RSSSecurity fixes, JavaScript update bog down Internet Explorer 8
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published October 30, 2009, 11:39 AM
The final test editions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8, released while Windows 7 was still in the technical preview phase, suggested that its performance could very well triple that of its predecessor, the venerable IE7. When the RTM edition first became available, its performance was pared down a bit, but still better than double that of IE7, based on Betanews' assessments at the time.
But we've noticed a trend of IE8 performance dragging down over time, while every other major Windows browser in the field was headed the other direction -- and fast. Early this month, when Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 appeared imminent (and still is at this moment), we calculated the performance difference between IE8 and IE7 at about 75%.
After the last round of security fixes two weeks ago, plus an out-of-cycle update to Microsoft's JavaScript (JScript) engine this week, the performance gap across Windows platforms has averaged down even more, to an all-time low of 54%. This even though Betanews tweaked its testing suite even more in the last few weeks, in response to changing circumstances with one of our benchmark providers -- our CRPI suite now includes a few test batteries that should have cut IE8 some slack.
In our latest round of tests, IE8 scored a CRPI of 1.54, which means on average, users can expect 54 better overall performance from IE8 than they would have seen from IE7 running on Windows Vista SP2.
We also could not help but notice that the latest JScript update was applied to Windows XP and Vista platforms only -- at least in the Automatic Updates distributions that we received. After those updates were applied, IE8 performance in Vista and XP were dragged down so heavily that IE8 on Windows 7 is now the fastest of the three platforms: 1.63 for Win7 versus 1.59 for XP and 1.41 for Vista. Since we've been testing on the Windows 7 RTM platform, browsers have typically been 10 to 15% faster on XP SP3 than on Win7.
What happened? First of all, we've noticed that since Patch Tuesday, IE8 has completely failed the portion of the advanced SlickSpeed selectors test that focuses on the browser's native JavaScript library, on all three platforms ("failed" meaning, it couldn't perform the programmed job on all 56 heats). This is the one portion of the SlickSpeed test that IE8 used to perform quite well on. On XP over the past few weeks, IE8's score on SlickSpeed slipped from 2.45 on October 13, to 1.67 yesterday.
Meanwhile, the SunSpider test suite written by the WebKit team shows a noticeable slowdown in the calculation department in all categories, but again, on XP and Vista and not Windows 7. On XP, IE8's SunSpider score slipped from a 6.02 to a 5.79. On Windows 7, meanwhile, the SunSpider score improved from a 5.66 to a 5.93. (These scores are relative; a 6.00 would mean "six times faster than IE7 on Vista SP2." We post relative scores on tests using identical hardware in order that the hardware can be factored out of the equation; in other words, we believe IE8 is only 54% faster than IE7 on any machine you choose.)
It's computational test scores where IE8 is flagging; by comparison, rendering scores are flat to slightly higher across the board. We're still in the midst of tallying scores for other browsers, and plan to post those results along with test scores for the first public Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 once that browser (finally) becomes available.
Some Betanews readers have asked us why we use IE7 on Vista as our performance index rather than IE8, and up to now, our answer has been because it's the slowest browser we test, and thus gives us a more granular sense of performance improvements for all the more modern browsers in current use. If this trend keeps up, though, we may just change our minds.
it's good to keep metrics of which random test a browser,
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|Honestly? In real workd usage this is pointless. I have a fully patched Win7/IE8 and Vista/IE8 machines. I also run various flaors of FF/s***eko and other browsers. There is no noticable speed difference with browsing.
I guess it's good to keep metrics of which random test a browser passed more quickly than another one, but it doesn't make any difference with browsing.
I guess I would notice it if I was trying to render a 250 page document, but most web pages are 1-2 pages in length and the browser generally has idle time while waiting on SQL calls.
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|No thanks, Wind Passer...
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|More logic fail. Why not test IE6 then, or Opera 8? Or Firefox 2? Why is Microsoft's older browser your baseline?
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|There is no IE6 on Vista.
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|"There is no IE6 on Vista."
LOL... priceless!
Logic fail, indeed! =)
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|I've answered this before, and evidently I will again: We need a valid score for IE8, relative to everyone else in the field. We can't produce a valid score for IE8 if we make it "1.0" by default.
Logic only fail on planet other than Earth.
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|...like Vulcan!
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|Uh, there is no IE8 on Windows ME. My point stands. How they randomly assign browsers and Operating Systems for their test suite is stupid. Let's see:
- Two out of three supported browsers under Microsoft OS's, but they still test an operating system that is 9+ years old, plus release candidates of operating systems, but only certain ones.
- Beta and alpha tests of some browsers, but not others. So the open development process of Firefox and Chrome is allowed, but not Konqueror? Putting beta and final versions together on final and nonfinal OS's. Nobody sees a problem with this? If not, show me another site that benchmarks like this, where the benchmarking platform changes from month to month.
-Arbitrary benchmarking that has changed dramatically over the past 6 months. We have no stable test platform. We have no idea what patches applied, what environment to compare with other than patch a applied 6 months ago might have been replaced with patch b yesterday.
-Scott, by your own admittance, you have changed the test suite many many times since starting. Is it final NOW?
"We need a valid score for IE8, relative to everyone else in the field."
You can do this 100% without IE7. What planet can you not get a reverse correlation again?
Craziness here. You are the same people that asked us to extrapolate scores based on the advantages of one browser over another in our heads mere weeks ago.
- No margin of error notes. Your margin of error is ridiculously high with such a small sample size.
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|I don't see a random assignment of web browsers or operating systems... I see a progressive assignment.
Operating systems and browsers that are popular are chosen just for that reason... and for the ones that are not quite so popular, only the ones that actually stand a chance of one day becoming popular are chosen (based on increasing market share trends).
Naturally, the decision to include an operating system (Windows XP) that still has the largest (61.15%) market share makes sense... no matter if it's 9+ or 19+ years old.
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Likewise, the decision to include a web browser (Internet Explorer 7) that has the largest (41.87%) market share also makes sense.
http://www.statowl.com/w...ra&limit[]=netscape
That is what the majority of this planet uses, hence (I would think) the decision to make that the baseline.
As for other OSes or browsers... why even bother including something that practically no one even uses? It's a waste of time.
"Beta and alpha tests of some browsers, but not others. So the open development process of Firefox and Chrome is allowed, but not Konqueror?"
Excellent point! Though the inclusion of Konqueror as an example is quite comical (with 0.68% market share among all Linux distributions), perhaps you're privy to nightly alpha builds of Internet Explorer 9 we're all not aware of? How about preview releases of the next version of Safari? You know... the browsers people actually use? Share please!
The inclusion of browsers that have publicly available preview test versions is a decent way to track performance trends... only if the increased level of performance actually makes it to the subsequent final versions of those browsers, that is.
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