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Windows 7 is still a sight more popular than Windows 10. By Federal Digital Analytics Program (DAP)'s count, Windows 7 has a serious lead over Windows 10 -- 25.2 percent to 17.4 percent. So, Windows 7's web browser speeds matter a lot. Here's what the benchmarks tell us.
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First, though, in terms of popularity, DAP makes it clear Chrome is the most popular web browser of them all. Internet Explorer (IE), which once ruled the browser roost, dropped behind Chrome for good in 2016.
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But does Chrome have the performance chops to justify its popularity? Let's find out.
To put Windows 7's web browsers to the test I put them through their paces on the latest shipping edition of Windows 7 SP 1 Ultimate. This ran on my Windows 7 test PC, a Gateway DX4710.
This older PC is powered by a 2.5-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processor and has 6GB of RAM and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 3100 for graphics. It's hooked to the internet via a Gigabit Ethernet switch, which, in turn, is connected to a 100Mbps (Megabit per second) cable internet connection.
On this system, I benchmarked Internet Explorer (IE) 11, Chrome 56, Firefox 51, and Opera 43. I no longer test Safari because Apple doesn't release major Safari updates for Windows anymore. The 2012 version of Safari, 5.1.7, with some security patches is still available, but it's too dated to use.
For each round of testings, I ran freshly installed vanilla web browsers after rebooting the system. Then, I ran the following benchmarks.
JetStream 1.1: This JavaScript benchmark builds on the foundation of the obsolete SunSpider. It combines several JavaScript benchmarks to report a single score that balances them using geometric mean. JetStream includes benchmarks from the SunSpider 1.0.2 and Octane 2 JavaScript benchmark suites. This test suite also includes benchmarks from the LLVM compiler open-source project, compiled to JavaScript using Emscripten 1.13. It also includes a benchmark based on the Apache Harmony open-source project's HashMap and a port of the CDx real-time Java benchmark, hand-translated to JavaScript. On this benchmark, larger scores are better.
Chrome, as it so often has in previous tests, won with a score of 85.26. Second place was a surprise: Opera. Opera has been declining in popularity for years. It now claims less than 2 percent of the desktop browser market. Still, Opera has respectable turn of speed with 81.93.
Firefox took third with 76.44. IE came in dead last with 64.47.
Kraken 1.1: This benchmark, which is descended from SunSpider, also measures JavaScript performance. To this basic JavaScript testing, it added typical use case scenarios. Mozilla, Firefox's parent organization, created Kraken. With this benchmark, the lower the score, the better the result.
Here, Chrome came in first once more with with a score of 2,267.6 milliseconds (ms). Opera came in second with a score of 2,585.9ms. Firefox was close on its heels with 2,850.4ms. IE was a distant last with 5,094.4ms.
Octane 2.0: Google's JavaScript benchmark also includes scenario testing for today's interactive web applications. Octane is not Chrome-specific. For example, it tests how fast Microsoft's TypeScript compiles itself. On this benchmark, the higher the score, the better.
And, the winner was ... Opera! This time it won with 14,863 points. Second went to Chrome with 14,426. Close behind it came Firefox with 14,157 points. Far, far in the back IE limped to the end with a score of 7,778.
WebXPRT is today's most comprehensive browser benchmark. It uses scenarios created to mirror every day tasks. It contains six HTML5- and JavaScript-based workloads: Photo Enhancement, Organize Album, Stock Option Pricing, Local Notes, Sales Graphs, and Explore DNA Sequencing. Here, the higher the score, the better the browser.
On this test, Chrome took gold with 187 points. Firefox got the silver with a score of 183. Opera held on to the bronze with 161. And, once more, IE was in the back of the pack with 150 points.
HTML5 Test: Finally, I checked to see how well each browser complies with the HTML5web standard. This 'test' isn't a benchmark. It just shows how close each browser comes to being in sync with the HTML5 standard. A perfect score, which no one got, would have been 550. If your web browser has trouble with today's web standard, it doesn't matter how fast it is.
Opera re-emerged to take first with 526 points. Chrome came in second with 519, while Firefox was in third with 471? IE? You guessed it. At the bottom of the pile with 302.
The lesson is clear. Chrome deserves its popularity. That said, Opera is worth considering.
As for Firefox, well it's OK, it's not great, but it's OK.
If you're using IE, on the other hand, stop. Just stop. It's simply second-rate compared to the others. When I looked at Windows 10 and IE, I wondered if Microsoft was just giving up on it. On Windows 7, I don't have that question. IE has become abandonware.
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UPDATE on 20/06/2019: Microsoft Edge is now officially available for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. Visit our download Edge for Windows 7/8/8.1 article to download the Edge installer.
From Windows 95 to Windows 8/8.1, Internet Explorer had been the default web browser of Windows operating system for two decades. Over the years, Microsoft Internet Explorer became bloated and insecure, making security conscious users look for third-party web browsers.
With Windows 10, Microsoft introduced Edge, a modern web browser built from scratch, and is the default web browser in Windows 10.
Microsoft Edge, the new browser from Microsoft, is part of Windows 10, and can’t be downloaded separately from Store.
Like Google Chrome and Firefox, the Edge browser is fast and loads pages much faster compared to Internet Explorer. Besides that, it offers a clean interface which most users love. The browser recently got support for extensions, and there are a couple of good extensions already available for the new web browser from Microsoft.
Is Microsoft Edge available for Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1?
Update My Browser Windows 7
When Microsoft introduced Edge browser for the first time, a significant number of PC users running Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 were expecting Microsoft release Edge for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 as well.
The truth is that the current version of Edge browser is not available for Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1. However, Microsoft is building a new Chromium-based Edge browser, and it will be available for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1. We will update this guide when the new Edge is made available to Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1.
Is there is a workaround to install Edge on Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1?
One can’t install Edge on Windows 7 as the Edge browser is built on the new Universal Windows Platform. The Universal Windows Platform was first introduced with Windows 8 as the Windows Runtime. So theoretically it should be possible to install Edge on Windows 8/8.1, but then Edge is not officially or unofficially available for Windows 8 or 8.1 right now.
That said, there is a not so cool way out there to run Edge on Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1. You can run Edge on previous versions of Windows using free virtual machines. Visit this page of Microsoft to download Microsoft Edge virtual machine for VirtualBox, Windows Hyper-V, Vagrant, VMware (Windows & Mac), and Parallels (Mac only).
The download page also contains a link to installation instructions page so that you can easily install the downloaded Edge virtual machine on your Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 PC using above mentioned virtual machine software.
As said earlier, you cannot install the current version of Edge on Windows 7 or 8, but the upcoming Edge based on Chromium browser can be installed on Windows 7/8. We will update the article once it’s available for the public.
Can I make my web browser look like Edge?
If you love the clean user interface of Edge and use Mozilla Firefox as the default browser, then you can make Mozilla Firefox look like Edge by installing the Edge for Firefox theme.
Free Browsers For Windows 7
Sadly, the Edge theme is currently available for Firefox only. So, if you are a user of Internet Explorer, Chrome, or any web browser, you have no option but to upgrade your Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 to Windows 10 to get Edge.
Fast Free Browsers For Windows 7
What’s the best way to experience Edge?
The easiest and best way to experience Edge is to upgrade your PC to Windows 10 or get a new PC pre-installed with Windows 10.
Note that Windows 10 is no longer officially available as a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users but most users who upgrade to Windows 10 are getting free upgrade even today (December 2016).