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Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

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Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#31

Post by pohl »

maximilian wrote: post #24
nostrademons wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the guy who did V8 is the same guy who did Beta, Self, and HotSpot. That's like 20 years of experience in writing high-performance VMs for dynamic languages right there.

And the guys who wrote the Squirrelfish VM for safari weren't all famous VM researchers. From what I read, they just picked all the low hanging fruit in classic VM design and got great performance - better than IE8 for sure. Their code is even open source. MS could just read through the source and copy the design.

Indeed, they wouldn't even have to read the source. They could just read the blog and the papers it references:

http://webkit.org/blog/189/announcing-squirrelfish/

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#32

Post by andreyf »

tjic wrote: post #4

If I had to rank-order the various humiliations I've seen, this comes near the top. Microsoft: "here's our best stab at what a great browser looks like - and it took us 14 years to get here". Google: "we've been working on a codebase for 2 years. We decided to release it as a patch to your browser. Our brief foray into this area has improved your best effort by 10x". Ouch!

MS makes money off desktop software, so putting a fast JS interpreter in IE would only benefit their competitors making web apps. It would border on negligence to their shareholders. Google, on the other hand, has economic incentive to promote faster browsers, as they're looking to make money off of web-based services.

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#33

Post by icey »

Luc wrote: post #29
icey wrote: post #7

On one hand, I think this is pretty funny. On the other, I think it's a stunning display of just how much muscle Google really has to flex (and perhaps more importantly, how much they're willing to flex). It will be interesting to see how Google continues to treat companies it considers competitors over the next few years. The big guys like Microsoft will be able to handle it; but the smaller guys might have to start…

I don't think this is flexing a lot of muscle, though I could be wrong of course. The VM was written by one very talented, experienced guy and his assistant. Let's say it cost $200k. The plugin probably cost a trivial amount (there is for example an open-source IE plugin for Firefox that is pretty small sourcecode-wise: http://ietab.mozdev.org/ ). So all in all a small bet with a large potential upside.

I don't think the technical aspect of what they've done is flexing muscle. It's interesting for sure, but in the end, it's a plugin (a very cool one, yes).

The muscle flexing is that they're willing to subvert a competitors product instead of just promoting their own product as a superior offering.

Can you imagine the outrage if Microsoft had done this and offered a plugin to Chrome or Firefox that would make them render things just like IE does? If you're having trouble imagining such a scenario, think back to the outcry when people discovered the .Net plugin for Firefox, and that wasn't nearly as invasive.

Google is drawing a line in the sand that essentially says "You can do things your way or our way, but if you don't like our way we'll find a way to make your users do it our way."

To me that seems like a pretty serious escalation.

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#34

Post by Luc »

icey wrote: post #33
Luc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is flexing a lot of muscle, though I could be wrong of course. The VM was written by one very talented, experienced guy and his assistant. Let's say it cost $200k. The plugin probably cost a trivial amount (there is for example an open-source IE plugin for Firefox that is pretty small sourcecode-wise: http://ietab.mozdev.org/ ). So all in all a small bet with a large potential upside.

I don't think the technical aspect of what they've done is flexing muscle. It's interesting for sure, but in the end, it's a plugin (a very cool one, yes). The muscle flexing is that they're willing to subvert a competitors product instead of just promoting their own product as a superior offering. Can you imagine the outrage if Microsoft had done this and offered a plugin to Chrome or Firefox that would make them re…

This is just speculation, but I think it's possible somebody just did this in their free time without much strategic planning, like so many projects at Google (you know, that 20% free time at Google).

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#35

Post by davepeck »

apr wrote: post #25
nostrademons wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the guy who did V8 is the same guy who did Beta, Self, and HotSpot. That's like 20 years of experience in writing high-performance VMs for dynamic languages right there.

Microsoft has no lack of talented engineers, what they do lack is vision.

As a former MSFT engineer, you hit it spot on.

When people are united behind a clear vision, amazing things can happen. When they're not...

I wrote more about my experience: http://davepeck.org/2008/12/12/meditations-on-microsoft/

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#36

Post by davepeck »

andreyf wrote: post #30
apr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has no lack of talented engineers, what they do lack is vision.

"Vision" isn't an easily defined quantity. What MS lacks is incentive to make a browser with fast JavaScript performance, as they make most of their money off desktop apps, many of which web-based apps are looking to replace. So actually, the opposite is true: MS has a big economic incentive to slow down JS performance in browsers, because it will make them more money selling desktop softare. One way to do this is to…

Microsoft has economic incentive to stay competitive on many fronts. I guarantee you that MSFT is working hard to make JS faster, to make their browser more standards compliant, and to substantially improve security. It makes no strategic or tactical sense for them to do otherwise -- to improve the browser is not to make the desktop less attractive.

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#37

Post by aboodman »

Luc wrote: post #34
icey wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the technical aspect of what they've done is flexing muscle. It's interesting for sure, but in the end, it's a plugin (a very cool one, yes). The muscle flexing is that they're willing to subvert a competitors product instead of just promoting their own product as a superior offering. Can you imagine the outrage if Microsoft had done this and offered a plugin to Chrome or Firefox that would make them re…

This is just speculation, but I think it's possible somebody just did this in their free time without much strategic planning, like so many projects at Google (you know, that 20% free time at Google).

Think carefully about how much work this was to implement (well) and reconsider whether you think it could have been one person's 20% project.

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#38

Post by jimmybot »

dhs wrote: post #27
mattmaroon wrote: post #26

Not really very relevant. Anyone who knows what a benchmark is is already running something other than IE. And who would install a Chrome plugin for IE when they could just as easily use Chrome?

Maybe users who must use IE because of the policies of their company?

But if that's the case, isn't that likely because they have internal applications that are IE only? It seems more like a marketing thing--Overcome people's inhibitions by letting them feel like they "only" installed a plugin and are still running IE.

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#39

Post by jcdreads »

mattmaroon wrote: post #26

Not really very relevant. Anyone who knows what a benchmark is is already running something other than IE. And who would install a Chrome plugin for IE when they could just as easily use Chrome?

If I were hosting a SaaS offering that was Javascript-heavy, I might deploy the site in such a way that IE users were prompted to download the Chrome plugin, thereby allowing my app to run at a tolerable speed.

We recently gave up on GWT at work for precisely the reason that IE6 and friends are waaaay too slow to do anything meaningful in GWT. Had we had this option we might have stuck with GWT instead of rewriting in Flex.

Re: Internet Explorer 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in

#40

Post by icey »

Luc wrote: post #34
icey wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the technical aspect of what they've done is flexing muscle. It's interesting for sure, but in the end, it's a plugin (a very cool one, yes). The muscle flexing is that they're willing to subvert a competitors product instead of just promoting their own product as a superior offering. Can you imagine the outrage if Microsoft had done this and offered a plugin to Chrome or Firefox that would make them re…

This is just speculation, but I think it's possible somebody just did this in their free time without much strategic planning, like so many projects at Google (you know, that 20% free time at Google).

Again, I don't think that this is a technical thing; but a corporate strategy thing. We didn't hear about this from some developer's blog; we heard about it from an "official" Google blog. At some point, this thing has been blessed for release under the Google umbrella.
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