
IE11 for Windows 7 Globally Available - robin_reala
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2013/11/07/ie11-for-windows-7-globally-available-for-consumers-and-businesses.aspx
======
JohnTHaller
Since Microsoft only compares using the outdated Sunspider benchmark, I
decided to find out how IE compares using modern, proper benchmarks. Here are
the results:

Google Octane:
[https://developers.google.com/octane/](https://developers.google.com/octane/)

(Higher is better)

Google Chrome 30.0.1599.101: 11337

Mozilla Firefox 25.0: 10127

Internet Explorer 11: 7631

Mozilla Kraken:
[http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.org/](http://krakenbenchmark.mozilla.org/)
(Lower is better)

Google Chrome 30.0.1599.101: 2479.4ms

Mozilla Firefox 25.0: 2653.1ms

Internet Explorer 11: 4792.3ms

As you can see, IE11 lags pretty far behind both Google Chrome and Mozilla
Firefox in modern JavaScript benchmarks. So, it would appear that IE is
specifically geared towards the outdated Sunspider benchmark. That
optimization coupled with the poor performance on Octane and Kraken is likely
why Microsoft only ever mentions Sunspider.

Testing Notes: The above test was performed on a fully-patched (as of
2013-11-07) Windows 7 Ultimate x64 machine with antivirus and all other
background apps disabled. Each browser was started fresh for each test and had
no extensions/add-ons enabled. Hardware-wise, the machine is an Intel Core2
Quad Q6600 running at 2.4GHz with 8GB of PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM clocked at 400MHz
(x2 = 800MHz) and an AMD Radeon HD 6700 running at 850MHz with 1GB of RAM @
1200MHz running Catalyst 13.9.

~~~
joenathan
I got very different results.

Windows 8.1 Pro x64 i7 3770k 16GB RAM

-Octane-

Firefox 28 - 10320

IE 11 - 14167

Chrome 32.0.1689.3 - 21223

-Kraken-

Firefox 28 - 1742.6ms

IE 11 - 2252.0ms

Chrome 32.0.1689.3 - 2241.0ms

~~~
JohnTHaller
You're using an unstable Dev release (aka alpha quality) of Chrome and pre-
alpha build of Firefox whereas I'm using stable. That's why you got the same
performance as I did on Octane with Firefox on your much-faster PC.

Additionally, I'm running Windows 7 and you're running Windows 8.1 so we're
comparing different browsers. IE11 on Windows 7 is not the same browser as
IE11 on Windows 8/8.1 (hooray for OS-tying).

------
simonsarris
Good.

IE10 is awful and introduced weird regressions into canvas and _event.detail._

Canvas clipping regions are completely broken in IE10:
[http://jsfiddle.net/simonsarris/8nNnb/](http://jsfiddle.net/simonsarris/8nNnb/)

Microsoft's reply was essentially "lol, next release" :
[https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/782736/can...](https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/782736/canvas-
clearrect-fails-with-non-rectangular-yet-simple-clipping-paths)

They're fine leaving it broken for IE10 for all time.

Event.detail never resets when you move the mouse:
[http://jsfiddle.net/uDhwX/](http://jsfiddle.net/uDhwX/)

In fact event.detail doesn't reset _even after you 've reloaded the page_

The IE team closed that one as won't fix back in June:
[http://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/789773/ie-i...](http://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/789773/ie-
increments-event-detail-on-clicks-over-different-locations)

 _Both of these are just fine in IE9._

What's worse, these aren't the kind of things I can use feature detection to
figure out. They're not missing features, they're features that worked in the
last version that are broken in this one (IE10), that will remain broken in
this one, and _may_ be fixed in the future.

So thanks for fixing one of those, IE11. Maybe you could get around to
event.detail some time.

~~~

The biggest problem I have with IE is disjointed updates. They don't care
enough to fix the one thing they need to fix. And don't tell me they're doing
automatic updates now, they need to _go back_ and fix all versions. Including
on Windows XP.

In 2009 the IE team released IE8 on Windows XP. Some time before before that I
set my parents up with Chrome 1.

Do you know what they're using almost 5 years later? Chrome 30. And they have
no idea. And we're all the better for it.

Do you know what they would be using if it were not for Chrome?

It's not IE11. Or 10, or 9. Nevermind _automatic_ updating, plain old
_updating_ isn't an option for my parents.

~~~
smacktoward
_> The biggest problem I have with IE is disjointed updates. They don't care
enough to fix the one thing they need to fix. And don't tell me they're doing
automatic updates now, they need to go back and fix all versions. Including on
Windows XP._

Their claim is that it's impossible to provide modern IE for older versions of
Windows, because IE is so deeply tied into the OS it requires features and
libraries that are intimately tied to newer versions and don't/can't exist on
(say) XP.

(Not saying I endorse that as a reasonable position, just explaining why they
do things the way they do.)

~~~
protonfish
That's not a reason - it's an excuse. Every other major browser works fine
across Windows versions and MS claims they can't? It's a marketing decision.
Microsoft is an OS company so tying their latest and greatest browser to an OS
upgrade is compelling.

~~~
powertower
The other major Browsers on Windows do not solve, work-with, nor integrate
with the metric-tons worth of enterprise and business issues, needs, and past
+ current solutions. Nor do they take backward compatibility issues seriously.

This is probably 50% of the game which makes Microsoft money with the
Enterprise.

You're thinking of the Consumer market.

~~~
VladRussian2
>Every other major Browser on Windows does not solve, work-with, nor
integrates with the metric-tons worth of enterprise and business issues,
needs, and past + current solutions. Nor do they take backward compatibility
issues seriously.

the life would so much happier without all that enterprise software crap that
works only on IE. "Works only with IE" is like a hallmark of
usability/quality/performance one can expect from the hallmarked application.
And is not just correlation, it is usually a strong causation as the real
reason behind it is that the application was most probably produced by
mediocre at best team using some enterprise framework treated like a black
box.

>This is probably 50% of the game which makes Microsoft money with the
Enterprise.

absolutely. I'm always fascinated by how user-candy MS ecosystem looks to an
Enterprise on the first date (vs. say Linux) and how bad things become almost
immediately once they move in together.

------
iambateman
Let's not miss the point here. IE11 will be massively easier to support than
IE8 or 9. Old versions are disappearing relatively more quickly. There are
fewer random impossible-to-debug quirks. Flexbox is becoming a viable option.

Microsoft is moving in line with the rest of the browsing world and we _get_
to complain about things like favicons and event.detail bugs. In a few years,
you might not even have to write IE-specific styles at all.

So sure, get upset about idiosyncrasies. But at the end of the day, doing good
development is getting _much_ easier.

~~~
stdgy
Just to be clear, the rest of the browser world offers modern browsers across
a wide array of operating systems. Microsoft can't even be bothered to offer a
modern browser across more than two of their own Operating Systems.

Chrome spans at least 7(And that's a conservative estimate) Operating Systems.
Firefox the same. And both update in a sane manner.

It's nice that Microsoft offers a good solution to the 5% of users on the
cutting edge, but they are still ludicrously behind the curve.

~~~
nivla
>Just to be clear, the rest of the browser world offers modern browsers across
a wide array of operating systems. Microsoft can't even be bothered to offer a
modern browser across more than two of their own Operating Systems.

Keep in mind the rest of the two browsers aren't tightly integrated with any
OS, thus can enjoy the flexibility what IE can't.

~~~
TwoBit
Maybe IE shouldn't be so tightly integrated with the OS.

------
MarcScott
Now I know I'm running Windows in a VM, and that it is controlled by a network
manager, but should I be getting a message stating that:

"Internet Explorer 11 is required in order to run this installation"

I'm not a fan of recursive installs.

------
devx
Does it support WebRTC yet? IE always seems to be roughly ~2 years late in
supporting some of the most important and future-forward HTML5 features.

Maybe they'll push WebRTC in IE12 (not guaranteed), but then it will be some
key encryption standard that everyone else has decided on and they're
supporting, but IE12 will be lacking. They need to keep IE more up to date
with the implementation of the standards.

This seems to show the same thing (not a perfect test, but gives a rough idea
about how far behind the IE team is in supporting new HTML5 standards):

[http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html](http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html)

~~~
shootinputin
Because WebRTC is not finalized and I think Microsoft has taken an approach of
not implementing the experimental features.

You can get the prototype WebRTCn as a plugin for IE through Microsoft's
Interoperability Bridge here:
[http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/prototypes/cu-r...](http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/prototypes/cu-
rtc-web/cu-rtc-web/info)

A lot of browsers certainly chrome implement experimental features with vendor
prefixes just to get high up in html5 tables such as those.

~~~
integraton
Microsoft absolutely does implement experimental features and use vendor
prefixes when it suits them. See, for example, CSS Grid Layout:
[http://caniuse.com/#search=CSS%20Grid%20Layout](http://caniuse.com/#search=CSS%20Grid%20Layout)

~~~
shootinputin
Implementing experimental layout techniques is less risky than implementing a
two way communication protocol.

------
JohnTHaller
Take those JavaScript numbers with a grain of salt. Microsoft optimizes for
and touts their JavaScript numbers using the outdated SunSpider benchmark
only.

------
sgarlatm
The press release makes IE11 sound great, but as a developer I know it's going
to be yet another version of IE I have to support :(

Does anyone know how true the claims of 30% faster JavaScript performance are?
That sounds too good to be true.

~~~
randomfool
I believe these claims are based on sunspider, which is not really considered
a great benchmarking suite. Something like Mozilla's Kraken or Google's Octane
may give better real-world results.

FWIW, I only recently understood what made a benchmark suite 'bad'. Basically
VMs often speed up by identifying patterns which can be optimized. But there's
a balance because this analysis itself has a cost and if the speed up is not
much (or does not happen often), then it can slow down other apps. Apparently
SunSpider has a number of places where it's easy to add special optimizations,
but the result may actually degrade more common code execution.

All browsers optimize for SunSpider, but relying on those numbers alone can be
deceiving.

------
ing33k
Just logged into windows to test this update ( after long time ) .. why do I
have to restart my PC before I can use my new browser ?

[http://i.imgur.com/SD7xrif.png](http://i.imgur.com/SD7xrif.png)

~~~
zaatar
Because there are system binaries currently in use by the system being
replaced.

------
elclanrs
Well, I downloaded IE11 to replace IE10 on my VM, and all the issues I had
with my current WIP are still present. I'm using `calc()` heavily for a quite
complex responsive layout, and paddings are missing on some places and CSS
transitions don't work properly while everything works just fine in Firefox
and Chrome. I haven't been able to find what's causing these issues, but given
IE's history, I suspect that a fix could simply be `zoom:1` or `min-
height:100%` or whataver hack du jour you have to remember this time around.

So not at all impressed by this release so far. Will have to wait another year
for IE12 and hope it can really compete with FF and Chrome, that means,
opening IE and having no surprises.

------
Osiris
IE is certainly making good progress lately. However, when every other browser
is releasing updates every 6 weeks, Microsoft could substantially benefit from
not only a faster release cycle, but also automatic background updates.

~~~
Tobani
Also they need to support XP. XP usage is still mind-boggling-high:

[http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share....](http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0)

~1/3 of windows users are still forced to run IE8 at best. If Chrome, Firefox
and Opera can run on XP why can't IE11?

~~~
usaphp
Maybe because Windows XP is 12 years old now, and people who use Windows XP
are mostly from third world countries who don't really care wether they have
IE6 or IE11 installed.

~~~
300bps
There are, sadly, a ton of Enterprise clients still using Windows XP as well
as a ton of home users in first world countries.

Windows XP still works "good enough" for most computing tasks. Having said
that, since I'm used to more modern operating systems I find I'm lost on XP
now but for people that never left it, it generally works "good enough".

~~~
mgkimsal
"Windows XP still works "good enough" for most computing tasks."

Well... when those computing tasks increasingly involve using web services,
then no, Windows XP doesn't still work "good enough".

~~~
mixmastamyk
What do web services have to do with XP?

~~~
mgkimsal
If I reword that as "services on the web", does that make it any clearer?

~~~
300bps
That doesn't help at all. I _think_ you mean applications on the web that
aren't compatible with Internet Explorer 8 which is the latest version of
Internet Explorer that Windows XP can install. But that is negated by the fact
that the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox work fine on Windows XP so that
is not an issue.

------
amaks
IE 11 adds a pain for developers who now need to support IE 7,8,9,10,11 and
quirks modes (see
[http://habrahabr.ru/post/201172/](http://habrahabr.ru/post/201172/), use
google translate if you don't understand Russian). The basic premise is that
all those IE versions use different engines, with different bugs and supported
features/workarounds.

~~~
amaks
Here is another article, this time in English, reflecting on a problem with
IE[x]: [http://www.paulirish.com/2011/browser-market-pollution-
iex-i...](http://www.paulirish.com/2011/browser-market-pollution-iex-is-the-
new-ie6/).

------
jfoster
Can anyone explain why Microsoft is persisting with IE as a separate engine
rather than taking Chromium or Firefox and applying IE branding to them?

------
mixmastamyk
IE back in the game... boggles the mind a bit. For many years I haven't
allowed IE to run on any machines I've managed. There have been a few WTFs in
my time in the industry, this is one of them. Like when Apple started selling
risc/unix workstations and then intel/unix workstations, no?

------
puppetmaster3
This is not true. I have windows 7, I check updates, nothing.

Also, IE out there is IE 8. And WebGL can't do what we do w/ DOM, so nothing
of use in IE11, other than they still don't update IE8 users, so I still have
to support old IE.

~~~
ben336
If you read the release info, they're rolling auto-updates out over a few
weeks. You can go to the IE website and download now if you want though.

------
notok22
Will IE 8,9,10 be automatically updated? Or just 10? Or just 9,10? Does anyone
know?

------
scott_karana
I bet they still don't support PNG favicons. :/

------
slouch
Someone told me that "Browser mode" in the development tools has been removed
from IE11 so I can't emulate IE8, 9 or 10. Is this true?

~~~
wingworks
It was, but they added it back in a few weeks ago. Even does IE5 now. (I don't
know how accurate it is)

~~~
yuhong
In the first security update for IE11 for Win8 RTM and the RC for Win7 (based
on the same codebase BTW) to be more precise.

------
cashmonkey85
Still will have to debug the random svg crash I'm having with ie today because
ie11 doesn't fix it. Classlist for svg is still not fixed.

------
lgleason
Now we all need to vow to stop supporting anything below IE10 so that we can
starve this legacy support animal. Google already did......

------
cpncrunch
Still no support for getUserMedia as far as I can tell.

------
yuhong
Notice they ignored Server 2012.

------
Pxtl
So Vista is dead, right?

~~~
taspeotis
It's been dead for a while now: IE10 can't be installed on Vista, Visual
Studio 2012 can't be installed on Vista, etc.

