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Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

anandtech.com

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Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#61
post #47
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could they not? You upgrade your OS or buy a new computer, and you see a new application ( that you didn't install ) and you ( presumably ) can't uninstall it. Wouldn't any rational person assume it's a pre-installed application? Wouldn't it make sense to believe that the OS developer created it? There's an old joke about IE when people purchase a new computer: It's the browser I use to install another browser. W…

> Everyone In my experience, you're dramatically overestimating how many people really understand what a browser is, what IE is, or can disambiguate between Chrome and Google.

Here's a great video that Google did back in 2009 that illustrates this pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#63

As great as Edge is in the benchmarks, the engine beneath seems to be solid, the browser is shipping in a half-completed state. The lack of support for extensions I think is going to do more harm than good. I don't get the rush to release Edge, wouldn't it have been better for Microsoft to just hold off a couple of more months until the browser was ready feature wise? I haven't been using the Windows 10 development b…

My guess is, they figure that most non-tech people will continue using IE 11 if Edge was not shipped with Windows 10 rather than moving to Edge when Edge shipped.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#64
Benchmarks are largely useless, everyone makes up their own and none of them translate into how it FEELS to use a browser IMHO. Great they made some stride but so did every other browser also they don't have extensions yet and won't at launch which is a nonstarter.

I used it VERY briefly in a WIn 10 VM (not to use it, just to go download some tools) and wanted to pull my hair out. Little things here and there that were a constant reminder that microsoft just is bad at browsers. Sure they can piece together something that can access the web but it's not an enjoyable experience. I had to go and download chrome because apparently browsing around online, having multiple tabs open, and downloading files was a little too much for Edge to handle. I'd say it was the number of ads on the sites I was going to but I went to the same sites in Chrome without an adblocker (Vanilla Chrome) and it handled it without a sweat. This is by no means a complete test but I really wanted to try Edge and it felt like it was actively working against me and unable to deal with websites that I might have to go to from time to time that are covered in ads.

We will see what Win 10 ships with and what Edge looks like after extension support is added but I'm not holding my breath for the IE/Edge team to put out anything beginning to look like a real browser. Lastly no cross platform support? Fuck off, don't expect me to test for it at all. And no, VM's are not acceptable for testing. Don't misunderstand me Apple sucks with Safari and their lack of browser choice (and engines) on iOS almost as much but at least webkit is sane. Not to mention you can test webkit on Windows but I do agree it's not the same as Safari. That said Safari is a LOT closer to FF/Chrome than IE/Edge is to FF/Chrome which reduces needed testing substantially.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#65
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 really suggest you look here: https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Lars-Bak-and-Stev...

They do talk about the chicken and egg situation, where top sites will optimize for engines, then engines optimize for sites... i.e. it highly depends on the sites - of course all browsers test on top sites and optimize for them. But then the cycle repeats.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#66
These benchmark articles frustrate me because I rarely feel they tell me anything. What do the benchmarks actually measure? When one tested product benchmarks as better/worse than another, what specifically is happening to make it better or worse? I feel like a good technical reporter ought to be able to dig deeper, do some investigation and provide real insight.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#67

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…

Edge is replacing IE and is the default browser for Windows 10. IE is included in Windows 10, but it is buried in the Windows Accessories folder in the Start menu. The current version of IE is 11 and that will be the last. Microsoft will support IE until Jan 2016.

> Microsoft will support IE until Jan 2016.

Uh... [1]

    Beginning January 12, 2016, the following operating systems
    and browser version combinations will be supported:
    
    Windows Vista SP2         Internet Explorer 9
    Windows Server 2008 SP2   Internet Explorer 9
    ...

    After January 12, 2016, only the most recent version of Internet
    Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive
    technical support and security updates.
They go on to talk about how Windows 7's Enterprise Mode will be supported until 2020 so you can still keep IE kicking around well beyond 2016.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/08/07/stay-up-to-dat...

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#68
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Heavily related to this, one key insight that I think has been neglected is that JavaScript benchmarks do a bad job of measuring cold code. Most code on the Web is cold, because much Web browsing consists of fresh page loads. Heavily optimizing JITs are exactly what you don't want for cold code: time spent compiling is time you could have been spending running the code. But benchmarks consist of running the same code…

Have you actually looked at some of these benchmarks? For example, Octane contains "Code loading", sunspider has "code decompression" (not true code loading, but at least it does de-minification).

Of course it's important, and all borwsers are developed with this in mind - but it's not possible to create reproducable test suite (with a score given) that will test actual sites - sites change

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#69
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not going to non-standard site ? I never ever go to site which its developer put ads every where he/she liked. I have very restricted list of sites which I think are good enough my attention and time. p.s. and I spend 7 8 hour a day sitting and reading material and documents from net. p.s-2. And I am okey with standard ads.Site owners has right to make living to, and I think using ads-blocker is selfish act.

> Site owners has right to make living to

Site owners have the right to make a living. They do not have a right to waste my bandwidth, damage my hearing, or compromise my security.

> I think using ads-blocker is selfish act

Perhaps, but it's a reaction to the considerably more selfish trend in advertising.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#70
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE11 has been doing automatic updates for at least a couple years now, by default.

Has IE11 added new features since release, or has it only been security/bugfixes?

IE11 on Windows 8/8.1 got updated with EME and MSE for Netflix HTML5 video. Also new F12 devtools.

IE11 on Windows 7 is sadly not getting any new features, only updated with bug fixes and security updates.

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