
IE11 Release Preview for Windows 7: 30% Faster than Other Browsers - cleverjake
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2013/09/18/ie11-release-preview-for-windows-7-30-faster-than-other-browsers-and-even-more-support-for-web-standards.aspx
======
lucb1e
I'm sure this will gather lots of downvotes, but it really does sound a lot
like this to me:

    
    
        IE is faster than the rest.
        -- Microsoft
    

If you're about to publish such numbers, at least have an external party
publish it, paid or otherwise. 30% faster loading would be astounding,
especially on connections with high ping times and more than 1 percent of
packet loss (3 percent is really noticeable and yet common in lots of places,
especially public ones). But of course they didn't mean _30 overall
improvement_ , just the Javascript got 30 percent faster if you use certain
things, right? Let's click that link.

...

> IE11 Release Preview is 9% faster than IE10

Alright so there goes the "30% faster than other browsers". Unless you don't
count IE10 as a browser. Also IE10 is way slower in all sorts of benchmarks
compared to other browsers.

To take just one recent benchmark:
[http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-ope...](http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-opera-
next,3534-12.html)

Here IE10 is 257% slower than the fastest browser 379pts vs 974pts). If IE11
is 9% faster, then how is it "30% faster than other browsers"? A 9%
improvement is still 248% slower than Firefox, at least in Tom's Hardware's
benchmark. Or is "other browsers" not "all other browsers?" Perhaps that is
their reasoning: "we meant only Opera, Maxthon and $other_unknown_browser as
'other browsers'."

~~~
untog
_Alright so there goes the "30% faster than other browsers". Unless you don't
count IE10 as a browser._

I'm going to nit-pick, just because you did. The issue isn't counting IE10 as
a browser, it's counting it as an "other" browser. Which arguably it is not.

------
hayksaakian
When you don't support standards or commonly accepted conventions of modern
browsers, and build a browser optimized for one operating system you SHOULD
end up with a faster browser.

However, given the aforementioned limitation why would you want to use such a
browser?

\-----

for ie10 see

[http://html5test.com/compare/browser/ie10.html](http://html5test.com/compare/browser/ie10.html)

ie10 scores 320 vs firefox 22's 410

i'm downloading the ie11 preview to compare firsthand now

"You'll need to restart your PC before you can use your new browser" \--
thanks IE

ie11 scores 350 on html5test (compared to firefox 22's 410 and ie 10's 320)

~~~
dubfan
Have you developed for IE10 or 11? They are far more standards compliant than
any other version. In fact IE11 surpasses Firefox in some areas (full support
for Flexbox for example)

~~~
cykod
"... they are far more standards complaint than any other version ..."

"standards complaint" \- Nice, I think that nails it.

Lately Microsoft complains all the time that they are fully standards
compliant, but when it comes down to it, I always end up having to special
case IE so it never really feels that way.

~~~
xradionut
They are NSA standards compliant.

------
wavesounds
It's great all these companies are competing to make their JS engines faster
and faster with each new release. Its creating exciting possibilities for the
web!

I do wish there was a bit more aggressive a push to get older users to update
their browsers as well though.

~~~
alecsmart1
Yes, IE6/7/8 really need to go. I don't know why they can't force update
everyone similar to Chrome.

~~~
dragontamer
Because a number of users (IIRC, South Koreans especially) rely on the
incompatibility of IE6 to view a number of their websites. (Something about
certain ActiveX controls being government mandated)

Force upgrading people from these older versions will break a significant
fraction of the web, at least for some users. It might even be a legal issue
in South Korea.

~~~
sp332
ActiveX still works in IE11 though.

------
xutopia
I never trust code that Microsoft writes to make up statistics about how
awesome their technology is.

How well does it handle real world examples rather than some contrite example
of theirs?

~~~
bsullivan01
It would have been worst for them to pay a lab for the test. Now that it is
out, we shall see and test. MS threw the first punch with the claims

FF user and very happy here.

------
electrichead
I tried to install it on Windows 8 on my desktop (not 8.1) and was informed
that it is only for Windows 7 SP1. I could help but roll my eyes.

~~~
acqq
Yes, they want to force you to install Windows 8.1. I'd also prefer to have
just the IE 11, at least until Windows 8.1 SP1 thank you Microsoft.

They are really strange: if I had Windows 7 I'd be able to install IE 11, but
since I have Windows 8, I'll have to wait until October 18 and then I'll have
to install the whole Windows 8.1.

------
amenod
The main problem with IE has never been its speed. I hope it dies a long
agonizing death for all the hours I have wasted when developing two versions
of each page - one for all the other browsers and one for IE. Its market share
finally reached a point where I don't care about it... Good riddance!

------
JungleGymSam
It's disappointing that so many tech videos (in my experience) pay such little
attention to the audio (bitrate and/or volume). My volume had to be at 100% to
hear this comfortably.

Another example are published webcasts wherein the presenter is using their
telephone (on speakerphone!) to give the presentation. That is just
ridiculous.

If you do presentations don't use a system that doesn't allow you to use a
microphone (and don't forget to buy and use the microphone).

------
twodayslate
The only reason I have not been able to switch to IE is browser extensions.
Does IE have that yet?

I said the same thing about Chrome when it first came out. I happily use it
now.

~~~
sp332
IE had ActiveX support for ages. There are other types of addons too, they're
not exactly new. e.g.
[http://www.iegallery.com/Addons](http://www.iegallery.com/Addons)

~~~
vxNsr
But no one develops for them, at least not in the same way they develop for
chrome or FF.

------
orf
The new development tools look really nice, I must say. The dev tools in
previous releases have been shocking.

~~~
joshstrange
Tell me about it, even in 10 I find the dev tools extremely lacking and slow.

------
malkia
What's up with "Reimagining the Net" \- I don't want a browser to mess up with
my image of the .net :) - do I?

------
vxNsr
Well the sad thing is the pirate test barely runs in IE10 and actually renders
things wrong.

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brianbarker
Haha, IE11 won't install on Windows 8. It requires Win7 only it says...

------
johnohara
I was hoping for 31%. Are you certain it's not 29?

~~~
hayksaakian
they have only 1 significant figure of accuracy

~~~
lucb1e
Let's just hope it's not an order of magnitude wrong, then.

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ck2
Has to be tightly bound to hardware acceleration, no?

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yuhong
So what about Server 2012 R1?

