Timings in seconds: shorter bars are better.

The SunSpider JavaScript benchmark shows Microsoft's current browser in a poor light: as in the iBench JavaScript/HTML DOM test, Internet Explorer 7 is by far the slowest of the group. Firefox fans will be pleased with the speed of version 2.0.0.13 compared to IE 7, but Opera 9.27 and Safari 3.1.0 are the real winners here.

Things look different when we consider the beta versions. Microsoft improves its position significantly with IE 8 Beta 1, although it's still the slowest of the betas. Meanwhile, Firefox, whose current version only manages second-last place, leaps to the top of the class ahead of Safari with version 3 Beta 5.

The individual SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks show the strengths and weaknesses of particular browsers, and where the beta versions show the most improvements. The poor performance of Internet Explorer 7, for example, is due to its slow string processing. IE 8 Beta 1 delivers a significantly better result in this test and reels in some of the competition, although it remains slow compared to the other betas and Safari. The current version of Firefox is weak in string and 3D processing and bit operations, but version 3 Beta 5 overcomes these weaknesses to take first place in all of the tests.

Timings in milliseconds: shorter bars are better.

Timings in milliseconds: shorter bars are better.