This is not an article about which browser if fastest, just an observation about some data that caught my eye.
While looking at page load times in my Google Analytics account, I noticed a surprising browser ranking (based on data from 01-Jan-2012 to 08-Apr-2012):
Internet Explorer, which has often been derided for being slow (as well as not standards compliant), took top spot.
While someone could take these figures and misrepresent it as which browser is fastest. What it really shows is which browser has a faster Internet connection.
As can be seen in the table below, Chrome and Firefox tend to be used in less developed countries where high speed Internet is probably not available:
For some reason, in those countries, Chrome and Firefox appear to be the preferred browser.