Microsoft's own speed tests show IE beating Chrome, Firefox

[Slimy]

Just before announcing that Internet Explorer 8 has been finalized, Microsoft has released a new report titled "Measuring Browser Performance: Understanding issues in benchmarking and performance analysis." The document explains the various browser and network components and how each piece can impact performance when benchmarking, capabilities and limitations of various benchmarking tools, as well as ways to design tests to avoid these issues. What makes this report extremely dubious is the chart that is buried at the bottom. It shows IE8 outperforming Firefox 3.05 and Chrome 1.0, something that no other test on the Internet has ever shown before.

Before I start to rant and rave, I want to explain that I am an IE8 user (in fact this post was written using IE8 on Windows 7), though I do use other browsers from time to time. IE8 is a vast improvement over IE7, especially in performance, but I will be the first to admit that it still does not compete with third-party browsers when it comes to speed. However, the table Microsoft provides shows the load times for the top 25 websites according to comScore, and IE8 does quite well. The report notes that Microsoft "used the browser 'Done' indicator for timing when the page when the page is completely loaded at that point. For pages which continue to load and change after the 'one' indication we have used common visual cues to generate the timings. Timing is started when the Go button is pressed. These timings were captured in January 2009; because Internet content is always changing you may get different timings when you run these tests."

Full Story: Microsoft's own speed tests show IE beating Chrome, Firefox - Ars Technica

 

[abuttino]

For some reason, I can't take this as a valid test. It's done by Microsoft.

I noticed today that pages render within milliseconds on FF3 (latest version) on FiOS.

This never happened with Vista, and certainly not XP.

 

[Romulinx2]

I think M/soft must have a different timebase!

I have been using Chrome, and its faster than all of them so far.

 

[Deathsink]

It should be noted that IE opens Mozilla.org faster than Firefox. Firefox, on the other hand, opens Microsoft.com faster than IE.

Weird.

 

[napilopez]

It should be noted that IE opens Mozilla.org faster than Firefox. Firefox, on the other hand, opens Microsoft.com faster than IE.

Weird.

That is quite humorous ^_^

Also, I find this hard to believe. In personal experience, chrome is overall the most pleasant browser to use "Out of the Box". Safari 4 is incredibly speedy though, and in my experience loads pages notably quicker than Chrome. Not by much, but it is tangible. But a lack of "open recently closed tabs" feature and a duplicate tabs feature keeps me from using it. Opera 10 is also very speedy, the newest snapshot might be as quick as chrome, perhaps a bit quicker. Negligible. The application itself though isn't as fast.

In my experience, in terms of webrendering speed: Safari 4, Chromium/Opera 10, Firefox 3.1, IE.

 

[Dragonfly]

MRDA

 

[DABoogadie]

Great! Now I have to decide what to do with all those extra milliseconds in my life.

 

[Quantum]

Great! Now I have to decide what to do with all those extra milliseconds in my life.

hahaha that's sooo true, they fighting on quarter of a second, man, that's 100 times what you need just to click on the link lol

 

[jblazea50]

chrome is awesome

 

[RST101]

I dont know what test they conducted but it is not the quickest browser on my comp. Although it has covered alot of ground in that department chrome is still hands down winner at opening new tabs and its execution pages. Firefox is lagging behind all of them now and I have not installed it for a while now. I have not tried safari because I don't like apple soft wares trying to take control of my comp. Even though ie has come along way chrome is still the champ for me, snappy minimilistic and easy to use. And its still a beta!

 

[absolute3d]

Use Futurmark PeaceKeeper to best test your browser

 

[jimbo45]

I think M/soft must have a different timebase!

I have been using Chrome, and its faster than all of them so far.

If you are running Chrome on W7 how did you get it to work.

I want to try it (will use a VM) but have read a lot of posts about people having problems with Chrome and W7.

Browsing speed tests are always a bit "iffy" especially if the site being browsed has multi-media content -- decoding and playing the multi-media content will depend hugely on the client computer's hardware in any case.

Also some of the scripts that run when a browser connects to any particular site are dependent on the quality of the code of the site being visited -- not under the control of the browser running the script.


As far as normal users are concerned the Net access might be more dependent on the ISP connection than any optimisation of the browser -- although optimising code is never a bad idea.

I suspect that pretty well ANY browser's performance now is roughly the same. Of course the more checks / security / phishing filters etc you build into a browser the more work it has to do. Maybe IE8 has more security checks etc than Chrome.

From what I see now IE8 performs just as fast as Firefox to me (sorry Firefox -- I always preferred it in the past but it's just an extra application now -- I'm lazy enough to stick with MS unless a 3rd party app is SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER or adds totally new functionality.

I don't think Google's Chrome has been out long enough for it to have been robustly tested enough with the security / phishing etc features in it.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[jblazea50]

when i first installed chrome, i was having problems with it running it with W7...however, i reinstalled it and haven't had any issues at all

i'm running chrome 2.0.169.1

 

[smarteyeball]

Thanks to Absolute3d for the futuremark heads up.

Peacekeeper - The Browser Benchmark by Futuremark Corporation


1. Safari 4.0 beta
2. Chrome 1.0.154.48
3. Opera 10 alpha
4. Firefox 3 3.0.7
5. IE8 8.0.7048


Interesting results, but I still prefer FF3 myself.

 

[RST101]

If you are running Chrome on W7 how did you get it to work.

I want to try it (will use a VM) but have read a lot of posts about people having problems with Chrome and W7.

Browsing speed tests are always a bit "iffy" especially if the site being browsed has multi-media content -- decoding and playing the multi-media content will depend hugely on the client computer's hardware in any case.

Also some of the scripts that run when a browser connects to any particular site are dependent on the quality of the code of the site being visited -- not under the control of the browser running the script.


As far as normal users are concerned the Net access might be more dependent on the ISP connection than any optimisation of the browser -- although optimising code is never a bad idea.

I suspect that pretty well ANY browser's performance now is roughly the same. Of course the more checks / security / phishing filters etc you build into a browser the more work it has to do. Maybe IE8 has more security checks etc than Chrome.

From what I see now IE8 performs just as fast as Firefox to me (sorry Firefox -- I always preferred it in the past but it's just an extra application now -- I'm lazy enough to stick with MS unless a 3rd party app is SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER or adds totally new functionality.

I don't think Google's Chrome has been out long enough for it to have been robustly tested enough with the security / phishing etc features in it.

Cheers
jimbo

If its 64 bit you gotta go in to props and where is says target you enter after the exe "--in-process-plugins" and your good to go. You dont enter the quote marks like.

 

[RST101]

Thanks to Absolute3d for the futuremark heads up.

Peacekeeper - The Browser Benchmark by Futuremark Corporation


1. Safari 4.0 beta
2. Chrome 1.0.154.48
3. Opera 10 alpha
4. Firefox 3 3.0.7
5. IE8 8.0.7048
View attachment 5991

Interesting results, but I still prefer FF3 myself.

Safari matbe quiker in the test they conducted but the reason i wont install ANY apple software is because they like to take control of your computer with other apps. You cant install one thing without installing another. And they also take up massive amounts of resources. Thanks but no thanks.

 

[Deathsink]

Safari matbe quiker in the test they conducted but the reason i wont install ANY apple software is because they like to take control of your computer with other apps. You cant install one thing without installing another. And they also take up massive amounts of resources. Thanks but no thanks.

Yes, exactly. Why does it ask me to install Safari every time Quicktime needs to update? Seriously.

 

[smarteyeball]

Apple software is just like Adobe software: It's intrusive. It also feels arrogant, which is no mean feat, considering it's only software.

You do know that when installing Safari you can opt not to install all the extras ie Bonjour. However the apple updating software still sneaks in. Then again Chrome installs the Google Updater without being asked too. That might be all right for Jane and Joe average, but a superfluous service is still superfluous a service.

I uninstalled Safari and Chrome after running the tests anyway.

 

[Adamd]

Overall I think IE8 is just slow... I always feel like I am waiting for it to finish.

I am using FF 3.1 beta 3 now and am very happy with the speed. It loads everything just about as soon as I click it.

Not worth switching to another browser even if I can save a few MS...