The main problem with a lot of benchmarks - at least the ones that give the most reliable and consistent results - is that they aren't based on real-world usage patterns. This means that the results won't necessarily have any practical meaning. Mozilla sees this as especially true in the browser space, so has released its own benchmark to remedy the situation - Kraken.
The JavaScript test-suite runs through a whole series of different tasks that the company claims are representative of the type of work that a browser would actually do. According to Mozilla's Rob Sayre, "we believe that the benchmarks used in Kraken are better in terms of reflecting realistic workloads for pushing the edge of browser performance forward".
He continued, "these are the things that people are saying are too slow to do with open web technologies today, and we want to have benchmarks that reflect progress against making these near-future apps universally available".
Taking the opportunity to plug its latest browser, Sayre went on to claim that the latest version of Firefox 4 ran Kraken two and a half times faster than the current stable release of Firefox 3.6.
This is just the beginning for the developers, though. According to the announcement, the benchmark will continue to evolve going forward by expanding upon the suite's realism and variety.
If nothing else, it's always useful to have an alternative set of tests to run. We're sure that Kraken will find a home next to the likes of Sunspider and Google's V8 to provide a full-range of browser benchmarks.
