Choosing the best web browser can significantly impact your online experience, from how fast your favourite websites load to how secure your personal data remains. With each browser bringing their own set of strengths and features to the table, it can be challenging to determine which one aligns best with your specific needs.
To help with this, we’ve objectively tested Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Edge to discover the best web browser across speed, standards compliance, graphics performance, energy efficiency and privacy safeguards.
These browsers are regularly updated, so what was once a browser’s competitive advantage can quickly become its achilles heel.
Whether you’re a tech lover, a casual surfer, or just looking to improve your browsing experience, our detailed 2025 web browser benchmark comparison will help you find the best browser for your needs.
On this page
- Fastest Web Browser
- Most Standards Compliant Web Browser
- Best Graphics Performance
- Most Energy Efficient Web Browser
- Most Privacy Compliant Web Browser
- Overall Winner in 2025
Fastest Web Browser
The speed of your web browser has the biggest impact on your online experience. We’ve tested which browser offers the quickest load times, best responsiveness, and overall performance, helping you choose the one that delivers the smoothest and most efficient browsing.
Speed Rank | Browser | Speedometer Score (Avg) | JetStream Score (Avg) |
---|---|---|---|
1st | Safari | 38.7 | 393.7 |
2nd | Chrome | 37.8 | 353.6 |
3rd | Edge | 35.1 | 342.6 |
4th | Firefox | 34.6 | 252.8 |
By using the Speedometer v3.0 and JetStream v2.2 test suites, we see that Safari ranks first for page rendering and JavaScript speed.
Three tests were conducted for each browser, with the average of results used for the ranking. Speedometer measures Web application responsiveness by timing simulated user interactions on various workloads. While JetStream measures the speed at which the browser executes JavaScript and WebAssembly code.
We can see that in this test, Safari is leading Chrome in terms of web browsing speed.
While Edge is based upon the same Chromimum browser engine as Chrome itself, it is approximately 3-6% slower than Chrome. As has historically been the case, Firefox lags behind all three of the other browsers in both page rendering and code execution speed.
When comparing these results with our 2024 web browser speed comparisons, Chrome has improved considerably, but not enough to surpass Safari’s first place.
Most Standards Compliant Web Browser
Standards compliance ensures websites function seamlessly across different browsers.
We’ve examined how well each browser adheres to contemporary web standards, focusing on reliability and consistency in website rendering for both developers and everyday users.
Standards Rank | Browser | Interop 2024 score | Caniuse score | Total score |
---|---|---|---|---|
1st | Chrome | 98 | 460 | 558 |
2nd | Edge | 97 | 458 | 555 |
3rd | Safari | 98 | 439 | 537 |
4th | Firefox | 98 | 438 | 536 |
To properly rank standards compliance, we have used two different tests and then totalled the results from both.
As per our 2024 web browser comparison, we took the score from the Interop 2024 (Stable) standards compliance suite. This scores browsers on their current conformance to a set of priority standards which all browser makers, as part of the WHATWG group, have agreed should be the focus for implementation in the year.
However, as of time of writing, there has not yet been agreement on what will be included in Interop 2025 – therefore the scores for this item are a reflection of the browser’s performance in delivering on their 2024 commitments.
Secondly we used the caniuse.com browser scores which are tallies of all features tracked on caniuse, excluding those marked as “unofficial”. Note that while caniuse tracks a wide variety of features, it only covers a subset of all web technologies so the scores are not 100% representative of any browser’s capabilities. Caniuse may also track features which are not deemed priority, privacy compliant or necessary by all browser vendors.
From a standards compliance perspective, Chrome is the leader with Edge following closely behind. Both Chrome and Edge are far ahead in their breadth of web feature support according to Caniuse.
In third and fourth place is Safari and Firefox, with nary a point separating them. If standards compliance is your key consideration in a browser, Chrome is currently your best choice.
Web Browser with the Best Graphics Performance
Graphics performance can greatly enhance your web experience.
For today’s complex applications and games, smooth visuals and animations are essential. By testing graphics performance, we’ll identify which browser handles these tasks best.
Graphics Performance Rank | Browser | Motion Mark score (Avg) |
---|---|---|
1st | Safari | 7286.62 |
2nd | Chrome | 6374.68 |
3rd | Edge | 6217.36 |
4th | Firefox | 1745.71 |
Using the Motion Mark v1.3.1 test suite at 60 fps, we see that it is far from a close race as Safari easily ranks first for web browser graphics performance.
Unfortunately Firefox lags significantly in the performance department, trailing all other browsers for graphics rendering speed by a large margin.
Historically Chrome was the leader in the graphics rendering field but over the last couple of major releases, Safari has improved considerably.
Despite noticeable improvements by Chrome since our last test, Safari is still the graphics leader with a 14% graphics performance lead. Even more surprisingly, Safari is a whopping 4x better at graphics performance than Firefox.
In this test, as per many others, Edge is practically equivalent to Chrome, though slightly less performant.
Most Energy Efficient Web Browser
Energy-efficient browsers can significantly enhance your web experience by extending battery life on portable devices and minimizing heat and fan noise.
For eco-conscious users, choosing a browser that consumes less energy also contributes to a more sustainable environment.
Energy Efficiency Rank | Browser | Average Energy Impact |
---|---|---|
1st | Firefox | 4061.55 |
2nd | Safari | 4401.14 |
3rd | Edge | 4517.91 |
4th | Chrome | 4976.06 |
Energy efficiency testing relies on the macOS Activity Monitor to track the total energy usage of each browser since the device started, represented by the 12 hrs Power figure. In this test, lower figures are better. Each browser underwent three rounds of the Speedometer, JetStream and Motion Mark benchmarks to assess their energy impact.
In this round of testing, Firefox emerged as the clear energy efficiency champion, consuming about 8% less energy than its closest competitor, Safari, and significantly outpacing Chrome.
Energy efficiency is one area where Edge has a substantial advantage over Chrome.
In these tests, Edge used approximately 9% less energy than Chrome. There has been online chatter that Microsoft engineers contributed a lot of optimisations to the Chromium codebase to improve it’s energy efficiency on Apple devices, so perhaps that is the reason for Edge’s relatively good showing.
While Safari has long touted its energy efficiency, Firefox’s advantage may be attributed to the benchmarks running less efficiently on this browser, resulting in lower energy consumption. If Firefox’s browsing speed and graphics performance was to improve it may come at the cost of more energy usage.
Most Privacy Compliant Web Browser
Privacy is crucial, and your browser plays a key role in protecting your data.
We’ve evaluated which option provides the strongest privacy features and best safeguards for your online activities.
Privacy feature | Safari | Firefox | Chrome | Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|
Trackers blocked by default | ✔ | ✔ | - | - |
Third Party Cookies blocked by default | ✔ | ✔ | - | - |
Fingerprinting defences included | ✔ | ✔ | - | - |
Default search engine is private | - | - | - | - |
Overall Privacy score | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Privacy Compliance Rank | 1st | 1st | 4th | 4th |
Unlike the other tests, privacy compliance ranking is based upon a browsers compliance with a set of privacy features, not via a benchmark. Each of these features has been identified as particularly useful in ensuring that your browsing is as private as possible while minimising the amount of data that a website may be able to gather: reducing potential for personal identification.
The overall Privacy score is the sum of the number of features that each browser provides as an in-built, default enabled inclusion.
Despite performing well in other categories, privacy is an area where Chrome and likewise Edge, is significantly lagging behind. On the features tested, both of these browsers scored a zero.
Both Safari and Firefox supported the same set of included privacy features, making it an equal first ranking for this category.
A potential area for improvement for all browsers is to include a privacy focused search engine as the default option. At the moment, all browsers tested use either Google or Bing as the default search engine, both of which systematically collect and track user data.
The Overall Best Web Browser in 2025
The overall winner is the browser which has performed best across all of the categories: speed, standards compliance, graphics performance, energy efficiency and privacy protections.
As of January 2025, the best browser we tested is Safari. For most tests, Safari ranked either first or second.
It has amazing browsing speed, great graphics performance and excellent energy efficiency. Also, if you’re at all concerned with your privacy, then Safari is a great choice.
Safari blocks trackers and third party cookies by default and reduces the potential for personal identification via fingerprinting defences.
Though improving, Safari’s major downfall is its web standards compliance. Safari still has to deliver significant improvements to be able rank first or second in the Standards Compliance category.
All Rankings | Safari | Chrome | Firefox | Edge |
---|---|---|---|---|
Speed | 1 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
Standards Compliance | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
Graphics Performance | 1 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
Energy Efficiency | 2 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
Privacy Protections | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 |
Total score (lower is better) | 8 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
Overall Rank | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th |
Coming in second was Chrome.
Overall Chrome performed well, with excellent standards compliance, speed and graphics performance. Though Chrome can’t currently exceed Safari’s speed and graphics, it is on an upwards trajectory and may eventually catch-up.
However, Chrome falls down when it comes to energy efficiency and privacy protections.
If you care about your privacy, then we cannot recommend Chrome.
By lacking basic privacy safeguards, Chrome fails to meet the privacy expectations of users in 2025. If this is not a concern for you, then Chrome does manage to deliver the most standards compliant browser we tested and performed generally well overall.
Ranking third was Firefox.
If you do care about your privacy, and don’t want to use Safari, then Firefox is a good choice.
However, Firefox is lacking in browsing speed, graphics performance and standards compliance but – perhaps due to this – is relatively energy efficient.
It’s also the only cross platform, privacy compliant browser included in our tests, so from that perspective it may fill a certain niche for some users.
Finally, in lonely fourth place was Edge.
As the first time we have included Edge in our browser benchmark, we had hoped it may perform better. But despite using the same Chromium browser engine, across all tests, except for energy efficiency, it lagged Chrome.
In many ways, these tests show that Microsoft Edge lacks purpose as a product. Why ship a browser, which performs like a slower iteration of Chrome, without any other perceivable user benefits?
If we were to give Microsoft some free advice on how to improve Edge’s product positioning, it would be to re-position Edge as a privacy-compliant version of Chrome.
To do so, Microsoft would have to ship Edge with more privacy compliant settings as defaults and re-focus Bing as a privacy focused search engine. Doing both things would deliver a cross-platform browser option that has the speed and standards compliance of Chrome with the privacy protections and energy efficiency of Safari and Firefox. A truly unique position in the marketplace, with a clear value proposition - “Chrome but with privacy protections” - that may garner user consideration.
However, for the time being, without major strategic changes, we would not recommend Microsoft Edge.
This comparison was last updated in January 2025 and compares Safari v18.2 (20620.1.16.11.8), Chrome v132.0.6834.84, Firefox v134.0.1 and Edge v132.0.2957.115 all running on macOS Sequoia 15.2.
The test machine was an M2 MacBook Air 15” with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
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