Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9458/examining-microsoft-edge-browser-performance

by dwgirvan • 11 years ago

191 135 11 years ago

anandtech.com

kyriakos• 11 years ago

Running on a 7 year old HTPC with 2gb ram edge feels extremely smooth compared to chrome.

They should do benchmarks on lower end systems, such as atom based tablets.

joshuapants5• 11 years ago

I've also been fairly impressed with Edge on a low-spec machine. Realistically, once there is extension support and I can get an ad-blocker (ideally uBlock, and since it's rumored to be easy to port Chrome extensions I'm hopeful) I would have no issues using Edge as my daily browser.

pothibo2• 11 years ago

I run exactly zero extension and used an ad-blocker for maybe 1 month in my whole lifetime.

With that being said, I am genuinely curious how these 2 things are necessary for you to consider a browser. Are there extensions that I don't have that is crazy for me not to have?

gcb04• 11 years ago

This.

having just traveled overseas, i was shocked that nobody, and i mean nobody!, had a iphone 6 or macbook.

all i saw (in a middle to upper class setting) was moto E phones and asus and toshiba laptops. The better off people had Dells laptops and samsung phones.

witty_username• 11 years ago

Because MacBook is obviously better than all the systems you mentioned /s.

cwyers2• 11 years ago

What I'd like to see are benchmarks that involve visiting some sample of sites out of the Alexa top 100 and performing standard tasks (reading Gmail, finding a certain thing on Amazon.com, etc.) I know that's dependent on things like network conditions, so you'd have to run it a lot of times to get meaningful results, but it'd still provide a more meaningful result than a lot of synthetic benchmarks.

pcwalton3• 11 years ago

I agree that major improvements are needed. SunSpider, Octane, and Kraken are all pure JavaScript benchmarks, very microbenchmarky (look at bitwise-and in the SunSpider suite). Oort Online is a benchmark of WebGL performance—WebGL is definitely worth benchmarking, but how common is it in people's daily browsing? HTML5Test tests whether a bunch of "HTML5" features are sorta present, not whether they actually work or anything—it encourages broken implementations that support just enough to pass the test.

The state of browser benchmarking is pretty bad. Right now the common suites of benchmarks overwhelmingly focus on what is easy to measure, not what reflects real-world perception of browser performance.

Klathmon• 11 years ago

I hate the HTML5Test (and alternative) sites with a passion for the exact reason you say.

HTML5Test lists iOS 8 as having IndexedDB support but it's so broken it's unusable on that platform. Even Mozilla completely disabled it in their LocalForage library due to it's issues.

cwyers2• 11 years ago

It feels to me like current benchmarks all measure execution time, not user time. Let's say you go from a reasonably sized web page to another, and then hit the back button. How long to load the previous page? Right click on a link and select open in new tab. How long does it take to open a new tab? It's definitely part of the user's perception of the browser's speed, but I don't think stuff like SunSpider and Octane even tries to measure it.

arsa2• 11 years ago

I really suggest you look here: https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Lars-Bak-and-Stev...

They do talk about the chicken and egg situation, where top sites will optimize for engines, then engines optimize for sites... i.e. it highly depends on the sites - of course all browsers test on top sites and optimize for them. But then the cycle repeats.

bepotts4• 11 years ago

I wonder how much the Edge's performance will affect the average person's decision to use it or not. Browsers one up each other all the time and I'm sure Google's next major Chrome update will show improvements over the Edge.

Renaming your browser won't change peoples' memory of Internet Explorer, even if Microsoft built Edge from the ground up. The average person is still going to be thinking IE when they see it.

Without extensions, I personally am not leaving Chrome - even if it's a resource hog. But it is nice to see how Microsoft is changing their behavior. Competition between products is always a good thing.

ripberge2• 11 years ago

"I'm sure Google's next major Chrome update will show improvements over the Edge"

What makes you so confident the next one will be faster if the current one is slower? Are you on the dev team?

tracker15• 11 years ago

IE is usually very competitive at each release... the problem is they tend to sit at 2+ years between releases, and even with IE10 and 11, it hasn't gotten much narrower.

The real test will be to see if IE can keep the pace set by chrome and firefox.

Someone1234• 11 years ago

IE has been discontinued so won't keep pace with Chrome or Firefox. IE 11 is the last version ever.

Edge has replaced IE. Edge is set to receive continuous updates the same way Chrome/Firefox do today. It is not pinned to Windows or Service Pack releases like IE was historically.

partiallypro• 11 years ago

Extensions are coming later this year. Supposedly it will be able to run Chrome extensions.

liviu-5• 11 years ago

Renaming your browser won't change peoples' memory of Internet Explorer, even if Microsoft built Edge from the ground up. The average person is still going to be thinking IE when they see it.

Maybe I'm underestimating how culturally aware the average person is, but I doubt most people will care to make this connection between IE and Edge.

bepotts4• 11 years ago

How could they not?

You upgrade your OS or buy a new computer, and you see a new application ( that you didn't install ) and you ( presumably ) can't uninstall it. Wouldn't any rational person assume it's a pre-installed application? Wouldn't it make sense to believe that the OS developer created it?

There's an old joke about IE when people purchase a new computer: It's the browser I use to install another browser. What are people going to think when they don't see IE anymore and they see a new browser?

Everyone will know the Edge is Microsoft's new browser, and everyone knows that Microsoft's previous browser was IE.

wvenable• 11 years ago

The reason the browser is named "Edge" is so the icon can remain very close to the Explorer "E". The average person is going to make that connection which was entirely the point.

justwannasing3• 11 years ago

To be clear: Microsoft did NOT build Edge from the ground up. Edge is IE without legacy code; that is all.

bepotts4• 11 years ago

Really?

I thought they wrote a new rending engine and some other key features?

vmarsy• 11 years ago

Benchmarks are good but the overall experience is what matters the most. I'm really impressed by the startup time of Edge. I type some query in the Cortana search bar and press Enter, it launches Edge extremely fast. So far I really love the performance.

However to make it my main browser I'm still waiting for adblocking extensions. I browse with a few tabs opened, one of them start randomly playing an ad video, at least it shows the sound icon on the tab so I know which one to kill.

I also noticed a few UI problems: When pressing the back button with "Ctrl" on, it does not open the last page in a new tab. Surprisingly, I use this feature very often on Chrome & Firefox. Sometimes when opening a new tab, the focus is not in the address/search bar, forcing me to click on it (or pressing Tab until I get it)

viggity• 11 years ago

I don't have edge, but opening last closed tab can also be triggered via ctrl+shift+t. Perhaps they have that shortcut enabled?

liviu-5• 11 years ago

He means opening the previous page history-wise in a new tab.

notNow• 11 years ago

CTRL + L to highlight the address bar and gain focus. Thanks for the tip.

lewisl9029• 11 years ago

Alt + d also works, and I feel it's more convenient since it can be easily triggered using just the left hand.

higherpurpose• 11 years ago

I type some query in the Cortana search bar and press Enter, it launches Edge extremely fast.

Probably something to do with the fact that Edge/Cortana is already loaded at Windows start? So in a way it's a "trick" to starter "faster".

AaronFriel2• 11 years ago

Cortana is, but the Edge process is not that I can find. but that's only part of the story. If the libraries utilized by Edge are already loaded by other processes, they benefit from being in memory already.

Still, I notice Edge launches faster than Chrome even when I have a separate "Chrome App" open (e.g.: Hangouts). But you have to remember that Chrome essentially re-implements the ChromeOS on top of Windows. Much like how iTunes performance degraded as Apple ported more and more of OS X to Windows just to get it to run, I think Chrome suffers from the same bloat on Windows.

I wanted to check though. How much of Chrome is already loaded when Windows starts? How much of Edge?

I used VMMap from Sysinternals. "DLLs" includes every library plus the executable. Non-system DLLs excludes anything I found loaded by another process on the system, which included all the standard Windows libraries. Unique DLLs excludes anything loaded by any other process, so at a minimum it's the process itself (see: Chrome.exe).

Chrome.exe run as a child and a parent share a handful of code.

EdgeCP.exe is the child to Edge.exe, and it shares about the same amount of stuff. The EdgeCP process is lean for Windows, the executable is only 300K.

Here's what I found.

    Process                    	DLLs (#)	DLL Size (MiB)	Non-System DLLs (#)	Non-System DLL Size (MiB)	Unique DLLs (#)	Unique DLL Size (MiB)
    Chrome.exe                 	179     	159           	3                  	31.3                     	1              	30.4
    Chrome.exe (child)         	54      	90.6          	4                  	41.3                     	2              	40.3
    MicrosoftEdge.exe          	131     	170           	5                  	15.2                     	3              	9.8
    MicrosoftEdgeCP.exe (child)	98      	154           	3                  	1.9                      	1              	0.3

The upshot: both Chrome and Edge use a huge list of system libraries. Chrome's application code is larger, but it's probably not just the fact that Edge has an advantage with much more of its code already loaded into memory.

The simple answer is probably that Edge starts faster because it doesn't have to run on top of a ported layer of ChromeOS, which adds many layers of abstraction. The Edge process seems to be a very lightweight shim over a rendering engine that works pretty well. I don't know how they'll make that work with extensions or sandboxing, but the size of the executable code and the way it looks reminds me of Servo. (Minimal UI code, stays out of the way of renderer and JS processes.)

Finally, I checked to see if Cortana loads many of the same DLLs as Edge. Yes it does. I don't think that's an optimization though, I think that's because Cortana might be using a WebView to display results. (That would help in porting it to iOS and Android, of course.) I haven't disassembled it or inspected its XAML, but I think I'm done messing with Windows 10 for the day.

odonnellryan• 11 years ago

Two things prevented me from making it my main browser:

1) It did lock up randomly. Not sure why. Seemed to happen often on many different sites. 2) The one or two pixel buffer on the left of the back button! (I should just use keybinds... but you know)

liviu-5• 11 years ago

Are they really going the completely disregard Linux users?

TD-Linux• 11 years ago

Why would you expect that they wouldn't?

liviu-5• 11 years ago

Cause a) recently they've been showing more interest in developing for different platforms (OneNote, Visual Studio Code); b) the other major browsers have a Linux release; c) IE had a release for Linux at some point; and d) there is a market of people that might use their product.

Qwertious• 11 years ago

Apparently, yes. What, did you think that they actually meant "Microsoft loves Linux"? No, they're supporting Linux in the server business because that's the only way they can seriously take hold of it. Embrace it, if you will.

Theodores• 11 years ago

Are Linux users going to completely disregard Microsoft?

Over the last few years a lot of people have taken themselves out of the Microsoft 'eco-system' by getting an Apple PC or by installing a flavour of Linux on their once-Windows PC. There are also many users who 'use' Windows PC's (because there is one on their desk) but no longer care for how Windows works, if they can read their email, open documents and search the internets then why bother involving oneself in any 'computing'?

With this audience I cannot anyone getting zealously excited because Microsoft has a new browser. Nobody is going to switch to Windows from whatever they have migrated to - which can also be Android or ChromeOS. It will be like Windows Phone, sometimes some people might use it but that won't be what most people will do. Why go to the effort?

We are lucky that there have always been browsers that do operate on different operating systems, e.g. the original Netscape, Firefox and Chrome. I am so glad I can move between Windows PC, Chromebook, linux PC and Android phone to have the same browsing bookmarks/experience/history everywhere I am. I wouldn't get this with Windows/Edge.

aesthetics12• 11 years ago

Something about the icons used in Edge feel unfamiliar to me. The back, forward, and refresh arrows even feel alien. I think they have deviated away from recognizable icons for the rest of the toolbar too. Something just doesn't feel right

aesthetics12• 11 years ago

I'm worried about a few things:

Where will Edge take us? Is Edge replacing IE, or is it parallel?

I feel like this is going to cause confusion. Why did they choose a modern evolution of the Internet Explorer logo (Blue "e" with an orbit)? Everyone is going to expect that this is the new Internet Explorer. ActiveX plugins don't work - are you using Internet Explorer? "Yes! The blue e!" Eek.

If IE is going to co-exist alongside Edge, I feel that we will just be forced to support another new browser.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/927/

Sgt_Apone2• 11 years ago

Edge is replacing IE and is the default browser for Windows 10. IE is included in Windows 10, but it is buried in the Windows Accessories folder in the Start menu. The current version of IE is 11 and that will be the last. Microsoft will support IE until Jan 2016.

taspeotis• 11 years ago

Microsoft will support IE until Jan 2016.

Uh... [1]

    Beginning January 12, 2016, the following operating systems
    and browser version combinations will be supported:
    
    Windows Vista SP2         Internet Explorer 9
    Windows Server 2008 SP2   Internet Explorer 9
    ...

    After January 12, 2016, only the most recent version of Internet
    Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive
    technical support and security updates.

They go on to talk about how Windows 7's Enterprise Mode will be supported until 2020 so you can still keep IE kicking around well beyond 2016.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/08/07/stay-up-to-dat...

pippy• 11 years ago

Microsoft are coming out swinging at Google with their latest browser and Operating System. Their Cortana search feature is impressive, and very well integrated.

Even Windows 10 isn't shying away with a search field located in the main task bar. These features are there to try and chip away at Google's search dominance.

It will be interesting to see if it works. If Microsoft makes a browser people want to use, Chrome will be in trouble. Chrome might end up like Google Maps on iOS.

While many seem to be welcoming a 'new Microsoft' with their open source efforts, it seems they still don't shy away from trying to kill off competitors by leveraging their Operating System monopoly.

jevgeni• 11 years ago

Why wouldn't you do it?

dgcoffman• 11 years ago

Still can't calculate height or fire mouseLeave events correctly.

wbkang• 11 years ago

That's hard to believe. Can you give us an example? Also mouseleave is an event IE invented and is non standard. How would it not work on IE?

citalan• 11 years ago

I'm excited to try out Edge, from what I've read it looks like a great browser but the key feature in Chrome that keeps me from switching is the shared history. I use Chrome on my Android phone and tablet, and on my desktop and laptop so all of my browsing history and currently open tabs can be accessed from any device. I rely on this day-to-day, particularly the "Recent Tabs" option from other devices.

Until another browser implements that (and supports Android phone / tablets), or I can find a third-party service that seamlessly offers the same options, I can't see myself switching from Chrome any time soon.

omaranto• 11 years ago

I agree that "recent tabs from other devices" is very handy. IE11 does have that, so I guess Edge will too (at least eventually). This doesn't help you since you probably don't want to trade your Android phone/tablet for Windows phones/tablets.

If you insist on Android devices, Firefox also has the "recent tabs from other devices" feature. The feature is so useful it made me switch from Chrome to Firefox in fact: I used to use Chrome on my laptop and when I bought an Android tablet I used Chrome on it to share tabs between devices, but then Android Chrome introduced some change that made MathJax render incorrectly, so I switched to Android Firefox on the tablet; this in turn made me switch to Firefox on my laptop, to be able to share tabs again.

0xFFC3• 11 years ago

I definitely will be one of who which will switch from chrome to edge(or any other viable competitor) very soon. The ridiculous path chrome team have chosen for their path is enough for me already.I have said this so many times, I don't want another OS on top of my OS.I just want a Browser , not an application-platform which uses my 3 GB of ram for apps and extension.Even when I delete all app and extension there is certain amount of overhead.

Chrome team can offer two distinct version , lightweight without extension and app support and super fast start time , and complete version.

Chrome turned to new JVM recently.just instead of java you developer should use Javascript.

I know this is google policy to push people to net (because it means more profit for google) but I don't want some company dictate what should I do. and at least with edge I have super fast load time and lightweight browser.

HaseebR7• 11 years ago

Yep, same reason I'm gonna switch to IE

DigitalSea• 11 years ago

As great as Edge is in the benchmarks, the engine beneath seems to be solid, the browser is shipping in a half-completed state. The lack of support for extensions I think is going to do more harm than good. I don't get the rush to release Edge, wouldn't it have been better for Microsoft to just hold off a couple of more months until the browser was ready feature wise?

I haven't been using the Windows 10 development builds, so I have yet to use Edge. As a front-end developer, I am excited we are getting a browser that seemingly supports all of the essentials (and prefixless too).

wluu• 11 years ago

My guess is, they figure that most non-tech people will continue using IE 11 if Edge was not shipped with Windows 10 rather than moving to Edge when Edge shipped.

Joeri• 11 years ago

Probably they figure oem's would load up edge with malware extensions, and this way they can't. No extensions is still a better experience than the typical set of extensions on a cheap laptop.

joshstrange• 11 years ago

Benchmarks are largely useless, everyone makes up their own and none of them translate into how it FEELS to use a browser IMHO. Great they made some stride but so did every other browser also they don't have extensions yet and won't at launch which is a nonstarter.

I used it VERY briefly in a WIn 10 VM (not to use it, just to go download some tools) and wanted to pull my hair out. Little things here and there that were a constant reminder that microsoft just is bad at browsers. Sure they can piece together something that can access the web but it's not an enjoyable experience. I had to go and download chrome because apparently browsing around online, having multiple tabs open, and downloading files was a little too much for Edge to handle. I'd say it was the number of ads on the sites I was going to but I went to the same sites in Chrome without an adblocker (Vanilla Chrome) and it handled it without a sweat. This is by no means a complete test but I really wanted to try Edge and it felt like it was actively working against me and unable to deal with websites that I might have to go to from time to time that are covered in ads.

We will see what Win 10 ships with and what Edge looks like after extension support is added but I'm not holding my breath for the IE/Edge team to put out anything beginning to look like a real browser. Lastly no cross platform support? Fuck off, don't expect me to test for it at all. And no, VM's are not acceptable for testing. Don't misunderstand me Apple sucks with Safari and their lack of browser choice (and engines) on iOS almost as much but at least webkit is sane. Not to mention you can test webkit on Windows but I do agree it's not the same as Safari. That said Safari is a LOT closer to FF/Chrome than IE/Edge is to FF/Chrome which reduces needed testing substantially.

bztzt• 11 years ago

These benchmark articles frustrate me because I rarely feel they tell me anything. What do the benchmarks actually measure? When one tested product benchmarks as better/worse than another, what specifically is happening to make it better or worse? I feel like a good technical reporter ought to be able to dig deeper, do some investigation and provide real insight.

mistermann• 11 years ago

This is all I need to switch:

1. Actually work (strangely, current IE can't accomplish this on some of my machines)

2. Tree Style Tabs

3. Support for popular ad-blockers

4. Easy on memory (including ability to unload a tab and actually release that memory, something FF can't seem to figure out)

5. Don't constantly take a 45 second timeout with lots of tabs open (like Firefox)

itsbits2• 11 years ago

I started using Chrome because it is fast in startup, load. But its not the case anymore. Still I am using Chrome coz of awesome developer tools and Chrome extensions.

skrowl• 11 years ago

No amount of speed matters until you have extensions. Without uBlock, it'll just be an ad filled mess.

recursive4• 11 years ago

That's not really true. I don't use ad blockers, but I still care about my browser speed.

Loque2• 11 years ago

I am curious why you do not, have you tried? Life is bliss.

ilaksh• 11 years ago

What matters is HTML5 compatibility which is lacking.

ajitkolathur• 11 years ago

I think the most interesting feature is the ask cortana feature, http://www.thewindowsclub.com/enable-cortana-in-edge-browser, it performs reasonably well on most queries and is pretty fast. Especially useful when reading articles where you have no clue about some of the people mentioned or phrases and expressions being thrown around.. Highlight the phrase and hit the ask cortana option in the menu.

bentcorner• 11 years ago

So funny, what's old is new again. I remember Encarta Factfinder back in the day did something similar. Of course, it didn't have any NLP, but the core of the idea is there.

http://www.activewin.com/reviews/software/apps/ms/encarta/20...

benaston• 11 years ago

If Edge is not on approximate feature parity with Chrome (it isn't), then the benchmark is meaningless.

ryanlol• 11 years ago

This depends entirely on what you want your browser to do.

I personally use my browser to, well... browse the internet?

GnarfGnarf• 11 years ago

Edge is not ready for prime time. I have a desktop app that does the OAuth dance redirecting to localhost. Edge didn't respond correctly, whereas Firefox, Chrome and even IE handle it OK. Even if I make IE the default browser, control is still handed over to Edge.

Examining Microsoft Edge Browser Performance

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