IE9 Is the Fastest Browser, Overtakes Chrome 8.0, Opera 11, Firefox 4.

[JMH]

Long have browser vendors such as Mozilla, Google, Safari and Opera fought over which browser is the fastest in the world with no real contest from Microsoft. This has all changed today, with the latest developer preview, Internet Explorer 9 claims the no. 1 spot in the Webkit Sunspider JavaScript microbenchmark.

The Redmond company just released the seventh Platform Preview of IE9, and the Build is faster that Chrome 8.0 Beta, Opera 11 Alpha, Opera 10.63, Chrome 7.0, Firefox 4.0 Beta 7, Safari 5.0.2 and Firefox 3.6.

But although this is a first for the software giant, Microsoft is not really celebrating. And the reason has been stated time and again by Dean Hachamovitch, Corporate Vice President, Internet Explorer, and other members of the IE team.

No benchmark, and certainly no microbenchmark, Webkit Sunspider included, is capable of reflecting the actual performance of IE9 or rival browsers. Instead, SunSpider is focused on a single aspect, namely JavaScript.

IE9 Is the Fastest Browser, Overtakes Chrome 8.0, Opera 11, Firefox 4.0 - Softpedia

 

[richc46]

I know I am going for it as soon as its out of Beta.

 

[stve]

The Sunspider benchmark is not very relevant any more as most of the browsers are very close.
When Firefox grabbed the lead in Sunspider a couple of weeks ago Asa Dotzler who works for Firefox posted about it on his blog.
Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more: some sunspider numbers

And a quote from the IE 9 Blog about Sunspider.

You may also notice that the differences between browsers on this microbenchmark are converging within thousandths of a second on tests that repeat operations many, many times to find any differences at all. Some have suggested that this benchmark doesn’t matter now and it’s time for another JavaScript microbenchmark.

We’ve been consistent in our point of view that these tests are at best not very useful, and at worst misleading. Even with the most recent results in the chart above, our motivations and our point of view remain unchanged. We’ve focused on improving real world site performance. We’ve made progress on some microbenchmarks as a side effect. Focusing on another subsystem microbenchmark is not very useful.

HTML5, and Real World Site Performance: Seventh IE9 Platform Preview Available for Developers - IEBlog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Apart from being relevant or not IE 9 might have been cheating on the test.
Did Internet Explorer 9 Cheat In The SunSpider Benchmark?

 

[HonorGamer]

I will believe it when i see it.

 

[Gornot]

No benchmark can be fully accurate, and therefore, trusted, that's my point of view.
I have my own opinion on the speed of web brosers based on my own personal usage and small tests.
As I have said many times before, there is no best web browser, and in the same sense, there is no fastest web browser either. It depends solely on the individual user input (usage of plugins, extensions, scripts etc.)

For me personally IE9 feels very close to Chrome in terms of speed, and that's more than good enough for me. And that's how every user should judge a web browser. Download, install and try.