1. Browser boot time.
2. Browser shutdown time (on clicking Close).
3. Tab boot time.
4. Tab shutdown time.
5. LocalStorage boot time (on first call to LocalStorage API, some browsers load LocalStorage into memory at this point, blocking the UI).
6. IO performance of LocalStorage, WebSQLDatabase, IndexedDB for massive get/set operations (bandwidth) and many get/set operations (latency).
7. ApplicationCache update time (and update time after an interrupted update cycle).
8. Smoothness of moving a DOM element across the screen by adjusting absolute position (some browsers are choppy with this).
9. Javascript parse time.
10. Minimum setTimeout frequency (is it 1ms or 5ms?).
11. Hash change event propagation time.
12. Stack size limit.
13. Speed of Array.shift on massive arrays.
14. Vertical height of browser chrome at top of the window in pixels (less is better).
15. Vertical height of browser chrome at bottom of the window in pixels (less is better).
16. Number of colors used in browser chrome, including favicons in location and bookmark bars etc. (less is better).
17. Fullscreen support and switch to fullscreen time.
18. Developer Console boot and shutdown time.
19. Number of words, tabs, nested interfaces used across all Preferences pages (less is better).
20. Number of user actions (clicks, keypresses, mouse movement distances) required to clear LocalStorage, History, WebSQLDatabase, IndexedDB, Cache, ApplicationCache (less is better).
21. Default storage limits for LocalStorage etc. (higher is better).
22. Data-URI size limits (higher is better).
Its not really a "benchmark" to show the world that they're doing better. It's a public site because everything that happens in mozilla is open, but it's not really for us to see and judge. Its for the guys on the inside to see and cheer or see, then haul ass to catch up.
http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2010/09/14/release-the-kraken/
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2010/09/javascript_performan.htmlOne big thing that's missing here is DOM interaction, which is a real bottleneck for current web apps (and handling 'foreign' API well is JS engine's job too).
I have to agree, that things like machine translated scheme and OS scheduling are not representative of real world applications. (Part of the V8 suite: http://v8.googlecode.com/svn/data/benchmarks/v6/run.html - specifically Richards, and EarleyBoyer)
That it's a javascript benchmark only means that.. it's used by google to finetune their code.. not created to compare javascript in browsers among several different browsers.
Also worth noting, there is no longer a gigantic "NO" down at the bottom of the page. :)
What sites and/or web apps are so JavaScript-heavy that they are bottlenecked by slow JavaScript execution?
In most cases, aren't the speed of a user's network connection and the responsiveness of the web server itself far more important to the user experience of a web app than the browser's JavaScript speed? Is GMail on Chrome really a radically different experience from GMail on IE8?
As to the faster claim - I've been using Firefox 3.6, Chrome, Safari 5, and Firefox 4 interchangeably and I've noticed a dramatic improvement in quality from Firefox 3.6 to Firefox 4 - they've really done a great job with the upcoming release.
Pre-emptive note to readers: Sure "You have no idea what you're talking about" sounds harsh, but is it wrong? Please consider that before acting upon any knee-jerk reactions to my comment.