5 ms·

JavaScript Performance in Windows 10 Technical Preview

73 points by Flenser 12y ago

mmastrac 12y ago
I'd love to see them harness the new-found underdog energy they have and develop a proper Mac/Linux port of IE that they can maintain alongside the desktop version. I honestly do my best to test across all the modern browsers when I develop, but having to spin up a random VM running whatever version of windows they require for whatever the edge version of IE is starts to get old after a while. If the Chrome and Firefox teams can maintain multiple architectures and release them in lock-step, it's certainly possible for Microsoft to start on the road to this process, even if it takes them a couple of years. And would open-sourcing the browser really kill them?
- Scuds 12y ago
  > And would open-sourcing the browser really kill them? No idea why not, but it's a different group than MS's other Open Sourcing efforts; The Dev tools people are happy to show their ASP.net mvc work[1], among other things[2], but IE falls under their Windows group, so it's a different set of people making the decisions. [1] http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest [2] https://roslyn.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest https://roslyn.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest (hell yeah)
- venomsnake 12y ago
  If they have functioning brain they should - decouple the browser from the OS and then sue apple for anti competitiveness if the browser engine is not allowed on the ios store (MS is one of the few companies that could reasonably well pull this off)
  - freehunter 12y ago
    I might be wrong, but as far as I am aware the last time Apple and Microsoft faced each other in court was when Apple sued Microsoft in 1988. When the dust settled, IE was the default Mac browser and Microsoft owned $150m of Apple stock. I wouldn't bet on Microsoft and Apple ever suing each other again.
- tkmcc 12y ago
  Internet Explorer is a relatively simple executable that relies on other Windows DLLs to do pretty much everything that needs to be done. Check out the architecture here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa741312.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa741312.aspx Ideally just the Trident rendering engine (in MSHTML.dll) could be ported to other platforms for web developer use, but I don't know how reliant on other Windows features it is. I also don't think it's much of a priority (or at all feasible) for the IE team to re-architect their entire product, but I would love for them to prove me wrong.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- mikelat 12y ago
  Microsoft still lives and breathes with their old proprietary software licensing model. There would have to be some sort of major gain for them to port the browser outside of their ecosystem. I can see them doing it with IE mobile though as they aren't the most popular player in the mobile market and they need to get people hooked.
- jbergens 12y ago
  It would also be nice if Apple could develop a Safari for Windows. Right now we have javascript bugs we cannot debug without buying a Mac.
simonsarris 12y ago
I have to hand it to IE these days, their performance boasts aren't just lip service. They are definitely outpacing Chrome and FF on canvas performance. Chrome used to dither between best and second best in performance in the last 4 years, but for some time now IE10 + 11 have been the fastest browsers at rendering 2D Canvas paths/primitives/images by a huge margin. I develop a canvas-based library and have a series of tests[1] that also serve as a (somewhat practical than usual) benchmark for how browsers compare when using canvas. Here's how long it takes to complete the tests on the big three: FF nightly: 17.713 seconds Chrome dev: 13.123 seconds IE 11: 7.83 seconds Chrome had an edge when I started out with canvas stuff, now IE is almost twice as fast as Chrome. [1] you can run the tests yourself here: http://gojs.net/latest/tests/index.html http://gojs.net/latest/tests/index.html but remember that its only meaningful if you compare results on the same machine.
- cromwellian 12y ago
  It's easy to do this when you only need to address a single platform. Most of that overhead is probably bound to graphics layer overhead. Microsoft tightly couples to DirectX. Chrome has to sit on top of SKIA to support Win/Linux/OSX/Android. I bet Safari Canvas performance is also high, since they can directly bind to OSX.
  - masklinn 12y ago
    > I bet Safari Canvas performance is also high, since they can directly bind to OSX. On my machine (old MBP, 10.9.5) Firefox 33: 35.2s Safari 7.1: 18.57s Chrome 34[0]: 28.6s [0] yes I know it's not up to date
    - ossreality 12y ago
      [0]: it's not even close
    - sitharus 12y ago
      on my 2012 rMBP running 10.10: Firefox 33: 33.255 Safari 8.0: 16.454 Chrome 38: 22.048 I should install Windows 10 tech preview underbootcamp and see how that goes.
Aldo_MX 12y ago
I'm trying to use IE11, but the #1 issue I find are document modes. I often find sites which set the wrong document mode (ex. IE9), and the site behaves broken in comparison with the IE11 document mode. (Basically people taking for granted that every IE is a faulty browser, and giving up completely). Plus, having zero ability to tell IE: "Fuck the Internet, I want to use the newest document mode for everything!!!" is a really negative misfeature. If anyone from the IE team reads this: Please, add a system policy to force a document mode unless compatibility mode is enabled.
- dmethvin 12y ago
  It's a question of who gets the last word, though. Originally I thought that web devs should have the last word about IE document mode, because darn it, they own their site. After seeing so many sites that seem to be unmaintained (or maintained by uninformed devs) I am also leaning towards the user having the ultimate say.
  - Aldo_MX 12y ago
    I personally think that the configuration set by web developers should be respected by default, but the same way there is a "Compatibility Mode" that enforces a legacy document mode, there should be something that enforces the most recent document mode.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- hirsin 12y ago
  Feel free to vote up the suggestion on User Voice[1] so we see that more people want this feature and prioritize it correctly. I felt it prudent to leave out the suggested name, as much as I like it ;) [1] https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/257854-internet-explorer-platform/suggestions/6562548-allow-users-to-force-doc-mode-for-all-sites https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/257854-internet-explorer-...
higherpurpose 12y ago
I'm curious about what kind of security stuff IE12 supports. Does it support new curves like Curve25519? HSTS? In many cases, even if Chrome and Firefox are more pro-active about modern crypto, IE ends up holding them back for years. I wish that stop being the case with the new versions. Also, unrelated to IE, but why doesn't Windows 10 add out of the box encryption like iOS8 and Android L? (one where Microsoft doesn't get to keep the keys in its cloud - I hope that's clear).
- dmethvin 12y ago
  IE12 isn't released so I doubt the feature set is fully established. The status.modern.ie site has been mentioned on HN a few times though, and it does have some info. https://status.modern.ie/?term=hsts https://status.modern.ie/?term=hsts
wnevets 12y ago
People who still hate on IE are living in the past. Its been many years since the "fuck the web" days of Microsoft.
- georgemcbay 12y ago
  Not just living in the past, but in a specific slice of the past since in the era of IE3 (pre-Webkit/pre-Chrome/when Netscape was big on turning the browser into an Office Suite), IE was by far the best web browser. That aside, while I do think modern IE is quite a good web browser and I mostly use Windows, I still use Chrome as my primary browser because it is everywhere (on my phone, on Linux, on Chromebooks) and IE is only on Windows.
- grecy 12y ago
  Do keep in mind lots of us are forced to live in the past. Developing a large app for healthcare, we MUST support IE 6, and IE 6 alone.
  - munificent 12y ago
    > we MUST support IE 6, This part sucks. > and IE 6 alone. But at least you have this. It's a hell of a lot worse when you're trying to support IE 6 and other browsers too.
  - yuhong 12y ago
    Wonder if they have custom support for WinXP.
- recursive 12y ago
  I still find many more problems in IE than in any other current browser. Here's my last bug report. https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedbackdetail/view/940661/ie10-ie11-adjacent-sibling-combinator-does-not-update-when-combined-with-valid-and-invalid-pseudo-classes https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedbackdetail/view/940661/... I suppose it's an improvement 1) that there is a place to make the bug report 2) and a human actually responded
- seanp2k2 12y ago

73 points by Flenser 12y ago

I'd love to see them harness the new-found underdog energy they have and develop a proper Mac/Linux port of IE that they can maintain alongside the desktop version. I honestly do my best to test across all the modern browsers when I develop, but having to spin up a random VM running whatever version of windows they require for whatever the edge version of IE is starts to get old after a while. If the Chrome and Firefox teams can maintain multiple architectures and release them in lock-step, it's certainly possible for Microsoft to start on the road to this process, even if it takes them a couple of years. And would open-sourcing the browser really kill them?

Scuds 12y ago
> And would open-sourcing the browser really kill them? No idea why not, but it's a different group than MS's other Open Sourcing efforts; The Dev tools people are happy to show their ASP.net mvc work[1], among other things[2], but IE falls under their Windows group, so it's a different set of people making the decisions. [1] http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest http://aspnetwebstack.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest [2] https://roslyn.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest https://roslyn.codeplex.com/SourceControl/latest (hell yeah)
venomsnake 12y ago
If they have functioning brain they should - decouple the browser from the OS and then sue apple for anti competitiveness if the browser engine is not allowed on the ios store (MS is one of the few companies that could reasonably well pull this off)
- freehunter 12y ago
  I might be wrong, but as far as I am aware the last time Apple and Microsoft faced each other in court was when Apple sued Microsoft in 1988. When the dust settled, IE was the default Mac browser and Microsoft owned $150m of Apple stock. I wouldn't bet on Microsoft and Apple ever suing each other again.
tkmcc 12y ago
Internet Explorer is a relatively simple executable that relies on other Windows DLLs to do pretty much everything that needs to be done. Check out the architecture here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa741312.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa741312.aspx Ideally just the Trident rendering engine (in MSHTML.dll) could be ported to other platforms for web developer use, but I don't know how reliant on other Windows features it is. I also don't think it's much of a priority (or at all feasible) for the IE team to re-architect their entire product, but I would love for them to prove me wrong.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mikelat 12y ago
Microsoft still lives and breathes with their old proprietary software licensing model. There would have to be some sort of major gain for them to port the browser outside of their ecosystem. I can see them doing it with IE mobile though as they aren't the most popular player in the mobile market and they need to get people hooked.
jbergens 12y ago
It would also be nice if Apple could develop a Safari for Windows. Right now we have javascript bugs we cannot debug without buying a Mac.

simonsarris 12y ago

I have to hand it to IE these days, their performance boasts aren't just lip service. They are definitely outpacing Chrome and FF on canvas performance. Chrome used to dither between best and second best in performance in the last 4 years, but for some time now IE10 + 11 have been the fastest browsers at rendering 2D Canvas paths/primitives/images by a huge margin. I develop a canvas-based library and have a series of tests[1] that also serve as a (somewhat practical than usual) benchmark for how browsers compare when using canvas. Here's how long it takes to complete the tests on the big three: FF nightly: 17.713 seconds Chrome dev: 13.123 seconds IE 11: 7.83 seconds Chrome had an edge when I started out with canvas stuff, now IE is almost twice as fast as Chrome. [1] you can run the tests yourself here: http://gojs.net/latest/tests/index.html http://gojs.net/latest/tests/index.html but remember that its only meaningful if you compare results on the same machine.

cromwellian 12y ago
It's easy to do this when you only need to address a single platform. Most of that overhead is probably bound to graphics layer overhead. Microsoft tightly couples to DirectX. Chrome has to sit on top of SKIA to support Win/Linux/OSX/Android. I bet Safari Canvas performance is also high, since they can directly bind to OSX.
- masklinn 12y ago
  > I bet Safari Canvas performance is also high, since they can directly bind to OSX. On my machine (old MBP, 10.9.5) Firefox 33: 35.2s Safari 7.1: 18.57s Chrome 34[0]: 28.6s [0] yes I know it's not up to date
  - ossreality 12y ago
    [0]: it's not even close
  - sitharus 12y ago
    on my 2012 rMBP running 10.10: Firefox 33: 33.255 Safari 8.0: 16.454 Chrome 38: 22.048 I should install Windows 10 tech preview underbootcamp and see how that goes.

Aldo_MX 12y ago

I'm trying to use IE11, but the #1 issue I find are document modes. I often find sites which set the wrong document mode (ex. IE9), and the site behaves broken in comparison with the IE11 document mode. (Basically people taking for granted that every IE is a faulty browser, and giving up completely). Plus, having zero ability to tell IE: "Fuck the Internet, I want to use the newest document mode for everything!!!" is a really negative misfeature. If anyone from the IE team reads this: Please, add a system policy to force a document mode unless compatibility mode is enabled.

dmethvin 12y ago
It's a question of who gets the last word, though. Originally I thought that web devs should have the last word about IE document mode, because darn it, they own their site. After seeing so many sites that seem to be unmaintained (or maintained by uninformed devs) I am also leaning towards the user having the ultimate say.
- Aldo_MX 12y ago
  I personally think that the configuration set by web developers should be respected by default, but the same way there is a "Compatibility Mode" that enforces a legacy document mode, there should be something that enforces the most recent document mode.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hirsin 12y ago
Feel free to vote up the suggestion on User Voice[1] so we see that more people want this feature and prioritize it correctly. I felt it prudent to leave out the suggested name, as much as I like it ;) [1] https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/257854-internet-explorer-platform/suggestions/6562548-allow-users-to-force-doc-mode-for-all-sites https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/257854-internet-explorer-...

higherpurpose 12y ago

I'm curious about what kind of security stuff IE12 supports. Does it support new curves like Curve25519? HSTS? In many cases, even if Chrome and Firefox are more pro-active about modern crypto, IE ends up holding them back for years. I wish that stop being the case with the new versions. Also, unrelated to IE, but why doesn't Windows 10 add out of the box encryption like iOS8 and Android L? (one where Microsoft doesn't get to keep the keys in its cloud - I hope that's clear).

dmethvin 12y ago
IE12 isn't released so I doubt the feature set is fully established. The status.modern.ie site has been mentioned on HN a few times though, and it does have some info. https://status.modern.ie/?term=hsts https://status.modern.ie/?term=hsts

wnevets 12y ago

People who still hate on IE are living in the past. Its been many years since the "fuck the web" days of Microsoft.

georgemcbay 12y ago
Not just living in the past, but in a specific slice of the past since in the era of IE3 (pre-Webkit/pre-Chrome/when Netscape was big on turning the browser into an Office Suite), IE was by far the best web browser. That aside, while I do think modern IE is quite a good web browser and I mostly use Windows, I still use Chrome as my primary browser because it is everywhere (on my phone, on Linux, on Chromebooks) and IE is only on Windows.
grecy 12y ago
Do keep in mind lots of us are forced to live in the past. Developing a large app for healthcare, we MUST support IE 6, and IE 6 alone.
- munificent 12y ago
  > we MUST support IE 6, This part sucks. > and IE 6 alone. But at least you have this. It's a hell of a lot worse when you're trying to support IE 6 and other browsers too.
- yuhong 12y ago
  Wonder if they have custom support for WinXP.
recursive 12y ago
I still find many more problems in IE than in any other current browser. Here's my last bug report. https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedbackdetail/view/940661/ie10-ie11-adjacent-sibling-combinator-does-not-update-when-combined-with-valid-and-invalid-pseudo-classes https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedbackdetail/view/940661/... I suppose it's an improvement 1) that there is a place to make the bug report 2) and a human actually responded
seanp2k2 12y ago