Lifehacker recently published the results of some informal speed and performance tests that were performed on some of the top non-Microsoft browsers. Chrome 4.0, Firefox 3.5 and Opera 10 were submitted to a series of 3 tests which measured Boot up and Page Loading (won by Chrome), Javascript execution speed (again won by Chrome) and Memory Use (which Firefox won). The results were very close and the tests were unscientific, but it makes for an interesting comparison. Read more about the browser tests at the Lifehacker website.

See this earlier post for more details about the recent Opera 10 release.

This month will see the debut of the Opera 10 browser, one of the alternatives to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) that, along with Safari, Google Chrome and Firefox, is carving out its own niche of the browser market. According to InformationWeek, Opera 10 is similar to Firefox, minus the open source and large user base. Currently holding a 2% share of the worldwide browser market, Opera trails slightly behind Chrome and Safari.

Recent figures show Firefox with about 25% of browser users and IE retaining about 66%. The trend in recent months has been for IE to slowly lose ground to the upstart browsers.