The awesome guys at Tomshardware conducted a test to find out which web browser is the best. The latest versions for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera had to go through a lot of different tests. They used everything like simple stop watch for startup and loading time to complex benchmark software like RIABench, Peacekeeper and Browsermark for testing JavaScript performance and Impact game engine and WebXPRT for testing HTML5 performance of the browsers.
But the most interesting one is the Memory Efficiency test. In this metric, they open a browser with one tab, record memory usage, open 39 additional tabs, and re-record the total memory usage. Then they close the additional 39 tabs and record again. They wait one minute and record the usage one more time. The first figure is subtracted from the last in order to see how much "bloat" remains after decreasing the workload (closing tabs).
Here is the test result:
Chrome takes the lead in Windows 7, with just 76 MB more after closing all 39 additional tabs.
The charts below contain the four individual memory readings:
Check other tests on TomsHardware like startup time, page loading time and hardware acceleration test.