Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#211

Post by JaRail » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

kylealden wrote: post #91

Edge platform team employee here. A couple thoughts on methodology, focusing on our scripted test (under "stay productive longer" at https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/06/20/more-... ), which is most comparable to Opera's test; nobody seems to challenge our Netflix results: * We did not enable ad blockers, because we were testing the efficiency of the network stack, browser rendering pipeline, etc.; if…

This is

* not based on observed user behavior

* not reproducible by you (recorded/replayed network where possible)

* not reproducible by peers

* in stark contrast to reproducible tests provided by others

You describe it as "highly scientific" and jump straight to a marketing campaign. Honestly, who's skipping a lap of the race?

It's pretty clear the data generated is useful from an engineering point of view. It can help identify problem areas. It's also absolutely clear that the conclusions being marketed are blatant misrepresentations of the work.

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#212

Post by Retric » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

bialpio wrote: post #210

Retric wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are objecting to add blocking as a perfectly normal browser feature. There is a mindset that as soon as people start wearing augmented reality glasses they are going to want context sensitive advertising in their day to day lives. IMO, most people would much rather block real world adds and overlay them with blank space or even nature scenes. Browser advertising fits into the same argument as adds on cable tel…

Let me reiterate as you did not address anything from my comment: But how is it all relevant to the discussion? Bottom line is that using adblock in one browser and not using it in other browser makes the comparisons meaningless...

Adblock is a browser feature just as much as GPU acceleration.

Suggesting you need to add third party GPU acceleration to make things fair is ridiculous. But, you seem to think Adblock is somehow different.

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#213

Post by Crespyl » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:10 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #196

anc84 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Click ublock icon, click power icon, done.

yeah, so why have it installed at all?

So you can browse the web on your own terms.

The power button only disables it for one site at a time (or even just a single page, if you Ctrl-click it).

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#214

Post by bialpio » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 7:40 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #212

bialpio wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me reiterate as you did not address anything from my comment: But how is it all relevant to the discussion? Bottom line is that using adblock in one browser and not using it in other browser makes the comparisons meaningless...

Adblock is a browser feature just as much as GPU acceleration. Suggesting you need to add third party GPU acceleration to make things fair is ridiculous. But, you seem to think Adblock is somehow different.

No, I can make things fair by doing another test. Let's test Opera with adblock and Edge without, but only use websites that do not have ads. Sounds good?

Problem with Opera's comparison is that it is not fair because they don't display the same content - they (probably) need to render less. Of course they will be better if they render less (unless they are really bad at what they do). So to make the comparison meaningful, make them display exacly the same thing - then we can talk about who is more power-efficient.

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#215

Post by yitchelle » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 8:48 PM UTC

XCSme wrote: post #157

yitchelle wrote: post #126

Coming from the embedded world, I have always concern about CPU loading which translates to how much power you are sucking. I can't not understand why minimal CPU load is not on top of design requirement of many software products, totally ignored if on a desktop system.

Because PC Master Race. We only want 300FPS+ and 4k graphics, we don't care about $5 extra to our electricity bill, so why would software developers even bother with this and spend extra time and money for improving power drain?

Thanks for the laugh!

Seriously, imagine the world collective savings on energy if everyone reduces their power consumption by small modest 5%.

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#216

Post by ryuuchin » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 10:27 PM UTC

Already__Taken wrote: post #189

ryuuchin wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome uses widevine (DRM) for Netflix which uses HTML5. Really the more significant difference is that Chrome gets capped to 720p. Edge actually gets the 1080p streams (as does IE11 on Windows 8+ and the Netflix Windows Store app).

Seems arbitrary, what's the reasoning for that? Isn't this exactly what everyone warned about with DRM in html5?

Your guess is as good as mine. Blame Netflix, Microsoft or the people pushing DRM. Maybe it's some combination of all of the above or none of them. I'm not sure anyone really knows why we have this behavior.

It's not necessarily DRM in HTML5 which is the issue here although I suppose the fractured nature of it may be partially to blame. It's the fact that it's seemingly arbitrary that Chrome gets capped to 720p and no one knows why. Did Microsoft pay a big chunk of change to Netflix for exclusivity or something along those lines? Do the content creators prefer Microsoft's DRM implementation over Widevine's?

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#217

Post by JaRail » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 11:42 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #19

mackey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they could do a separate test of Opera, Safari, and Chrome on the Mac.

Opera was specifically aiming at Edge in this, it seems.

Opera was responding to something published a few days ago by Microsoft's marketing/Edge team. That's why it's directed at Edge.

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#218

Post by ryuuchin » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 12:19 AM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #192

ryuuchin wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it really is that simple[1]. The only reason I can think of for someone not using uBlock Origin is because they've never heard of it. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#performance

I got rid of it because it made using the web nearly impossible and I got annoyed with constantly having to manage exceptions just to do things like view my Twitter analytics page. Downloading ads is less annoying than uBlock.

What filter lists were you using? uBlock Origin's behavior is identical to Adblock Plus given the same filter lists are used for both. uBlock uses a few more filter lists by default although I still think it's on the conservative end of the spectrum in terms of what gets blocked.

I've only ever had to whitelist two things in uBlock in all my time of using it and that's pretty good considering that I use basically all of the lists that aren't the language specific ones, the anti-anti-adblock one (which requires a user script) or the merged (ultimate) lists.

But yes, my browsing habits are clearly different from yours and what works for me may not for you. I understand that but what uBlock does is not any different than any of the other adblocks that are out there. It just happens to do it more efficiently and with a better UI than the rest of them. The only difference in behavior that you might encounter is likely to be related to uBlock Origin's strict blocking[1]. In this case exception filters are very easy to create since you literally just have to press the disable permanently and it will forever be disabled for that site.

I've said this before the the best way to use uBlock Origin if you've never used something like NoScript/uMatrix before (or couldn't be bothered with the whitelisting approach) is to try and use what it calls "medium mode"[2]. Using its dynamic filtering in this way should net you with the largest gain with the least amount of effort. If you're looking for something with more control than you may want to look into uMatrix since I think the interface will is nicer for that sort of control.

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Strict-blocking

[2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#219

Post by ryuuchin » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 12:24 AM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #196

anc84 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Click ublock icon, click power icon, done.

yeah, so why have it installed at all?

Clicking the power button only disables it for that specific site. Every other site would still have blocking enabled so that sounds like a pretty good reason to have it installed.

Re: Why we challenge Microsoft’s battery test

#220

Post by ryuuchin » Sat, Jun 25, 2016, 12:25 AM UTC

anc84 wrote: post #204

moron4hire wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, so why have it installed at all?

So that it blocks the 99.9% of unwanted crap.

Try dynamic filtering (in medium mode)[1] and raise that number even higher.

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium...