Chrome is perceptibly faster than Safari which is perceptibly faster than Firefox which is ridiculously faster than Internet Explorer. But there we are.

Could it all be perception? Like maybe Safari and Chrome make smoother animations to hide the loading times? I seem to remember there was a similar thing with menus in OS X vs Windows (or Linux?) - one was actually faster, but the other was perceived faster because they animated how the menu items would unfold.

Also there are of course issues with preloading the browser, which would (unfairly) reduce startup times.

It's a meaningless distinction. I don't want a browser which measures fast but feels slow anymore than I want speakers which measure 'loud' but I can't hear them.

My thought was that if it's perception, it might vary between people. Some might feel Browser A is faster, others might perceive Browser B as faster.

Yeah it's shocking but it's true, isn't it? I mean, everyone who's using both Firefox and Chrome/Safari experiences it every day.