Microsoft thinks IE8 is faster than Chrome and Firefox
Thursday, 12. March 2009, 16:15:09
Microsoft claims that IE8 is faster than Chrome and Firefox. The question is if those results are because IE8 is actually faster, or if it's just that most sites are designed to work as smoothly as possible in IE. IE is the dominant browser, after all.
Since there are even sites that are have optimizations to work smoothly in Firefox, I wouldn't be surprised if IE has the benefit of being the first browser sites are designed to work with as well.
So maybe Microsoft is actually comparing apples and oranges here?
They didn't include the latest available version of Firefox and Chrome either (although, admittedly, they are not final versions). Opera was also left out. And while pure rendering speed is a big part of the browsing experience, that won't help much without a snappy user interface which gets you where you want to go. That, and time-saving features, of which Opera happens to have a few
Microsoft altso tries to play down the importance artificial JavaScript benchmarks like SunSpider by pointing out that JavaScript makes up only a small part of the time it takes to show a Web page. Even on Ajax-heavy pages, it's a surprisingly low amount.
And I actually agree. Artificial JavaScript benchmarks do not reflect real-world usage. They are nice marketing tools for browsers optimized specifically for those benchmarks, of course.
But on the other hand, the Web is moving quickly. JavaScript performance will probably be more important in the future. As more and more applications are built on Web technologies, browsers need to be future-proof, and that is why Carakan is coming.
Tomorrow's Web application will require outstanding JavaScript performance.
WIDGETIZE
sirnh1 # 12. March 2009, 16:31
I wonder if IE8 still crashes on http://nontroppo.org/timer/progressive_raytracer.html (I'm talking about the full render). IE7 and IE8 beta 2 froze my whole system
I know that it doesn't really matter, but a good browser shouldn't freeze at all...
Joachim # 12. March 2009, 18:22
Bob Cuadrado Pantalones Esponjosos # 13. March 2009, 02:40
the mispelling was on purpose? or was a joke?
Charles Schloss # 13. March 2009, 03:58
João Eiras # 13. March 2009, 10:30
Originally posted by haavard:
Oh my god ! This would require web developers to actually know what they're doing ! Unlikely !
Charles Schloss # 13. March 2009, 17:24
\o/
Kamalesh # 2. April 2009, 17:49
Chrome being fastest with Gmail and Gmaps is a joke (and one that the tech press doesn't seem to get).
It's quite obvious to any serious observer that any site owned by a browser maker will be optimized first and foremost for their own browser (and IE). With agnostic web site design, I've always found Opera to be super-fast.