We’ve had a couple of interesting questions about WebXPRT this week.
The first question was about the Face detect test in WebXPRT. One person, having noticed that changing the version of Firefox affected the WebXPRT score on a particular device, asked whether the test used the JavaScript Canvas element. The answer is yes, the Face detection test does use the Canvas element. It is based on the JavaScript library by Dr. Liu Liu.
As we have discussed in the past, the software stack on a device affects the benchmark scores. WebXPRT is a HTML5 benchmark and uses elements in the HTML5 specification, such as Canvas. Browsers implement HTML in their JavaScript engines, whose performance depends on the OS and the underlying platform. So, WebXPRT scores are influenced by the browser and OS, as well as the platform.
The second question was whether it is possible to run WebXPRT without an Internet connection. Generally speaking, the answer to that is no. WebXPRT is a hosted application, and to run the official version, you must be able to connect to the WebXPRT servers.
However, community members can download the WebXPRT source and configure local servers that will run WebXPRT, if they desire. Note: As we discussed in Sources, any published results must be from the version hosted at webxprt.com.
Thanks for the questions and keep experimenting!
Eric
