rate your browser!

[sutekh]

Which browser gives the best display for your astro images?

Two rendering tests are:

http://html5test.com/

http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/run.action

Browsers with the Blink rendering engine (Chrome) receive the highest
score of 520 out of 555 points on the first test.

Their scores on the second test are given below:

Avant Ultimate 2017 build 12 (Chrome 62.0.3202.94)...2817 points
Google Chrome 63.0.3239.132...................... ..........2723 points
SRWare Iron 32-bit (Chrome 63.0.3300.0).................2945 points
Vivaldi 1.13.108.40 (Chrome 62.0.3202.97)................2879 points

The OS is Win 7 Pro x64 SP1.

How does your browser compare? Test results welcomed.

- sutekh

[AstralTraveller]

Linux Mint 18 Sarah 64-bit, MATE 1.14.1
Pentium CPU G3240 @ 3.10GHz × 2, 8GB ram
Chromium 63.0.3239.84

Test 1 = 518
Yest 2 = 4998

[RickS]

Neither of those tests are going to tell you. Astro images are normally simple image files, not HTLM5 animations.

Here's a test that's actually useful for this purpose. It tells you how well your browser deals with ICC Colour profiles:

http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter

Cheers,
Rick.

[sutekh]

Here are some additional tests of your browser's color management:

https://petapixel.com/2012/06/25/is-your-browser-color-managed/

http://cameratico.com/tools/web-browser-color-management-test/

http://www.color.org/browsertest.xalter


This color management guide may be especially helpful:

http://cameratico.com/guides/web-browser-color-management-guide/


-sutekh

[skysurfer]

This is a nice 3D graphics test as well.

http://stars.chromeexperiments.com

Interactive 3D map of the nearby stars.

Runs flawlessly on Android and macOS (Chrome, Opera and Firefox).

[sutekh]

The browsers in the OP support ICC version 4 because they use Google's
Blink display engine. (They pass the color test in Post #3.)

The display of ICC version 4 is correct in Internet Explorer 11.

This source says that ICC v4 is supported in Edge and Safari (see table):

https://www.color-management-guide.com/web-browser-color-management.html

Here's how to enable ICC version 4 in Firefox:

https://www.metalvortex.com/blog/2012/07/12/979.html

However, these other browsers need to be checked with the tests in
the OP. (IE11 scores miserably, only 302 on the first test.)

- sutekh

[sutekh]

A summary so far:

In the three rendering tests

http://html5test.com/

http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/run.action

http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter

four Blink-based browsers perform best (see the OP and preceding post).

Gecko-based browsers (Firefox, K-Meleon, Pale Moon, etc.) score significantly lower (400's on HTML5 test).
For the color test, ICC4 support has to be manually turned on:

https://www.metalvortex.com/blog/2012/07/12/979.html

Trident-based browsers (Internet Explorer, GreenBrowser) rank dead last (302 on the HTML5 test).

Still waiting for someone to test Edge (Win10) and Safari...

- sutekh

[sutekh]

The Brave browser is another one that does very well: it supports the ICC4 color standard and its other scores (528, 3187) are the highest so far.

I repeated all of the tests with the 32-bit edition of Win7 Home Premium on a different machine. The Peacekeeper scores are

Avant Ultimate (Chrome)...62.0.3202.94.....2798
Brave.............................. 63.0.3239.132...2843
Google Chrome.................63.0.3239.13 2...2757
SRWare Iron....................63.0.3300.0 .......2890
Vivaldi............................ .62.0.3202.97.....2779

Most of the version numbers don't match, so we can't really say which browser is "best", only that they are all very good.

Because Edge and Safari perform poorly on the HTML5 test

https://html5test.com/results/desktop.html

there's probably no reason to investigate those browsers further.

- sutekh

[sutekh]

Linux users have at least three choices. The scores are:

................................... ......HTML5..Peacekeeper
Brave..........63.0.3239.132....526 .....3393
Chromium.......63.0.3239.84.....518 .....3390
SRWare Iron....62.0.3250.0......518.....33 39

These tests were run on a live DVD of Linux Mint 18.3 using the same Win7 x64 machine as the OP.

- sutekh

[Steffen]

HTML5Test doesn't do anything (how long is it supposed to run?), Peacekeeper scored 6239. Safari 11.1 on macOS 10.13.3, MacBook Pro mid-2014.

[sil]

mostly useless tests. not all browsers support embedded profiles and render with their own. likewise not all image hosters leave your uploads alone. some resize and strip data to save storage space and increase download speeds. plus your ISP could be using WAN accelerators which could be storing a stripped and recompressed version of every image to enhance your browsing experience. Colour accuracy has never been a priority (we still have GIFs in common use). You cant control any of these things nor can you control if someone is using a colour calibrated display in a neutrally lit environment. Just control your environment and workflow, convert to srgb profile for export to jpeg for uploading and you've given others the best chance of seing what you see. if you want to test browsers, you just need to load the exact same page into different browsers side by side on YOUR screen and you'll see how posterised some photos become.

[sutekh]

The site html5test dot com was down recently but is functioning at the time of posting. After a few seconds your browser should receive a score (out of 555 points). So far, the leader is the Brave browser at 528 points in Win7. It would be interesting to compare Brave and Safari in all tests on the same Mac (Brave is available for OS 10.9+).

- sutekh

[sutekh]

Of course, it is true that the user has no control over how the image hoster usually downgrades the image. But the color test can check if part of the data loss occurs in your browser. (For example, in Firefox and all of its clones the support for ICC4 has to be manually turned on -- cf. Post #6.)

Yes, the Peacekeeper score does vary from one machine to the next but getting through the test without warnings is like testing your browser on many difficult webpages. (For example, the high-scoring browsers here are also the only ones that display my list of difficult webpages correctly.)

So far the posted tests suggest that it is browsers that don't use Chrome's Blink engine are the things that are useless.

- sutekh

[Steffen]

Still doesn't work in Safari. It's probably doing something dodgy that Safari stops, or trying to download from domains I'm blocking. Never mind.

[Wavytone]

Meh... all meaningless, frankly.

Tests are easily rigged to suit whatever browser/OS/hardware combination the author has a preference for. Unless you have access to the test source code in the backend, the author could do something as trivial as look for the browser/OS in the HTML returned by the browser, and rig the results from there, and gullible users like you would simply never know.

There are examples where Safari on my MacBook Air vintage 2015 will toast all PC's - including hot gaming PC's - running the same test.

Conversely plenty of examples that show Chrome or Firefox will toast others, depending on the specific test and the platform used.

About the only constant is that MSIE is easily beaten by anything else on any platform that can run it.

And FWIW like Stefan, it won't run here in Safari on both of my macs. Apple is pretty good at compliance with standards including HTML5 so I'll suggest the test code is dodgy, at best.

[sutekh]

If the HTML5 test suite really does have defective coding, then why is Safari the only major browser that can't run the test? :shrug:

The test suite needs JavaScript to run, so try this fix on the Mac:

http://www.tech-kitten.com/2007/08/31/javascript-not-working-in-safari-this-might-help/

If this doesn't work, then here's another test suite to try:

https://web.basemark.com/

The scores are remarkably consistent across browsers and platforms (since they all use the Blink engine):

In Win7 x64:....................engine..... .......CSS........HTML5.....Page Load...Resize
Avant Ultimate (Chrome)...62.0.3202.94...57.86%... 96.58%....93.23%......75.97%
Brave.............................. 63.0.3239.132..57.86%...96.58%....9 3.37%......75.97%
SRWare Iron....................63.0.3300.0 .....57.86%...96.58%....92.91%..... .75.97%
Vivaldi............................ .62.0.3202.97...57.86%...96.58%.... 92.70%......75.97%


In Linux Mint 18.3:
Brave.............................. 63.0.3239.132..57.86%...96.22%....9 2.63%......75.97%
Chromium.......................63.0 .3239.84....57.86%...96.22%....93.2 6%......75.97%
SRWare Iron....................63.0.3300.0 .....57.86%...96.22%....92.16%..... .75.97%

In all of these tests, WebGL 2.0 was turned off by default and the reports begin with a warning that the WebGL 2.0 test could not be run. (Enabling WebGL 2.0 did not eliminate the warning or change the percentages.)

How do Safari and Edge compare?

- sutekh

[sutekh]

Safari's score on the HTML5 test is a dismal 452. The SRWare Iron does better than this even in WinXP (489).

Safari fails two of the Peacekeeper tests because it lacks two codecs.

The test was run on a MacBook Pro with Safari 11.0.2. The CPU is an i5 @2.4 GHz. This is the same CPU as the other tests, so this is a fair test of Safari.

- sutekh

[LewisM]

Safari...oh don't get me started lol. POS extra-ordinaire (and yes, I am an Apple user).

I like Iron. Been very impressive for me for the time I have been using it.

[sutekh]

SRWare Iron is the only high-scoring browser that supports Linux, PC, and Mac (both 32-bit and 64-bit).

Another 'plus' for the SRWare Iron browser is that older versions are available:

http://download1.srware.net/old/iron/

To resuscitate an aging WinXP machine, use Version 49.0.

- sutekh

[sutekh]

The Edge 13 browser (Win10) has an HTML5 score of 433.
That's the second-lowest score so far (only IE scores lower).
EDIT: In Edge 16, the HTML5 score is 471.

In the Peacekeeper test, 2 of the video codecs are missing and these videos don't play (result same as Safari).

---

In Win10 you can upgrade to Avant Ultimate (Chrome setting), Brave, SRWare Iron, or Vivaldi.

On a Mac you can upgrade to Brave, SRWare Iron, or Vivaldi.

Tweak the settings to make these browsers look more familiar (add Menu bar, etc.)


- sutekh