Ever since Costantine Apostolou started the development of JetBrowser, I wanted to evaluate it in terms of speed and responsiveness. Is this browser a jet or a wreck?
Another unstable version of JetBrowser was released a few days ago, and since it’s been some time since the initiation of development, I believe that now is a good time to check this browser and see how fast and compatible it really is.
It all begins with installing, and since you won’t find JetBrowser on your default repositories, you will be happy to see that the installation is as simple as opening the install file and pressing the enter button.
Getting started, JetBrowser is much more user friendly than I expected. On the main screen, all functions are explained for easier understanding of the new ways things work here.
I then opened a new tab and was happy to see that I had some very interesting choices that included some popular websites and some useful applications. The very useful ability of adding your own favorite websites is not implemented yet, but will soon be.
While JetBrowser is very much usable right now, you must keep in mind that is under heavy development and there are many things that need finishing, polishing, or even implementation. Constantine is fixing bugs every day listening to the user feedback and requests like the “back button” that I and many others asked for and will be implemented soon.
The reason for writing this article though, is not to see if JetBrowser is stable, or feature-rich enough to work with every day. The aim is to determine if this browser lives up to its name, and to see how fast and compatible it is right now. To do this I compared it to the most popular lightweight champion, the Midori browser! (Midori 0.4.3 was used)
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Opening time
Opening timeMidori: 0.468 sec
JetBrowser: 0.264 sec
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RAM Use
RAM UseMidori: 110MB opening unixmen.com website. Stabilizing at 120MB after single-tab browsing for 5 minutes
JetBrowser: 105MB opening unixmen.com website. Stabilizing at 115MB after single-tab browsing for 5 minutes
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CSS testing
Midori: 120 ms
JetBrowser: 67 ms
Taking in to account the warning the you can see on the following screenshot, maybe this test is not very much valid, but I give you the results anyway…
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Javacript Bench
Midori: 74 ms
JetBrowser: 66 ms
  
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Compatibility
Both browsers scored 100% on acid 2 and acid 3 tests as expected. A little difference showed up when I tested HTML 5 compatibility. I suppose JetBrowser will score better as the time passes on this one, same way as Chrome does.
Midori: 340 points + 15 bonus points
JetBrowser: 345 points + 15 bonus points
  
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Conclusion
I believe that it is quite clear that JetBrowser is performing very well although it is still not a very mature project. The compatibility status of the browser that derives from its basis is quite good too.
This is a project lead by a person who is friendly to the users, loves to hear feedback and is open to work on new features that users ask for, so why not give JetBrowser a try, and send some feedback to Constantine?
I am sure that soon, we will have an amazingly light and fast, yet very powerful browser in our hands…
