Opera 10.50 Beta Out, With Competitive JavaScript

Opera has released its 10.5 beta (for Windows only; Linux and Mac coming). Opera calls 10.5 "the fastest browser on earth," but the jury is out on this claim. WebMonkey says that the new beta feels snappy in their informal testing. Both CNET and ZDNet ran two quick benchmarks that measure JavaScript performance, SunSpider and V8. ZDNet found Opera beating out Chrome in SunSpider but lagging in V8. CNET found Chrome ahead in both tests. What is clear however is that Opera's Carakan JavaScript engine has made up much of the ground in the performance wars; The Reg estimates that 10.5 is seven times faster in the JavaScript stakes than Opera's shipping 10.1 release.

Comments

Re:Why the obsession with javascript?

[Kjella]

Web applications. For pages with no to little javascript (and without the flash hog) the speed is just fine in all browsers unless you got an obsession about saving 30 seconds over a day of surfing. But if you are working in web applications for extended periods of time, the speed really matters. Now none of the big corporations has enough guts to publicly stab IE in the back, but IT departments aren't all clueless and web applications are becoming commonplace now that the hype has moved on and "the cloud" is the next big thing.