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Recent WebXPRT mentions in tech press articles, reviews, and more!

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on June 4, 2026

We’ve been excited to see steady growth in the number and variety of media outlets discussing WebXPRT around the world—especially WebXPRT 5. Tracking WebXPRT’s reach in the global tech press—with both English- and non-English-speaking audiences—helps us assess how well WebXPRT’s effectiveness as a benchmarking tool is translating across geographies and cultures.

One way we track WebXPRT’s reach is by paying attention to how much people use and discuss the benchmark in ads, articles, or tech reviews. We call each of those instances a “mention.” We know that our readers won’t see all of those mentions during their normal reading, so we occasionally like to share a sample of recent WebXPRT mentions here in the blog. Whether you just started following WebXPRT or you’re a longtime blog reader, we hope you’ll enjoy exploring the links below!

Recent WebXPRT mentions include the following:

  • PCMag used WebXPRT 5 in an article comparing the speed of the Apple Safari, Brave, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox browsers.
  • Intel referenced WebXPRT 5 performance scores in a press release and product brief for Core Series 3 processors.
  • Tom’s Hardware included WebXPRT 5 in an updated list of recommended CPU benchmarks.
  • Notebookcheck published WebXPRT 5 scores for more than 50 devices on its Benchmark and Test Results page, including the Alienware 16 Area-51, Apple MacBook Pro 16 2025 M5 Pro, ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo, Lenovo Legion 7 16, MSI Prestige 16 AI, and Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra.
  • Microsoft’s Windows Performance Lab published a range of benchmark results that included WebXPRT 4 scores for devices from a wide range of vendors, including an array of Dell laptops.
  • Other outlets that have published articles, ads, or reviews mentioning WebXPRT in the last few months include the following: 3DNews.ru (Russia), AboutChromebooks.com, Alibaba.com (China), BenchLife.info (China), ComputerBase (Germany), iPon (Germany), ITC.ua (Ukraine), Mobasai (Taiwan), Phoronix, TechRadar, Tweakers, XFastest (Taiwan), and ZDNET Korea, among many others.

On a related note, if you’d like to receive monthly updates on XPRT-related news and activity, we encourage you to sign up for our XPRT newsletter. It’s completely free, and all you need to do to join the newsletter mailing list is let us know! We never publish, share, or sell any of the contact information our readers provide, and we’ll only send you the monthly newsletter and occasional benchmark-related announcements, such as important news about patches or releases.

If you have any questions or comments about WebXPRT 5 or the XPRTs in general, please feel free to contact us. We love to hear from the folks that are using our benchmarks!

Justin

Posted in Apple, ASUS, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Brave, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Chrome, Cross-platform benchmarks, Firefox, Google Chrome, Intel, Microsoft, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla, Performance benchmarking, Safari, Samsung, tech press, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4, WebXPRT 5 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CrXPRT 2 functionality is ending with ChromeOS 139

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on July 24, 2025

Back in January, we discussed the ChromeOS team’s decision to eventually end support for all user-installed Chrome Apps—including CrXPRT 2—upon the release of Chrome 138 in July of this year. As best we can tell, the move is part of their overall strategy of transitioning all support to Chrome extensions and Progressive Web Apps. We knew that after the support cutoff date, we would not be able to publish any fixes or updates for CrXPRT 2, but we weren’t exactly sure how the transition would affect the app’s overall functionality.

We’ve now confirmed that while CrXPRT 2 still functions normally through Chrome 138.0.7204.255 (beta), the app does not launch at all on Chrome Canary 139. Consequently, we expect that stable channel system updates will disable CrXPRT 2 on most systems after Chrome 139 goes live on August 5th. We will initially leave CrXPRT 2 on our site for those who want to use it on older versions of Chrome, but over time we will archive it as an inactive benchmark.

We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to the many people around the world who used CrXPRT 2 for lab evaluations, product reviews, and individual testing over the past several years. We’re grateful for your support! We will update readers here in the blog if we decide to pursue new ChromeOS benchmark development work in the future.

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmarking, Chrome, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Chromium, CrXPRT, Future of performance evaluation, Google Chrome, Performance benchmarking, Progressive Web Apps | Also tagged , , , , ,

February 2025 WebXPRT 4 browser performance comparisons

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on February 20, 2025

Once or twice per year, we refresh our ongoing series of WebXPRT comparison tests to see if software version updates have reordered the performance rankings of popular web browsers. We published our most recent comparison last June, when we used WebXPRT 4 to compare the performance of five browsers—Brave, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera—on a Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 3. When assessing performance differences, it’s worth noting that all the browsers—except for Firefox—are built on a Chromium foundation. In the last round of tests, the scores were very tight, with a difference of only four percent between the last-place browser (Brave) and the winner (Chrome). Firefox’s score landed squarely in the middle of the pack.

Recently, we conducted a new set of tests to see how performance scores may have changed. To maintain continuity with our last comparison, we stuck with the same ThinkPad T14s as our reference system. That laptop is still in line with current mid-range laptops, so our comparison scores are likely to fall within the range of scores we would see from a typical user today. The ThinkPad is equipped with an Intel Core i7-1270P processor and 16 GB of RAM, and it’s running Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2 (22631.4890).

Before testing, we installed all current Windows updates, and we updated each of the browsers to the latest available stable version. After the update process was complete, we turned off updates to prevent any interference with test runs. We ran WebXPRT 4 five times on each of the five browsers. In Figure 1 below, each browser’s score is the median of the five test runs.

In this round of tests, the gap widened a bit between first and last place scores, with a difference of just over six percent between the lowest median score of 303 (Brave) and the highest median score of 322 (Firefox).

Figure 1: The median scores from running WebXPRT 4 five times with each browser on the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 3.

In this round of tests, the distribution of scores indicates that most users would not see a significant performance difference if they switched between the latest versions of these browsers. The one exception may be a change from the latest version of Brave to the latest version of Firefox. Even then, the quality of your browsing experience will often depend on other factors. The types of things you do on the web (e.g., gaming, media consumption, or multi-tab browsing), the type and number of extensions you’ve installed, and how frequently the browsers issue updates and integrate new technologies—among other things—can all affect browser performance over time. It’s important to keep such variables in mind when thinking about how browser performance comparison results may translate to your everyday web experience.

Have you tried using WebXPRT 4 in your own browser performance comparison? If so, we’d love to hear about it! Also, please let us know if there are other types of WebXPRT comparisons you’d like to see!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Brave, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Chrome, Chromium, Cross-platform benchmarks, Firefox, Google Chrome, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Performance benchmarking, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4, Windows 11 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

An update on CrXPRT support in ChromeOS

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on January 16, 2025

CrXPRT users may remember that back in 2022, we discussed the ChromeOS team’s decision to end formal support for Chrome Apps and instead focus on Chrome extensions and Progressive Web Apps. This decision meant that we would not be able to publish any future fixes or updates for CrXPRT 2, although moving forward, we weren’t sure how it would affect the app’s functionality.

After receiving a lot of feedback regarding their original timeline, the ChromeOS team decided to extend Chrome App support for Enterprise and Education account customers through January 2025. Because we publish CrXPRT through a private BenchmarkXPRT developer account, we assumed at the time that the support extension would not apply to CrXPRT.

Recently, the ChromeOS team released new information about their scheduled support timeline. Now, they plan to end formal support for all user-installed Chrome Apps in July 2025 (Chrome 138). In February 2028, the Chrome 168 release will mark the end of life for all Chrome Apps.

The good news is that—in spite of a lack of formal ChromeOS support over the past couple of years—the CrXPRT 2 performance and battery life tests have continued to run without any known issues. As of today, the app functions normally up through the Beta release of ChromeOS version 132.0.6834.52.

We will continue to run the benchmark on a regular basis to monitor functionality, and we will disclose any future issues here in the blog and on CrXPRT.com. We hope the app will continue to run both performance and battery life tests well into the future. However, given the frequency of Chrome updates, it’s difficult for us to predict how long the benchmark will remain viable.

If you have any questions about CrXPRT, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in battery life, benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, Chrome, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, Performance benchmarking | Also tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Thinking through a potential WebXPRT 4 battery life test

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on October 17, 2024

In recent blog posts, we’ve discussed some of the technical considerations we’re working through on our path toward a future AI-focused WebXPRT 4 auxiliary workload. While we’re especially excited about adding to WebXPRT 4’s AI performance evaluation capabilities, AI is not the only area of potential WebXPRT 4 expansion that we’ve thought about. We’re always open to hearing suggestions for ways we can improve WebXPRT 4, including any workload proposals you may have. Several users have asked about the possibility of a WebXPRT 4 battery life test, so today we’ll discuss what one might look like and some of the challenges we’d have to overcome to make it a reality.

Battery life tests fall into two primary categories: simple rundown tests and performance-weighted tests. Simple rundown tests measure battery life during extreme idle periods and loops of movie playbacks, etc., but do not reflect the wide-ranging mix of activities that characterize a typical day for most users. While they can be useful for performing very specific apples-to-apples comparisons, these tests don’t always give consumers an accurate estimate of the battery life they would experience in daily use.

In contrast, performance-weighted battery life tests, such as the one in CrXPRT 2, attempt to reflect real-world usage. The CrXPRT battery life test simulates common daily usage patterns for Chromebooks by including all the productivity workloads from the performance test, plus video playback, audio playback, and gaming scenarios. It also includes periods of wait/idle time. We believe this mixture of diverse activity and idle time better represents typical real-life behavior patterns. This makes the resulting estimated battery life much more helpful for consumers who are trying to match a device’s capabilities with their real-world needs.

From a technical standpoint, WebXPRT’s cross-platform nature presents us with several challenges that we did not face while developing the CrXPRT battery life test for ChromeOS. While the WebXPRT performance tests run in almost any browser, cross-browser differences and limitations in battery life reporting may restrict any future battery life test to a single browser or browser family. For instance, with the W3C Battery Status API, we can currently query battery status data from non-mobile Chromium-based browsers (e.g., Chrome, Edge, Opera, etc.), but not from Firefox or Safari. If a WebXPRT 4 battery life test supported only a single browser family, such as Chromium-based browsers, would you still be interested in using it? Please let us know.

A browser-based battery life workflow also presents other challenges that we do not face in native client applications, such as CrXPRT:

  • A browser-based battery life test may require the user to check the starting and ending battery capacities, with no way for the app to independently verify data accuracy.
  • The battery life test could require more babysitting in the event of network issues. We can catch network failures and try to handle them by reporting periods of network disconnection, but those interruptions could influence the battery life duration.
  • The factors above could make it difficult to achieve repeatability. One way to address that problem would be to run the test in a standardized lab environment with a steady internet connection, but a long list of standardized environmental requirements would make the battery life test less attractive and less accessible to many testers.

We’re not sharing these thoughts to make a WebXPRT 4 battery life test seem like an impossibility. Rather, we want to offer our perspective on what the test might look like and describe some of the challenges and considerations in play. If you have thoughts about battery life testing, or experience with battery life APIs in one or more of the major browsers, we’d love to hear from you!

Justin

Posted in AI, battery life, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Chrome, Chromium, Collaborative benchmark development, Cross-platform benchmarks, CrXPRT, Firefox, Future of performance evaluation, Performance benchmarking, Safari | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Updating our WebXPRT 4 browser performance comparisons with new gear

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on June 27, 2024

Once or twice per year, we refresh an ongoing series of WebXPRT comparison tests to see if recent updates have reordered the performance rankings of popular web browsers. We published our most recent comparison in January, when we used WebXPRT 4 to compare the performance of five browsers on the same system.

This time, we’re publishing an updated set of comparison scores sooner than we normally would because we chose to move our testing to a newer reference laptop. The previous system—a Dell XPS 13 7930 with an Intel Core i3-10110U processor and 4 GB of RAM—is now several years old. We wanted to transition to a system that is more in line with current mid-range laptops. By choosing to test on a capable mid-tier laptop, our comparison scores are more likely to fall within the range of scores we would see from a typical user today.

Our new reference system is a Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 3 with an Intel Core i7-1270P processor and 16 GB of RAM. It’s running Windows 11 Pro, updated to version 23H2 (22631.3527). Before testing, we installed all current Windows updates and tested on a clean system image. After the update process was complete, we turned off updates to prevent any further updates from interfering with test runs. We ran WebXPRT 4 three times each on five browsers: Brave, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. In Figure 1 below, each browser’s score is the median of the three test runs.

In our last round of tests—on the Dell XPS 13—the four Chromium-based browsers (Brave, Chrome, Edge, and Opera) produced close scores, with Edge taking a small lead among the four. Each of the Chromium browsers significantly outperformed Firefox, with the slowest of the Chromium browsers (Brave) outperforming Firefox by 13.5 percent.

In this round of tests—on the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s—the scores were very tight, with a difference of only 4 percent between the last-place browser (Brave) and the winner (Chrome). Interestingly, Firefox no longer trailed the four Chromium browsers—it was squarely in the middle of the pack.

Figure 1: The median scores from running WebXPRT 4 three times with each browser on the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s.

Unlike previous rounds that showed a higher degree of performance differentiation between the browsers, scores from this round of tests are close enough that most users wouldn’t notice a difference. Even if the difference between the highest and lowest scores was substantial, the quality of your browsing experience will often depend on factors such as the types of things you do on the web (e.g., gaming, media consumption, or multi-tab browsing), the impact of extensions on performance, and how frequently the browsers issue updates and integrate new technologies, among other things. It’s important to keep such variables in mind when thinking about how browser performance comparison results may translate to your everyday web experience.

Have you tried using WebXPRT 4 to test the speed of different browsers on the same system? If so, we’d love for you to tell us about it! Also, please tell us what other WebXPRT data you’d like to see!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Brave, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Chrome, Chromium, Cross-platform benchmarks, Dell, Firefox, Google Chrome, Lenovo, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Performance benchmarking, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4, Windows 11 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

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