Battle Of Android Browsers_Chrome Vs Firefox Vs Edge Vs Samsung Vs Opera Vs Brave
How many of you have seen this advertisement on youtube?
Brave caught my full attention when they said, “Let’s be honest, chrome was faster in 2008, but now it is 2020 and brave is 3x times faster than chrome” and that made me ask myself a question, “which browser is fastest?”. So let’s find out today.
For this test, I have divided the whole section into 2 parts.
- Numbers
a) Storage Space
b) CPU/RAM Usage
c) Bench Mark Scores - Actual results
a) Benchmark Time Scores
b) Loading Time Scores
c) Reload Time Scores
d) Upload/Download Time Scores
e) Total Time
f) PRIVACY
NUMBERS
a) Storage Space
Surprisingly Opera outperformed 2nd best Brave(196 MB) with almost 100 MB gap.
On the other hand, Samsung internet did occupy 313 MB, putting itself in the last place also the number was almost 3X times of Best Performer ( Opera 100MB)
b) CPU/RAM Usage
With such a good optimisation, Chrome managed to rank 1st in this test, while others ( Brave, Firefox ) still held their middle ground, Samsung internet jumped in 2nd position while opera slipped down to 2nd last position.
Edge, a chromium-based browser from Microsoft, surprisingly came last with occupying huge 218 MB of RAM/CPU
c) Bench-Mark Scores
With no surprise here, all chromium based browsers followed by Google Chrome scored huge numbers with minimal differences between while Gecko Based FireFox gave a disappointing score below 200.Actual Results
Important Notes: To measure Benchmark Scores, I used BaseMark Web 3.0
and for other tests, i used yoox.com, polygon.com, underarmour.com, theverge.com, amazon.com, imdb.com, pinterest.com, mozilla.com, opera.com, microsift.com, samsung.com, apple.com, speed.hetzner.de, wetransfer.com.
In 1st half of Round 1, I visited all the webpages mentioned.
In 2nd half of Round 1, I randomly downloaded 100Mb file from speed.hetzner.de. To reduce ping and specific site optimisation error, I again uploaded the same file on we-transfer and downloaded the same file only this time from we-transfer.
In Round 2, I revisited all the previously opened pages to calculate reloading time.
a)BenchMark Time Scores :
With minimal difference from previous results, Chrome still managed to come first with finishing the whole benchmark test in just 5:02 Min while it took Firefox 8:23 Mins to finish the same test.
Also, while measuring scores, Firefox came out to be the most unreliable browser( stopping in the middle, forcing stop external applications and some minor glitches )
b) Loading Time Scores :
In this segment, chrome and opera managed to pretty much tie-up for 1st position while Samsung Internet once again came last with taking almost 2X times to load webpages than our champs ( Chrome and Opera )
c) Reload Time Scores :
In this reloading segment, even tho Chrome managed to keep 2nd position, Opera managed to gap up with large 0.5X times less time than 2nd champ chrome ( all thanks to large 188MB RAM/CPU usage )e) Download/Upload
Time Scores :
In the Download/upload segment, Chrome again managed to grab it’s the first position while Opera slipped pretty bad to 2nd last position while firefox first time managed to come in top 2 positions.
Once again Samsung with pretty disappointing results stayed at last place.
f) Total Time Scores :
Total Time Scores segment includes Loading Websites → Downloading 100MB file → Uploading same 100MB file to we transfer → Downloading the same file again → Reloading all the webpages previously opened.
As no surprise, Samsung Internet came last in this segment because it performed bad in almost all previous segments of Real Tests and exactly opposite with Google Chrome, placing it to first place.
Even tho opera did good in most previous tests than Firefox, Firefox just flew past opera in upload/download speed test that is why securing 2nd place in an overall speed test.
g) PRIVACY
When it comes to privacy, things are subjective. At this point, we can assume that no one of these browsers is even 50% private, all of the browsers were gathering data such as browsing history but at the end, it comes to which company you trust most. As Firefox and Brave don’t use our data for personalising adds ( i don’t know then why they bother gathering data 🤷🏽♀️ ), I prefer them over others.
Opera with its previous bad reputations of showing too much personal adds, made me give Opera least scores here while chrome with it’s showing personal adds on every application, got 2nd lowest score. The only difference between them is I think Google is more secure or trustworthy than Opera Developers when it comes to putting your data with one company.
Something About User Interface
The user interface section is also subject to choice, that is why to reduce partiality I haven’t included this section but if given a choice I would say I preferred Chrome, Brave, Edge, Firefox << Samsung Internet << Opera.
Opera was just filled with too much adds, same as Samsung while others followed clean and simple design.
FINAL SCORES
In the final result, Even with such big promises and high expectations, Samsung Internet and Microsoft Edge came last and 2nd last respectively.
Firefox with its Gecko engine still managed to come 3rd racing even ahead of chromium-based Brave Browser ( thanks to download/upload speeds)
Even tho most of us are always excited to see if Chrome is faster and better than Firefox, Opera here came between grabbing 2nd place and making Google Chrome still undefeated champion for Browsing :)
Final Verdicts:
Most of us are divided into two groups, first — The one’s who don’t care much about privacy and need speed and that cheesy swift experience while others ( at least for now with all issues of WhatsApp privacy ) who cares much more about privacy and are ready to sacrifice a bit of a speed for it.
In the above scenarios, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox occupy sweet spot making them both most loved and rival browsers while Mozilla Brave occupies 2nd sweet spot of being chromium-based private browser.
