Recently while browsing the Internet I noticed that Mozilla Firefox was taking up an awfully large amount of RAM. In fact it’s RAM use continued to grow even though I had not navigated to any new website or even touched it at all! Being a KDE user I decided to try the same website within Konqueror, the KDE web browser that everyone seems to toss to the side right after install. To my amazement Konqueror seemed to render the same website, using much less RAM, and better yet it’s RAM use remained static. Perhaps there was something more to this ‘throw-away’ browser than I had first thought. And thus began my idea for a series of comparisons of four of the most popular Linux web browsers: Firefox, Chromium, Konqueror and Epiphany.
Note: The numbers you are going to see below are purely anecdotal and are based on my own personal experiences, which might not represent your own. For the record I am running Kubuntu 9.10 with the 2.6.31-19 kernel.
Packages I had to install
This is simply a list of packages I installed for each browsers to sort of give you an idea of what to expect.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| firefox-3.5, firefox-3.5-branding | konqueror | chromium-browser | ephiphany-browser, epiphany-browser-data |
Startup speed (from a cold start – i.e. from reboot)
To test this I rebooted the computer and then opened the browsers for the first time.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| ~4.5 seconds | ~2.1 seconds | ~3.7 seconds | ~2.8 seconds |
Startup speed (from a cached start – i.e. after opening and closing the program)
To test this I rebooted the computer, then opened the browsers for the first time and closed them. Then I opened them a second time and recorded the time.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| ~1.5 seconds | ~1.2 seconds | ~1.1 seconds | ~1.2 seconds |
Memory usage (about:blank)
This is how much memory the browser took to display the web page in brackets. The memory inside of the brackets is the amount of shared memory each browser uses. This of course could change depending on your system and setup. Where there are multiple numbers separated by plus signs it means that the browser spawns multiple processes which each take up memory.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| 24.6MiB (22.7MiB) | 10.8MiB (20.8MiB) | 6.6MiB (21.5MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.6MiB) + 2.3MiB (6.4MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB) | 9.4MiB (20.5MiB) |
Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org)
For this test I first loaded the browser to the homepage, in this case about:blank, and then navigated to the website www.kubuntu.org. In Konqueror’s case it spawned a few small KIO processes which I assume did the actually downloading of the webpage. I have averaged their values below.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| 35.7MiB (24.1MiB) | 22.6MiB (23.3MiB) + 4 x kio_http: 5.05MiB (6.2MiB) | 7.9MiB (18.2MiB) + 13.6MiB (11.3MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.7MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB) | 18.3MiB (23.1MiB) |
Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org | google.com | bing.com)
For this test I once again started with the about:blank homepage and then opened the websites in different tabs.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| 41.7MiB (24.6MiB) | 30.5MiB (24.0MiB) + 4 x kio_http: 5.3MiB (6.4MiB) | 9.0MiB (28.8MiB) + 11.4MiB (11.3MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.7MiB) + 6.8MiB (11.0MiB) + 9.3MiB (11.5MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB) | 21.8MiB (24.8MiB) |
Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org | google.com | bing.com) 2 minutes later
For this test I started with the above test and then waited two minutes and re-recorded the memory usage. This was to see if the browsers suffer from any sort of memory leaks, something Firefox has been famous for over the years.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| 38.45MiB (24.6MiB) – a decline of about 0.03MiB. | 30.7MiB (24.0MiB) – a growth of about 0.002MiB/second. The kio_http’s stayed the same. | 13.2MiB + (20.8MiB) + 11.4MiB (11.3MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.7MiB) + 6.8MiB (11.0MiB) + 9.3MiB (11.5MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB) – a growth of about 0.04MiB/second. | 21.8MiB (24.8MiB) – no change |
Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org | google.com | bing.com | ubuntu.com)
Same as above but with one more tab.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| 46.0MiB (24.9MiB) | 45.1MiB (24.0MiB) + 6 x kio_http: 5.22MiB (6.4MiB) | 9.3MiB (24.4MiB) + 14.2MiB (16.2MiB) + 9.3MiB (11.4MiB) + 13.5MiB (11.2MiB) + 11.6MiB (10.8MiB) + 1.6 (1.7MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB) | 29.0MiB (24.9MiB) |
Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org | google.com | bing.com | ubuntu.com) 2 minutes later
Same as above but with one more tab.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| 77.8MiB (24.9MiB) – a growth of about 0.27MiB/second | 50.2MiB (24.0MiB) – a growth of about 0.04MiB/second. The kio_http’s stayed the same. | 9.3MiB (24.4MiB) + 23.7MiB (16.2MiB) + 9.3MiB (11.4MiB) + 13.5MiB (11.2MiB) + 11.6MiB (10.8MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.7MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB) – a growth of about 0.08MiB/second | 33.2MiB (24.9MiB) – a growth of about 0.04MiB/second |
Noticeable rendering glitches in pages viewed
None of the browsers had rendering glitches except for Konqueror. In Konqueror Bing’s search bar was offset from where it should be and on Kubuntu’s website the header image was overlapping text that it shouldn’t have.
Acid 2 test (http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html)
The (now old) Acid 2 test.
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
Acid 3 test (http://acid3.acidtests.org/)
How well did the browsers handle the Acid 3 test?
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| 93% | 89% (linktest failed) | 100% | 100% |
SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark (http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html)
The classic JavaScript benchmark test!
| Firefox | Konqueror | Chromium | Epiphany |
| Total: 2380.2ms Click here to see full results. |
Total: 2940.2ms Click here to see full results. |
Total: 445.2ms Click here to see full results. |
Total: 794.8ms Click here to see full results. |
Conclusion
Well there you have it. Rather than ‘rate’ each browser I’m going to leave it up to you to weigh the merits of each given the above information. Even though Firefox might not be the most technically superior browser it does have the advantage of being very popular and having an excellent add-on system. Then again Epiphany can use most of those add-ons as well. Chromium, based off of Google’s Chrome browser, is also a new favourite for a lot of people and is obviously the fastest in terms of JavaScript. Being a KDE user, Konqueror might be the best browser for you thanks to its infinite customization and uniform look.
Linux is all about personalization and I think everyone should extend that to the browser they use. Who knows you might just find one you like even more.
The problem with Konqueror’s rendering seems to be easily fixed. It appears as though it is a problem with the default size of Konqueror’s fonts. A simple fix is to go into Settings > Configure Konqueror then click Appearance under Web Browsing and then the Fonts tab. Set the medium font size to something like 10 and click apply. This should fix both the Kubuntu and Bing website problems.