Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance • Hacker News Board

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#41

Post by justwannasing » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:40 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #20

pcwalton wrote: 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.

HTML5test is OK but caniuse.com shows more but people will complain about every browser test site since I started doing web dev 11 years ago.

Here's the thing. Edge is IE without the legacy baggage and that's all it is. No different. It's still behind every other browser in its ability to comply with standards and APIs. Despite Microsoft's claim that it will be an "evergreen" browser, that it will update more often, we have not seen this so the proof needs to be done.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#42

Post by justwannasing » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:41 PM UTC

bepotts wrote: 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…

To be clear: Microsoft did NOT build Edge from the ground up. Edge is IE without legacy code; that is all.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#43

Post by joshuapants » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:43 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #28

pothibo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

This pretty much mirrors my experience. I'm using Edge on an ancient Thinkpad, and there are many days where I can use it with no issues at all. And then sometimes I click on a link to a news website and my computers grinds to a halt loading all the ads and autoplay videos.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#44

Post by abrowne » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:45 PM UTC

taco_emoji wrote: post #9

pothibo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Two words: reading mode.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#45

Post by pippy » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:48 PM UTC

Microsoft are coming out swinging at Google with their latest browser and Operating System. Their Cortana search feature is impressive, and very well integrated.

Even Windows 10 isn't shying away with a search field located in the main task bar. These features are there to try and chip away at Google's search dominance.

It will be interesting to see if it works. If Microsoft makes a browser people want to use, Chrome will be in trouble. Chrome might end up like Google Maps on iOS.

While many seem to be welcoming a 'new Microsoft' with their open source efforts, it seems they still don't shy away from trying to kill off competitors by leveraging their Operating System monopoly.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#46

Post by joshuapants » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:51 PM UTC

pothibo wrote: post #5

joshuapants wrote: post #4

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?

Primarily I use ad-blocking and Greasemonkey. There are, of course, tons of others but I generally haven't found any that fit my usage.

For me, ad-blocking is necessary from a privacy and security standpoint. It's also nice to speed up page loads, decrease memory/CPU usage, and make websites actually usable. I do tend to disable it on sites that I trust.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#47

Post by Encosia » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:53 PM UTC

bepotts wrote: post #34

liviu- wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#48

Post by dgcoffman » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

Still can't calculate height or fire mouseLeave events correctly.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#49

Post by jgraham » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

pcwalton wrote: post #36

cwyers wrote: 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…

I don't know if it's a coincidence that around the time that paper was released Microsoft were considerably behind the curve in terms of js engine performance. The paper also misses the fact that excellent hot-code performance opens up new frontiers for the web like games, photo editing, and similar compute-intensive applications that are not well represented by their sample of popular sites since those are, by definition, limited by what was performant in extant browsers.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#50

Post by Sgt_Apone » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:07 PM UTC

aesthetics1 wrote: post #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…

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.