, 13.4mb vs. <9mb, that’s still a noticeable difference.
Lava
Feb 25th, 2009
Ummm maybe you should realize Safari 4 is a beta, meaning it’s loaded with debugging code – just like any other beta. Debugging code can blow up file sized 30% to 100%.
The second thing you should realize is that the windows download also contains QuickTime and all the APIs that go along with it. That 100+ megabytes isn’t just browser code. It would be helpful to know that Safari relies a lot on QT APIs and Apple can’t assume that QT is going to be installed on a Windows machine. Why not look at the properties of Safari.exe to see how big it is (maybe cause that would be too smart?)
Basically knocking a beta for “bloat” is pretty nonsensical. Shelve this line of argument until the final version is released.
Jonathan Dingman
Feb 25th, 2009
The 100mb+ is actually a screenshot from OS X, not Windows.
By no means am I saying that Safari 4 beta is a bad browser, I’m just saying it still has a little more ways to go before being a serious Chrome competitor.
They surely have the OS X market dominated already as Firefox doesn’t have near the speed yet compared to Safari 4.
DMann
Feb 25th, 2009
Information window in Safari: 13.4 M
Perhaps beta 5528.16 has been significantly paired down.
Kurien
Feb 26th, 2009
Lets face it Where is chrome on Mac What rgoogle engineers sitting on
Cover flow in Safari would be another reason for bigger size
Jonathan Dingman
Feb 26th, 2009
@DMann It’s quite possible. I’ll take another look at it.
@Kurien it’s just taking them longer than expected to develop the platform for Mac or Linux. They should have had it ready before they launched though, that’s a poor marketing decision on their part.
morgan
Feb 26th, 2009
uhh yah, my safari beta 4 is 13 megs with the ppc code and slimmed of the ppc code it’s only 9.2 megs. the only thing i want more from safari is support for adblock plus.. other than that.. i find extensions pretty useless. i don’t really need a bunch crap all over my web browser.
i do development in coda so all of my web development stuff is there. i like a nice simple, quick loading, standards compliant browser and honestly safari 4 fits the bill..
Jonathan Dingman
Feb 27th, 2009
@Mark, I didn’t do these benchmarks myself actually, they are taken from a CNet article. So I’m not claiming to be the expert on this, I’m simply reporting on what I see.
@morgan, Still, even 13mb > 9mb of Chrome.
@EVERYONE: After having tested Safari 4 on both PC and a Mac, it’s nice, and lightweight, but it’s still missing some major elements; such as extensions. Apple still has a long ways to go.
Mark Lee Smith
Feb 26th, 2009
With all due respect,
Safari is built on the WebKit framework (not to be confused with the project) included as a core framework on OSX, for use in other applications. The Safari 4 beta includes these frameworks and their related resources*. Chrome includes only what it needs to run.
Safari is distributed as a Universal binary, while Chrome obviously isn’t. Your size comparison doesn’t these important factors into account.
* This is why a restart is required after installing Safari 4 but not the Webkit nightly build, which you didn’t include in your benchmarks (a omission which strikes me as rather disingenuous).
Mark Lee Smith
Feb 27th, 2009
@Jonathan,
I can appreciate that you didn’t run the benchmarks. I would have expected CNet to do a better job, but I guess there’s always more money to be made from generating controversy. The Webkit nightly builds are Safaris equivalent to Chrome 2.0x and Firefox 3.1bx, which Apple/Safari continually lags behind for safety reasons.
As I said in my earlier comment, Safari 4 is a universal binary. As such it will run on multiple processor architectures… but this does the application it significantly larger. Fortunately, a universal binary may be turned into a standard binary, effectively halving the size of the application in many cases. With this in mind we can reasonably claim that Safari 4 is smaller than Chrome, at around 7MB, < 9MB.
I agree that some official mechanism for extending would be nice, however, the lack of such has not stopped extensions from being created. There are a number of very popular third party extensions available for Safari under OS X (I can’t speak for Windows). At the same time, I would hate to see Safari balloon into something monsters like Firefox, which feels perpetually unpolished and rather cluttered… and that’s before people install every extension they can get their hands on (only to complain about the browsing experience).
Safari and Chrome are both beautifully lightweight. I would really hate to see this change just so that I can [potentially] upload to my FTP server from my web browser (I have a great FTP client for that).