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Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

anandtech.com

21–30 of 138 posts

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#21
post #18
post #11

Benchmarks are good but the overall experience is what matters the most. I'm really impressed by the startup time of Edge. I type some query in the Cortana search bar and press Enter, it launches Edge extremely fast. So far I really love the performance. However to make it my main browser I'm still waiting for adblocking extensions. I browse with a few tabs opened, one of them start randomly playing an ad video, at l…

I don't have edge, but opening last closed tab can also be triggered via ctrl+shift+t. Perhaps they have that shortcut enabled?

He means opening the previous page history-wise in a new tab.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#23
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…

>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.

Maybe I'm underestimating how culturally aware the average person is, but I doubt most people will care to make this connection between IE and Edge.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#24
post #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 a…

It feels to me like current benchmarks all measure execution time, not user time. Let's say you go from a reasonably sized web page to another, and then hit the back button. How long to load the previous page? Right click on a link and select open in new tab. How long does it take to open a new tab? It's definitely part of the user's perception of the browser's speed, but I don't think stuff like SunSpider and Octane even tries to measure it.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#25
post #24
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

It feels to me like current benchmarks all measure execution time, not user time. Let's say you go from a reasonably sized web page to another, and then hit the back button. How long to load the previous page? Right click on a link and select open in new tab. How long does it take to open a new tab? It's definitely part of the user's perception of the browser's speed, but I don't think stuff like SunSpider and Octane…

Good point. I have a surface and want to use IE 11 more because its touch screen friendly, however the back button performance is slow sometimes. Can be very frustrating, so I typically use Chrome. Hopefully Edge fixes that.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#27
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I hate the HTML5Test (and alternative) sites with a passion for the exact reason you say. HTML5Test lists iOS 8 as having IndexedDB support but it's so broken it's unusable on that platform. Even Mozilla completely disabled it in their LocalForage library due to it's issues.

LocalForage sounds like a startup for Portland millennials.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#28
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?

My desperate need for adblockers fluctuates depending on the content I'm primarily browsing. I don't need adblockers for google, stackoverflow, and hackernews. I have gone for months without installing a blocker. But the first day my phone starts being buggy, and I have to start browsing Android press releases and forums, I install an adblocker, because those sites are literally infested with ads. My 60fps-on-skyrim-ultra-settings PC stumbles, lags, and kicks up all the fans to handle rendering some of these web pages because of all the ads.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#29
I'm worried about a few things:

Where will Edge take us? Is Edge replacing IE, or is it parallel?

I feel like this is going to cause confusion. Why did they choose a modern evolution of the Internet Explorer logo (Blue "e" with an orbit)? Everyone is going to expect that this is the new Internet Explorer. ActiveX plugins don't work - are you using Internet Explorer? "Yes! The blue e!" Eek.

If IE is going to co-exist alongside Edge, I feel that we will just be forced to support another new browser.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IE has been discontinued so won't keep pace with Chrome or Firefox. IE 11 is the last version ever. Edge has replaced IE. Edge is set to receive continuous updates the same way Chrome/Firefox do today. It is not pinned to Windows or Service Pack releases like IE was historically.

I don't care if it's Trident, Edge, IE, whatever you want to call it... "The browser formerly known as Internet Explorer." has a history of infrequent releases.

If with the "Edge" release this changes, then I'll accept that... MS said when they released IE10 that they were planning on more frequent releases... that hasn't happened.

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