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Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

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Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#3
What I'd like to see are benchmarks that involve visiting some sample of sites out of the Alexa top 100 and performing standard tasks (reading Gmail, finding a certain thing on Amazon.com, etc.) I know that's dependent on things like network conditions, so you'd have to run it a lot of times to get meaningful results, but it'd still provide a more meaningful result than a lot of synthetic benchmarks.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#4
post #2

Running on a 7 year old HTPC with 2gb ram edge feels extremely smooth compared to chrome. They should do benchmarks on lower end systems, such as atom based tablets.

I've also been fairly impressed with Edge on a low-spec machine. Realistically, once there is extension support and I can get an ad-blocker (ideally uBlock, and since it's rumored to be easy to port Chrome extensions I'm hopeful) I would have no issues using Edge as my daily browser.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#5
post #2

Running on a 7 year old HTPC with 2gb ram edge feels extremely smooth compared to chrome. They should do benchmarks on lower end systems, such as atom based tablets.

I've also been fairly impressed with Edge on a low-spec machine. Realistically, once there is extension support and I can get an ad-blocker (ideally uBlock, and since it's rumored to be easy to port Chrome extensions I'm hopeful) I would have no issues using Edge as my daily browser.

I run exactly zero extension and used an ad-blocker for maybe 1 month in my whole lifetime.

With that being said, I am genuinely curious how these 2 things are necessary for you to consider a browser. Are there extensions that I don't have that is crazy for me not to have?

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#6
I wonder how much the Edge's performance will affect the average person's decision to use it or not. Browsers one up each other all the time and I'm sure Google's next major Chrome update will show improvements over the Edge.

Renaming your browser won't change peoples' memory of Internet Explorer, even if Microsoft built Edge from the ground up. The average person is still going to be thinking IE when they see it.

Without extensions, I personally am not leaving Chrome - even if it's a resource hog. But it is nice to see how Microsoft is changing their behavior. Competition between products is always a good thing.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#7
post #6

I wonder how much the Edge's performance will affect the average person's decision to use it or not. Browsers one up each other all the time and I'm sure Google's next major Chrome update will show improvements over the Edge. Renaming your browser won't change peoples' memory of Internet Explorer, even if Microsoft built Edge from the ground up. The average person is still going to be thinking IE when they see it. Wi…

"I'm sure Google's next major Chrome update will show improvements over the Edge"

What makes you so confident the next one will be faster if the current one is slower? Are you on the dev team?

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#8
post #3

What I'd like to see are benchmarks that involve visiting some sample of sites out of the Alexa top 100 and performing standard tasks (reading Gmail, finding a certain thing on Amazon.com, etc.) I know that's dependent on things like network conditions, so you'd have to run it a lot of times to get meaningful results, but it'd still provide a more meaningful result than a lot of synthetic benchmarks.

I agree that major improvements are needed. SunSpider, Octane, and Kraken are all pure JavaScript benchmarks, very microbenchmarky (look at bitwise-and in the SunSpider suite). Oort Online is a benchmark of WebGL performance—WebGL is definitely worth benchmarking, but how common is it in people's daily browsing? HTML5Test tests whether a bunch of "HTML5" features are sorta present, not whether they actually work or anything—it encourages broken implementations that support just enough to pass the test.

The state of browser benchmarking is pretty bad. Right now the common suites of benchmarks overwhelmingly focus on what is easy to measure, not what reflects real-world perception of browser performance.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also been fairly impressed with Edge on a low-spec machine. Realistically, once there is extension support and I can get an ad-blocker (ideally uBlock, and since it's rumored to be easy to port Chrome extensions I'm hopeful) I would have no issues using Edge as my daily browser.

I run exactly zero extension and used an ad-blocker for maybe 1 month in my whole lifetime. With that being said, I am genuinely curious how these 2 things are necessary for you to consider a browser. Are there extensions that I don't have that is crazy for me not to have?

I'm genuinely curious how anyone can spend any significant amount of time reading on the web and not use an ad-blocker. Even mostly-benign animated sidebar ads are too distracting for me.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#10
post #6

I wonder how much the Edge's performance will affect the average person's decision to use it or not. Browsers one up each other all the time and I'm sure Google's next major Chrome update will show improvements over the Edge. Renaming your browser won't change peoples' memory of Internet Explorer, even if Microsoft built Edge from the ground up. The average person is still going to be thinking IE when they see it. Wi…

IE is usually very competitive at each release... the problem is they tend to sit at 2+ years between releases, and even with IE10 and 11, it hasn't gotten much narrower.

The real test will be to see if IE can keep the pace set by chrome and firefox.

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