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The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

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Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#201

Post by Encosia »

icantthinkofone wrote: post #192
Encosia wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used IE in the past few years? IE is (by far) already the fastest browser on my two Windows 10 machines right now. That was also the case when they were running Windows 8 and 8.1 in the past. The latest versions of IE make Chrome feel like Netscape Communicator 4, and they're noticeably faster than Firefox too. If it had a nice LastPass extension, Ghostery, Buffer, and a few others, I'd probably be using IE…

Speed is not the mark of a good browser. If you are using speed as your mark, then you have never coded for the web and have never gone through the trials and tribulations of IE. If speed was the target, then Lynx would be the best of browsers. http://html5test.com/ http://css3test.com/

Err, Chrome's absolute #1 selling point for at least the first year or so was speed, e.g.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7VNjGuSK_k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaNpWJY9SEs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrDHrwLUtvk

I agree that speed isn't everything, but switching to IE is often a relief these days when Chrome has managed to spin up my Surface 3 Pro's fan yet again just browsing average sites.

> then you have never coded for the web and have never gone through the trials and tribulations of IE

I've been developing for the web since before any version of IE existed. You?

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#202

Post by tkubacki »

johnkchow wrote: post #74

This interoperability-focused approach brought the obvious question of adopting an existing open-source rendering engine such as WebKit. While there were some advantages, upon further investigation it was not the right path forward for two important reasons. First, the Web is built on the principle of multiple independent, yet interoperable implementations of Web standards and we felt it was important to counter move…

I hope it doesn't mean: "we will copy but we will not share"

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#203

Post by Encosia »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #175
Encosia wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used IE in the past few years? IE is (by far) already the fastest browser on my two Windows 10 machines right now. That was also the case when they were running Windows 8 and 8.1 in the past. The latest versions of IE make Chrome feel like Netscape Communicator 4, and they're noticeably faster than Firefox too. If it had a nice LastPass extension, Ghostery, Buffer, and a few others, I'd probably be using IE…

Sadly, judging from FF and Chrome both, extensions lead to unavoidable slowdowns. Which makes them a "can't live with them, can't live without them" proposition. Every time I create a new profile, I am shocked by how fast it is. Then the avalanche of ads and tracking pixels forces me to install ABE or uBlock, and the downward spiral begins.

Definitely, that's probably one of the biggest dangers of opening IE up to more extensions. On Windows at least, the divide between Chrome/FF and IE is more fundamental though. Last month, I spent a week really seriously trying to evaluate switching to Firefox or IE, using equivalent extensions (essentially just LastPass, IIRC). Chrome was still awfully clunky compared to Win10's IE TP, especially around touch scroll/zoom/swipe inputs.

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#204

Post by Encosia »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #197
Encosia wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To second what Navarr said, I don't really see IE issues these days unless it's on a site that needs to support versions prior to IE9. As often as not, issues in modern IE are due to developers writing code that targets only a single vendor-prefixed version of an API instead of supporting standards, which makes IE look deficient (instead of that sloppy developer) even when it has good support for the APIs that a site…

To name just one thing that IE still doesn't support: setting the download attribute on a link. Neither does Safari. This makes it very clumsy/impossible to write real web apps that need to save to the local file system. The scenario is generating a document client-side using JavaScript. Now you want to let the user save it. In Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and no doubt others, this isn't a problem. Just set the download a…

You can use this API onclick to do the same thing: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/hh673542%28v=vs....

Now, let's talk about Chrome's pointer events support...

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#206

Post by jsprogrammer »

gtjrossi wrote: post #179
Throwaway90283 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see some competition as well, but in my perspective, they're taking the wrong approach. This entire project seems to be about improving compatibility with older websites, by adding more algorithms and layers to the rendering process. I don't believe everyone is using Firefox and Chrome because they have better compatibility than IE. I think they should focus on cutting the fat, and making the lightest wei…

Actually, our approach is effectively yielding the results you're looking for. Removal of old IE legacy cruft is slimming Spartan's disk and memory footprint when compared with IE. Advances in the Chakra engine are pushing performance ahead. We're rearchitecting our DOM, which is yielding perf and security wins too. We're planning an extension platform also, with top add-ons like ad block being a clear target. There'…

Will there be an open source Linux build?

Edit: Really? Downmods for a legitimate question?

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#209

Post by scrollaway »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #206
gtjrossi wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, our approach is effectively yielding the results you're looking for. Removal of old IE legacy cruft is slimming Spartan's disk and memory footprint when compared with IE. Advances in the Chakra engine are pushing performance ahead. We're rearchitecting our DOM, which is yielding perf and security wins too. We're planning an extension platform also, with top add-ons like ad block being a clear target. There'…

Will there be an open source Linux build? Edit: Really? Downmods for a legitimate question?

I think you got downvoted for asking a foolish question. If there were linux builds in the plans, they would have announced it. If open sourcing the whole thing was planned... well, you get the idea.

Re: The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine

#210

Post by jsprogrammer »

scrollaway wrote: post #209
jsprogrammer wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will there be an open source Linux build? Edit: Really? Downmods for a legitimate question?

I think you got downvoted for asking a foolish question. If there were linux builds in the plans, they would have announced it. If open sourcing the whole thing was planned... well, you get the idea.

I don't see what is foolish about the question (and was taught [and believe] that there are no foolish questions).

MS has opened up their flagship development platform (.NET) and even has it building on Linux. MS will also rent you Linux virtual machines.

The post also talks about interoperability and running across many kinds of devices, including "try out RemoteIE which will stream our latest browser from the Azure cloud to Windows, iOS or Android devices."

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