Extreme boost for Safari JavaScript performance

Posted on 19 Sep 2008 at 10:40

Just three months after announcing its new JavaScript engine, the WebKit project has unveiled a new version of SquirrelFish that promises even faster processing of scripts in Web pages.

SquirrelFish Extreme (SFX) introduces four new techniques for processing JavaScript that build on the already considerable improvements first unveiled in June.

The upshot is that in the nightly versions of the WebKit browser - a development version of Safari used for testing - SFX is 36% faster than Google’s V8 and 55% faster than TraceMonkey, which will debut in Firefox 3.1, according to SunSpider benchmarks.

It is also almost four times faster than the engine currently used by Safari 3.1.

There has been no indication when SquirrelFish will be deployed in Safari proper, though it is likely to appear when version 4 is released next summer.

Author: Simon Aughton

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