Help Me Benchmark Web Crypto: A Community Research Project - Osipov, David, Zurabovich, MSc, 1993-08-17 (2025)
Help benchmark SHA-256/384/512 hashing across browsers and devices; your anonymous data will inform web performance and security.
While implementing Content Security Policy hash verification for this website, I noticed significant performance variance across different browsers and devices. A simple SHA-256 hash that took 2ms on my desktop was taking 15ms on some mobile devices—enough to cause noticeable delays during page load. When I searched for real-world benchmarking data to understand these performance characteristics, I found only synthetic lab tests that didn't account for thermal throttling, battery states, or the diversity of actual user devices. I realized the web security community needed a comprehensive, crowdsourced dataset that reflects how cryptographic primitives actually perform in production environments. This project is my attempt to fill that gap while demonstrating best practices for high-precision browser benchmarking.
Content tier: Research
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Keywords: Blog posts; benchmark; performance; sha-256; sha-512; web-crypto-api; javascript; research; crowdsourcing; v8; spidermonkey; javascriptcore; SharedArrayBuffer; mobile benchmark; thermal throttling; Cybersecurity