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Google Frame Benchmarks 9x Faster than IE8
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Early tests with Google's Chrome Frame found IE8 runs 9.6 times faster than usual. The testers ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite." The other question is what is the performance hit of using the Frame plug-in instead of running the browser natively.
However it seems like they only measured JavaScript engine, which by no means contribute everything to how fast browser or browsing feels. And everyone probably knew already that Google's JavaScript engine outperforms MS's (and being one of the main thing Google's thing use, they have a reason to optimize it till its dead)
This seems to be the usual thing with other browser benchmarks too, they only benchmark the javascript engines and similar under the hood things. Yeah it's easier, but it doesn't really tell the truth.
User interactions and GUI responsiveness contribute a lot, actually even more so, to how fast browsing feels. IE is horrible with this and has always been; everything lacks behind, scrolling is galaxies far from smooth and the general feeling is just bad. On that note, Firefox suffers a bit from the same things. I think only Opera and Chrome have done UI responsiveness good. Which also brings the question, does Chrome Frame improve it on IE too?
Looks like Google are going to try and beat Microsoft at their own game:
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
So, Google Frame upgrades the engines...on the Titanic?
You're wrong there mate. On our corporate intranet there's a section of javascript that's 256k in size. IE6 (corporate standard) takes about 20 seconds to load that while Firefox loads it instantly. It's not about how fast the Javascript is received, it's about how fast it's rendered.
...what's the ACID3 results for such a combo?
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It's no wonder Microsoft is claiming that Chrome makes IE less secure. If it lets IE run eight times faster that means that there will be eight times the rate of security breaches. Oh Noes!
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Microsoft has issued the following PSA: 'Some users have been found to experience sides effects from a sort of 'digital whiplash' after installing the new Chrome Frame plugin for IE8. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.'
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Likewise, I've seen javascript which manipulates large datasets, which takes the lion share of time to run; somewhere in the 30-60 second range. Recent javascript performance boosts have allows such manipulation of large datasets to become feasible and even practical.
The truth is, more and more people are attempting to use a browser as a general purpose user interface for many applications which were previously considered unattainable with older browser technology and I only see additional momentum building in this direction.
Fast rendering and javascript is a make or break for most of these types of applications.
you have to add meta tag to make chrome frame work, otherwise it uses slow ie engine
I'm going to go out on a limb here by /. standards, and say that this is a very good idea that is a neat technical solution to a problem. Google's goal is simple : their core strength is that they are incredibly good at creating and hosting web applications. They have some of the most reliable and least expensive (per unit performance) data centers in the world, and they have some top notch coders that have created some amazing applications. The problem is that web applications have to run in web browsers, 20 or more layers of code away from the processor on the host. There's unbelievable performance slowdowns compared to a native application. Speeding up the browser would make many google applications more responsive and compelling, and google could care less whose browser it is. They are freely licensing the chrome code for inclusion in other browsers.
The problem with Chrome is twofold :
1. It's an unbelievably complex task to make a web browser work with every website. Mozilla and the Microsoft browser team have hundreds of developers that have worked for years on their browsers.
2. It's very difficult (and expensive) to get people to change browser. Microsoft wins by default most of the time.
This browser plug-in solves both problems. Now, only websites that the developer knows will render properly in chrome will call on the plug-in. Users will continue to use IE8, oblivious to the fact that some websites are actually being displayed using the chrome browser engine. Google applications will of course all properly render in chrome, and they will be set up to encourage you to download the plugin if you're running internet explorer. Some google apps may even require it, much like you need flash to see youtube videos.
The only problem with the approach is overhead : obviously keeping multiple browser rendering engines running at the same time will eat up a hundred extra megabytes of memory or so. You know, about $3 worth of DRAM.
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