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Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

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Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#91

Post by pcwalton »

haberman wrote: post #72
pcwalton wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I agree with your overall point of cold cold performance being paramount. But I don't think this follows. A heavily optimizing JIT can have very good cold-code performance if the JIT is especially fast and/or it makes especially good decisions about when to JIT. The impo…

By "a heavily optimizing JIT" I mean "the specific mode of a larger JIT-enabled engine that compiles slowly but emits good code". So IonMonkey, Crankshaft, SpeculativeJIT/FTL are all JITs that live inside a larger engine that switches between them as needed. In JS land we usually call the individual modes "JITs" even though they may (or may not) share a bunch of code.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#92

Post by bentcorner »

ajitkolathur wrote: post #87

I think the most interesting feature is the ask cortana feature, http://www.thewindowsclub.com/enable-cortana-in-edge-browser , it performs reasonably well on most queries and is pretty fast. Especially useful when reading articles where you have no clue about some of the people mentioned or phrases and expressions being thrown around.. Highlight the phrase and hit the ask cortana option in the menu.

So funny, what's old is new again. I remember Encarta Factfinder back in the day did something similar. Of course, it didn't have any NLP, but the core of the idea is there.

http://www.activewin.com/reviews/software/apps/ms/encarta/20...

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#93

Post by [deleted] »

bentcorner wrote: post #92
ajitkolathur wrote: post #87

I think the most interesting feature is the ask cortana feature, http://www.thewindowsclub.com/enable-cortana-in-edge-browser , it performs reasonably well on most queries and is pretty fast. Especially useful when reading articles where you have no clue about some of the people mentioned or phrases and expressions being thrown around.. Highlight the phrase and hit the ask cortana option in the menu.

So funny, what's old is new again. I remember Encarta Factfinder back in the day did something similar. Of course, it didn't have any NLP, but the core of the idea is there. http://www.activewin.com/reviews/software/apps/ms/encarta/20...

[deleted]

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#94

Post by ygra »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #73
notNow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CTRL + L to highlight the address bar and gain focus. Thanks for the tip.

Alt + d also works, and I feel it's more convenient since it can be easily triggered using just the left hand.

Alt+D sadly doesn't work in every language, Ctrl+L is independent of the UI language.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#95

Post by Theodores »

liviu- wrote: post #19

Are they really going the completely disregard Linux users?

Are Linux users going to completely disregard Microsoft?

Over the last few years a lot of people have taken themselves out of the Microsoft 'eco-system' by getting an Apple PC or by installing a flavour of Linux on their once-Windows PC. There are also many users who 'use' Windows PC's (because there is one on their desk) but no longer care for how Windows works, if they can read their email, open documents and search the internets then why bother involving oneself in any 'computing'?

With this audience I cannot anyone getting zealously excited because Microsoft has a new browser. Nobody is going to switch to Windows from whatever they have migrated to - which can also be Android or ChromeOS. It will be like Windows Phone, sometimes some people might use it but that won't be what most people will do. Why go to the effort?

We are lucky that there have always been browsers that do operate on different operating systems, e.g. the original Netscape, Firefox and Chrome. I am so glad I can move between Windows PC, Chromebook, linux PC and Android phone to have the same browsing bookmarks/experience/history everywhere I am. I wouldn't get this with Windows/Edge.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#96

Post by sanxiyn »

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…

JSBench is a good benchmark measuring cold performance. I recommend everybody try running it.

It is known that Safari wins this benchmark, by a large margin.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#97

Post by randomfool »

sanxiyn wrote: post #96
pcwalton wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

JSBench is a good benchmark measuring cold performance. I recommend everybody try running it. It is known that Safari wins this benchmark, by a large margin.

Unfortunately the way it measures JS perf is questionable- it essentially records all operations during page load then replays them for the benchmark. This has the effect of unrolling all of the loops and disabling many of the optimizations that would have been applied to the original code.

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#99

Post by Manishearth »

AaronFriel wrote: post #90
higherpurpose wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I type some query in the Cortana search bar and press Enter, it launches Edge extremely fast. Probably something to do with the fact that Edge/Cortana is already loaded at Windows start? So in a way it's a "trick" to starter "faster".

Cortana is, but the Edge process is not that I can find. but that's only part of the story. If the libraries utilized by Edge are already loaded by other processes, they benefit from being in memory already. Still, I notice Edge launches faster than Chrome even when I have a separate "Chrome App" open (e.g.: Hangouts). But you have to remember that Chrome essentially re-implements the ChromeOS on top of Windows. Much…

Note that Servo proper isn't supposed to _have_ a UI (well, a browser chrome). It's an engine, Servo maps better to Trident or Gecko (rather than Firefox/Chrome/Edge). There are some experimental UIs for Servo though (which are also minimalistic, but that's because there hasn't been much work there yet)

Re: Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

#100

Post by omaranto »

citalan wrote: post #53

I'm excited to try out Edge, from what I've read it looks like a great browser but the key feature in Chrome that keeps me from switching is the shared history. I use Chrome on my Android phone and tablet, and on my desktop and laptop so all of my browsing history and currently open tabs can be accessed from any device. I rely on this day-to-day, particularly the "Recent Tabs" option from other devices. Until another…

I agree that "recent tabs from other devices" is very handy. IE11 does have that, so I guess Edge will too (at least eventually). This doesn't help you since you probably don't want to trade your Android phone/tablet for Windows phones/tablets.

If you insist on Android devices, Firefox also has the "recent tabs from other devices" feature. The feature is so useful it made me switch from Chrome to Firefox in fact: I used to use Chrome on my laptop and when I bought an Android tablet I used Chrome on it to share tabs between devices, but then Android Chrome introduced some change that made MathJax render incorrectly, so I switched to Android Firefox on the tablet; this in turn made me switch to Firefox on my laptop, to be able to share tabs again.

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