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Windows 10 IE With Spartan Engine Performance Vs. Chrome and Firefox
MojoKid writes: In Microsoft's latest Windows 10 preview build released last week, Cortana made an entrance, but the much-anticipated Spartan browser did not. However, little did we realize that some of Spartan made the cut, in the form of an experimental rendering engine hidden under IE's hood. Microsoft has separated its Trident rendering engine into two separate versions: one is for Spartan, called EdgeHTML, while the other remains under its legacy naming with Internet Explorer. The reason Microsoft doesn't simply forego the older version is due to compatibility concerns. If you're running the Windows 10 9926 build, chances are good that you're automatically taking advantage of the new EdgeHTML engine in IE. To check, you can type 'about:flags' into the address bar. "Automatic" means that the non-Spartan Trident engine will be called-upon only if needed. In all other cases, you'll be taking advantage of the future Spartan web rendering engine. Performance-wise, the results with IE are like night and day in certain spots. Some of the improvements are significant. IE's Sunspider result already outperforms the competition, but it has been further improved. And with Kraken, the latency with the Spartan-powered Trident engine dropped 40%. Similar results are seen with a boost in the Octane web browser test as well.
I am sure Chrome and Firefox are well ahead on "new versions per month" stats
Still I wouldn't touch IE with the proverbial 3 metre citizen of Warsaw
The last time I thought my browser "felt" slow was probably in the 90s.
The areas of web browsing I care more about are the rendering of web pages as designed preferably without artefacts, usability such as the "right" popups at the right, being able to browse without being assaulted by unwanted content (*), having the ability to perform my important tasks like internet banking, having the ability to play movies without flash.
Browsers that have the ability to do such things (probably most of them now) are what I'm looking for..
* Not just blocking advertisements but also content that gets shoved in my face like Kim Kardashian "news" bits that get shoved in my face. I'd almost pay for a plugin that would do that!
Windows is unfortunately relevant. The question is whether the built in browser is relevant. I'm going to install firefox and/or chrome and use those exclusively anyway because i've been burnt too many times with MS's attempts to "add value" with IE to ever trust their browsers again.
Just because pull-down menus are a great idea for Turbotax, doesn't make them the best idea for a webbrowser. The "good" one wastes screen space on stupid pull-down menus that will never get used. For a program used on occasion, yes it is a very good idea to follow standards strictly. But plenty of people do basically nothing on their computers but use the web-browser and Office. I think it's best to optimize these programs interfaces to actual use, irrespective of general standards.
I just spent 2 seconds to turn on the pull-down menus to my browser...and a File menu? WTF? How often do you need that?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
More speed is great, I'm sure users will be happy.
The dual rendering engine, less so. I know backwards compatibility is pretty important to Microsoft, but now they have twice as much web-facing code to maintain - all the legacy IE MSHTML stuff as well as the new EdgeHTML code - and thus twice the zero-days to cope with. Perhaps this is the lesser of two evils, but it's certainly not ideal.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
TFA is saying that the new 'spartan' has improved IE's performance, to the point that now its performances match and/or exceed that of FF and Chrome
But, if we look at the whole thing from another angle we would know that it isn't that the 'spartan' improves IE, rather, indicating a SERIOUS REGRESSION of both FF and Chrome
I still remember how fast and light FF was when it came out. I was among one of the first who dare to fire up FF when everyone was still sticking with IE, and FF now ? [shaking head and sigh]
Chrome is also the same. When it came out it was so fresh, so responsive, so light
No more
My fervent hope is the new 'spartan' engine will spur both FF and Chrome to start taking performances seriously. Users are really tired of bloatwares, and FF / Chrome have become bloatwares
I think the hate toward microsoft JUST BECAUSE its microsoft is completely unjustified and misguided at this point.
Companies like Google have been FAR WORSE yet are still praised (but probably wont in 10 years from now).
Windows is actually a freaking good and productive OS, when you become expert with Linux, MacOSX and Windows - arguably the top 3 - you'll find that Windows is damn good at being productive on the desktop/as a workstation. Of course, very few have such proficiency, so I'll give an example. Heard of GrSecurity? the lead developer, develops for Linux on Windows, because he want stuff that works, is quick, and is flexible.
IE is not a bad browser anymore either. They caught up and fixed it. It's not my favorite but it works perfectly well. Spartan Engine is damn good. Sure - I'd rather use Firefox (which by the way beats the pants of Chrome in many of these benchmarks) because it follows my ideals more closely. But from a technical point of view, IE's fine. Spartan makes it finer.
Yes, but that's just a dodge. There are 1.5B people running Windows. Tablets are great (I like mine) but it now seems clear that they aren't going to replace PCs on a grand scale any time soon. So PCs are still relevant, including yours. Since that's a fact it follows that the most popular PC OS would also be relevant.
People scoff at Win8 and call it a failure but that's only compared to Win7 and WinXP. It's been more successful than either OSX or Linux as far as PC OSs go.
And Win10 looks pretty nice already with about a year of dev time to go. Anyone who says it doesn't mater is just whistling past the graveyard.
it follows that the most popular PC OS would also be relevant
Only if the DoJ continues to look the other way in the face of continuing flagrant Sherman act violations in the form of secret exclusionary agreements with OEMS and the like. Microsoft never made it on merit...
Speaking of which, it's about time for another massive fine from the Eurocrat direction, wouldn't you say?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Nah, MS is off the hook for that. The OEMs can fight back now by refusing to go along (WinRT) or threaten to ship more chrombooks. That's enough competition to keep the feds happy, plus tablets really are computers so it's not the same situation at all. And the EU seems to have its sights on Google lately anyway.
Point is, Win10 is going to be solid. It may take a while to overtake Win7 since that was such a good OS but it will take off better than Win8 for sure and that didn't really do that bad compared to non-MS OSs.
Because it was a dumb question, Asking if the dominant market leader with over 90% of desktop market share (much much higher in enterprises) as well as very high server market share and you expect to get marked as something other than troll or flamebait? get real.