New Relic, Inc., the SaaS-based cloud application performance management provider, released today the results of its most recent study on browser speed and performance. Using data from its free Real User Monitoring feature, which monitors 5 billion page views a week, New Relic surveyed speed and usage for popular PC and mobile browsers including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Windows Internet Explorer, and Apple Safari. According to the study, Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9) surpasses Google Chrome for speed on Windows platforms, while Chrome 13 on Mac offers the fastest overall browsing experience. BlackBerry Opera Mini provides the fastest mobile browsing experience, twice as fast as its iPad counterparts.

"Despite significant advances in browser technology, most users still have a sub-par web browsing experience," said Chris Cook, president and COO at New Relic. "We found that the average page load time was still more than five seconds. Most people sense a delay on a web page after the blink of an eye. Waiting five seconds is still too long for any user."

• Chrome 13 on Mac offers the quickest overall browsing experience, loading web pages in just 2.4 seconds.
• IE 9 outperforms Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox on Windows platforms, loading web pages in 3 seconds compared to Chrome and Firefox’s 3.5 second page load speeds.
• In mobile speed tests, the fastest experience was delivered by BlackBerry Opera Mini at 2.6 seconds, twice as fast as Safari 5.1 on iPad, its closest competitor.
• The global average for page load speed is 5.5 seconds, only a slight improvement from last year’s average of 6 seconds.

To view the full results of the study, visit: http://blog.newrelic.com/2012/04/05/fastest-browsers/

The data for the study was gathered using New Relic's Real User Monitoring (RUM), a technology that provides real-time data on user experience directly from the browser. The data was compiled on March 22, 2012 between the hours of 12 noon and 3 pm PT, at which time New Relic monitored an average of 694,000 page views per minute. New Relic monitors over 5 billion page loads each week, across 20,000 active accounts.

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