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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
To play games, yes.
To do work in most office settings, yes.
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!
Is Windows really relevant anymore?
Of course Windows is still relevent, it remains the authoritative source of Windows reboot sounds.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
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.
Sure, Windows isn't all over mobile, but most people still have PCs. Including the one I am typing on right now. It is still quite relevant. Until you end the PC, somehow, it will continue to be, if nothing else changes.
It is still by far, the best OS for business workstation use. And I say this as a UNIX admin who has been waiting for a Linux desktop worth using for the last decade. And its not half bad for personal use either.
Windows has come a long way, although not without its share of missteps. I'm actually okay with it now. I might not switch to a Mac even if someone gave me one. Although that says more about what I think of Macs these days than it does of Windows. And mind you, my first three computers were Macs.
mimimi.
Now seriously, I see an Apple-related article on a daily basis. I own no Apple devices, nor would I ever. Still, I ain't complaining, just move on to the next article.
Might help you if you do the same in relation to Microsoft-related articles.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I seriously felt that way until just a couple days ago, too. Wired had this piece about Satya Nadella and what's going on in Microsoft, specifically about the HoloLens project. It was the first time in a long time that I read something about Microsoft and thought "Oh wow, that is really cool," instead of "LOL."
Then today I decided to check out the Windows 10 Technical Preview and I have to say I was impressed. It is very solid.
I'm not a Microsoft person, either. I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro and I've been running Slackware on my desktop for 10+ years. Disclaimer: I use Win7 extensively for Steam but for little else.
We shouldn't let MS get away with trying to portray Edge as a completely new rendering engine. It's not... cutting a branch and cleaning it up does not create a new codebase.
Until the Edge branch receives significant rewrites, edge == trident.
I can't stand Chrome and IE, and Spartan seems to have the same problem: they all have non-standard interfaces, and that's infuriating.
Compare these pictures: GOOD versus SHIT. See the difference? One has proper title and menu bars. It follows the system's standards. It has good usability. It looks like all programs are supposed to look. The other uses its own blue alien interface that doesn't match anything else in the system.
Fuck Chrome, fuck IE, fuck Spartan, and fuck every developer who doesn't obey the system's HIG.
Circumcision is child abuse.
...most people still have PCs. Including the one I am typing on right now.
I too am typing on a PC, but it is not running Windows.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
IE was well optimized for Sunspider already, so there is not much of a change there. Google Octane 2.0 however has always been terrible in IE, and now it comes in roughly the same as Chrome, for a massive 81.8% increase over the old rendering engine. Kraken continues this with a 45% jump in performance. It is a big change, and a welcome one too.
It would help if they mentioned what the hell these benchmarks are supposed to measure. Out of Sunspider, Octane 2.0, Kraken 1.1, WebXPRT, Oort Online, and HTML5Test, only HTML5Test has a name that means anything to me. Most of them are easy enough to google, but I didn't find anything searching for oort online benchmark. Isn't this supposed to be the author's job?
"Choice is good." And seeing as we'll never get to the year of the linux desktop, choice is also essential. If anything, the linux side has too many choices, making it as fragmented as Android, where you can't even get bug fixes in a timely manner.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
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
A year or so ago I would have been shocked if you told me MS would release Office on Android. Now that they've gone that far and seem to realize that they're a Software company first, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they made Spartan builds for ios/android/chrome etc.
hijackers, malware, viruses, NSA eavesdropping...
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.
Agreed. Your grammar is shit enough to make any seventh-grade English teacher hurl.
I'm well aware that PC doesn't equal Windows and nothing I said indicated I believed that. The point is that PCs still exist, and Windows still dominates them for anything but servers.
I'm a sys admin who uses Linux every day. I've had Linux desktops running on machines and in VMs for years. I have a bunch of Linux desktop VMs at the moment. Its better for development, but I much prefer Linux as the VM and not as my actual workstation.
Linux has done a lot of things well, but creating a desktop worth using regularly is one thing that seems to elude it for some reason. For what it is worth Win XP was "okay", but Win7 was actually pretty good. Even Win 8.1 is decent, if you can ignore some of the irritations. But I have yet to see a Linux desktop that even really compares to XP, let alone later iterations of Windows.
Agreed. Thanks to virtualization I can still run Linux or FreeBSD as a VM.
I tend to use turnkey Linux these days as these are appliances I just turn on and I have a modified HOST file with the IP addresses of my VMs from VMware Workstation.
Windows as a host is stable, has office, Visual Studio, adobe photoshop, and of course my video games and cloud storage tools.
http://saveie6.com/
Will we have a line of web browsers named after hydrocarbons - Octane, Butane, Methane, Ethane, Propane, et al?
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.
If you're a fan of any current computing tech, either mobile or on the desktop, you really don't want to be bringing up Sherman Act violations.
I can't think of a single major manufacturer of PCs, mobiles, or commercial operating systems for PCs or mobiles that isn't guilty of anti-trust violations.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This was classic, thank you for the laugh. Side note, I agree.
Is Windows really relevant anymore?
Yes, as it does to most of us who are gainfully employed.
I don't respond to AC's.
Are you new here? You fail to remember your often quoted fallacy.
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.
Competition makes them good, and story may repeat itself. I remember using the native IE 4.x ports on Solaris and HP-UX back in the times when Netscape Navigator was THE browser (late '90). Then, once IE gained market, they disappeared at once.
See here
So will this get me better performance in IE's metro version on my Win8.1 tablet (if/when I upgrade that to Windows 10)?
What browser can't an employer control to do a MitM attack? You can turn off cert pinning in both Chrome and Firefox, as well as add your own cert...
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.
When you finish your school, you will learn that the office work is done by PC:s running Windows. It may be a surprise for many, but the office work mostly consist of producing content with a keyboard, not browsing facebook and taking selfies on a mobile phone.
What browser can't an employer control to do a MitM attack? You can turn off cert pinning in both Chrome and Firefox, as well as add your own cert...
I am hoping this would require more access to my machine than they have got, but I may be wrong. Fortunately the IT department is at least physically located in another country ;-)
The oems can fight back, but are they? All of them? If the answer is no, even for some of them, there are still Sherman act violations. FYI, the touchstone test for Sherman act: "is market power being exercised?"
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
people aren't buying new PCs.
Because they don't have to. Unlike trendy mobile devices which become obsolete after a couple of years, a modern PC lasts way longer.
There was a point (around 2008-2009) when the CPUs and memory of an average PC became good enough for most tasks. And a Windows version is typically supported for 10+ years (which is simply unthinkable with the OSs of portable devices).
Spartan! Kraken! ... Gotta love those codenames. You get a pretty good impression of what kind of movies the crew at microsoft has been watching lately. :-)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
It is incredibly important as an IT person to be able to MITM your connections on a company network. And we fully employ such functionality where we are.
First and foremost, compliance is a thing. As a personal user you may not have to care, but as a business the organization has to take special care when handling certain types of information. So we need to be able to see where that information is going.
Another reason is for IPS. Many attacks, like spam, change the locations from which they come from. But a particular type of attack is almost never going to change. There are only limited ways, for example, to exploit any individual hole in a web browser. And you can flag on that to a degree that is significantly more successful than simply being able to block IP ranges, which is about all you get if you do not MITM connections.
There are real, legitimate concerns and reasons to MITM. If you don't like it, don't do non-company things on company Internet and equipment.
Nothing to do with a dying os or industry, a PC from 5 years ago can happily run any modern OS. Right up until about 2008 people needed to upgrade every 2 or 3 years to be able to run everything. That cycle is now more like 5-7 years if not more. Very few are migrating away, they simple don't need to upgrade, this isn't just a windows thing either, the same is happening to Linux and OS.X
There are real, legitimate concerns and reasons to MITM. If you don't like it, don't do non-company things on company Internet and equipment.
All this somehow loses importance if I am allowed and expected to take my laptop to home half of the time and doing company things using my home internet and equipment. Well, I am basically forced to do that because their MITM software does not work properly with the dropbox software of some customers. So I have to download and upload those 200 MB files over my home connection, just to do my work.
If I really wanted to send over some sensitive information to somebody, you can be sure I would find a way to do this. And about malware, the only malware which I have seen on my computer is the company-enforced Symantec antivirus crapware. So there...
You mean the "exclusionary" agreements that don't allow companies like Dell and HP to sell hardware running Android and ChromeOS? Have you been to either of their websites lately?
It depends how you define success. Enterprise agreements hold that in order to install Win 7 you need downgrade rights, made available by purchasing Win 8 licenses.
How exactly are you defining success? Success in sales? Success in giving them a presence in mobile? Success in unifying two disparate paradigms of interface? Win 8 failed on many fronts as well.
One of the advantages of Chrome and Firefox is that the experience is close on any platform (mobile, linux, windows) plus the syncing allows you to carry your data (bookmarks, logins, etc) over to each device.
I doubt that Microsoft will be porting their new browser to Android and we know they won't be porting it to linux.
Cool - we can have a software simulation of anthropogenic global warming ;-)
Most times I find A/C's to be in-effective snipers of topics. Who ever modded your post as Troll is ignorent of fact. IE sucks, ask anyone who has to make software for Browsers. You will see code that has to consider the ramblings of m$'s IE. I wish I could mod you up.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft anymore with the idea of Windows everywhere... they put Office on Ipads, they could decide to do other things as well.
As opposed to Firefox's attempts to add value which continually make it worse?
You bet market power is being exercised. The OEMs all started rolling out low cost devices with free chrome OS which forced MS to cut the price of its low end sku to $0.00. And it's not a secret. They laid out in plain English what the specs were for a device to qualify.
So not only are they now responding to market pressure, they are doing so in a very transparent way. This is no longer the MS you love to hate.
Is Windows really relevant anymore?
Of course Windows is still relevent, it remains the authoritative source of Windows reboot sounds.
Without Windows, Linux desktop development would stagnate. Yes, MS is development and so will W10, when it is released.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
You are glossing over the fact that Microsoft still plays hardball over Windows license price and associated kickbacks with each individual OEM.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I seriously felt that way until just a couple days ago, too. Wired had this piece about Satya Nadella and what's going on in Microsoft, specifically about the HoloLens project. It was the first time in a long time that I read something about Microsoft and thought "Oh wow, that is really cool," instead of "LOL."
Microsoft has a history of announcing some very cool things from their research division, but failing to follow through. I'm not getting my hopes up until they at least have a shipping date...
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
That is a very fair point. The article does explicitly state that there isn't a set date for shipping or that the product will ever ship.
Show me the PCs running anything but Windows, and I won't call your post a straw man. Microsoft continues to exercise and abuse market power in the PC market, please stick to the issue.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
BTW, I only see PCs on Dell's front page. So much for believing a Microsoft apologist.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
There are these things called links....
http://www.dell.com/us/p/chrom...
http://pilot.search.dell.com/a...
http://pilot.search.dell.com/c...
http://pilot.search.dell.com/l...
some project manager just wanted to say "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" when production was ready...
As for Spartan, that is probably alluding to less feature bloat... Actually a perfect name for a lightweight no nonsense browser. If it actually is or not is another matter.
Sorry, you didn't show me PCs running non-Windows, you showed me Chromeboxes. Are you dense?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Once again, I said PCs, not Chromeboxes. Well, I understand by the prevarication that is going on thick and fast that you do indeed know that Microsoft is still a flagrant lawbreaker. Firmed up my opiinion on that.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
So a chrome book is not a PC?
So how is a Chromebook not a personal computer?
No. Duh.
If a Chromebook is a PC then show me one running Windows.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
You are intenionally being dense. Or you are really dense. I guess both: you are acting especially dense because you are actually pretty dense at the best of times and your only superpower is acting dense so you wallow in it.
Let Wikipedia explain it to you, apparently the one person who does not know:
"PC" is an initialism for "personal computer". However, it is used in a different sense: It means a personal computers with an Intel x86-compatible processor running Microsoft Windows (sometimes called Wintel)
Or let Microsoft play word games like you with a federal judge, and see how that works out.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
So you ask for a PC "not running Windows" but any personal computer not running windows is not a PC? What do you think a PC is?
The commonly accepted definition of "a PC" is "able to run Windows." Hence the MAC vs PC commercials. Are you really that stupid. Yes you are. I bet you are wearing your woolen M$ underwear right now.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Oh so since Wikipedia defines a PC as a Windows computer it must be true.....
How can you show "a PC running non-Windows" if you define a PC as a computer running Windows?
"Words Mean Things". Slashdot is supposedly a technical website. I would expect a poster to know that PC is a "personal computer".
The term "PC" is short for "IBM-Compatible Personal Computer" where the defining characteristic is the BIOS. The thing that Compaq reverse-engineered to build the first "IBM Compatible" back in the 80's. If you think that a Mac is a "PC" then try booting DOS on it. Doesn't work, huh? Even booting a PC Linux ntaively on Macs isn't always easy unless it also supports Apple's EFI implementation. Macs are not PCs. Chromebooks aren't PCs either.
I said "able to run Windows" asshole.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
This is your entire a quote.....
"Show me the PCs running anything but Windows, and I won't call your post a straw man. Microsoft continues to exercise and abuse market power in the PC market, please stick to the issue."
"Able" was nowhere in that quote.
Oh and btw, here is how you put Windows on a ChromeBook.
http://www.howtogeek.com/173353/how-to-run-windows-software-on-a-chromebook/
Quote>>> The commonly accepted definition of "a PC" is "able to run Windows."
Asshole.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Good, now show us one for sale like that. Oh you can't?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
So in that case you bringing up the Mac vs. PC commercials as evidence made no sense since a Mac has been "able" to have Windows installed since 2006. When Apple stopped supporting my 2006 Mac Mini, all I had to do was reformat the hard drive and stick a Windows 7
disk in and it worked perfectedly.
So by your definition a Mac is a PC.
By definition you are an idiot. Scurry back to your desk, Microsoft deserves more like you.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The Mac has had a BiOS emulation level since 2006. You can take a 64 bit version of Windows and install it on a 64 bit Mac just by sticking the disk in,
For a 32-bit Mac (like my Core Duo Mac Mini), you have to reformat the disk first to use MBR and then you can just stick a Windows 7 disk in and install it like you would any other PC.
Microsoft never made it on merit..
Since Windows NT 3.51 Windows has been, by some margin, the best desktop operating system out there. Nobody else has come close. So, what lack of merit is this you are speaking of?
Show me the PCs running anything but Windows
Show me a PC customer who wants anything but Windows or OSX on their desktop/laptop.
No
Put Linux on that PC and enjoy a fresh new computer experience
Yeah, right. Give me Darkroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro on that "fresh new computer experience". perhaps you meant "frustrating new computer..."
So what is your definition of a personal computer and why doesn't a Chromebook qualify?
A personal computer can be used to do work on. That means it needs to have available the apps I need. I do photography (as most people), video, office docs and programming, mostly.
My PC needs a good photo management package, can't get one for a Chromebook. Equivalent of Lightroom or onOne. It needs a quality editing package as well, Photoshop is the only real competitor, it must have a decent office package (partly check) and video editing software (none exists).