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Google launches alpha browser speed test RobotHornet, asks for community participation

Google is now dabbling in a world beyond JavaScript with its newly unveiled RoboHornet.

The browser benchmark attempts to test and tackle more than just a browser’s JavaScript speed; and as an open-source project at GitHub, Google is inviting others to get involved. CNET first reported the story:

There are plenty of JavaScript speed tests, Google’s new Octane among them, and for good reason: the programming language is used to turn static Web pages into interactive Web apps. But there’s more to fast browsing, and Google hopes others will get involved to flesh out RoboHornet with a full suite of tests.

RoboHornet includes all aspects of a browser’s performance and other important matters for web developers, such as layout performance and localStorage, but it is still in an early alpha state.

“[…] That’s where you come in,” announced RoboHornet leader Alex Komoroske in a Google+ post. “It’s up to you and to propose and vote for performance issues you care about, helping shape the future of the benchmark and effectively defining the areas that browser vendors will invest in making run faster.”

Google engineer Paul Irish further detailed on his blog how RoboHornet plans to test many browser facets.

“These days, our performance bottlenecks are oftentimes DOM, <canvas> API methods, SVG. Those are our priorities,” explained Irish. “So we wanted to solve that with RoboHornet.”

Those willing to participate can take a look at the website, watch the RoboHornet Github project, read more about contributing, and then submit any “performance pain points.”

Get the full report at CNET.

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