Google Frame Benchmarks 9x Faster than IE8

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Early tests with Google's Chrome Frame found IE8 runs 9.6 times faster than usual. The testers ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite." The other question is what is the performance hit of using the Frame plug-in instead of running the browser natively.

benchmarks always forget the user experience

[sopssa]

However it seems like they only measured JavaScript engine, which by no means contribute everything to how fast browser or browsing feels. And everyone probably knew already that Google's JavaScript engine outperforms MS's (and being one of the main thing Google's thing use, they have a reason to optimize it till its dead)

This seems to be the usual thing with other browser benchmarks too, they only benchmark the javascript engines and similar under the hood things. Yeah it's easier, but it doesn't really tell the truth.

User interactions and GUI responsiveness contribute a lot, actually even more so, to how fast browsing feels. IE is horrible with this and has always been; everything lacks behind, scrolling is galaxies far from smooth and the general feeling is just bad. On that note, Firefox suffers a bit from the same things. I think only Opera and Chrome have done UI responsiveness good. Which also brings the question, does Chrome Frame improve it on IE too?

EEE

[Diabolus Advocatus]

Looks like Google are going to try and beat Microsoft at their own game:
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

This speaks a lot for Google

[fifewiskey]

Google doing this speaks a lot to the character and principles of their company...that is if you trust big companies. I'm not surprised to see that IE 8 is running faster on the Chrome framework. All my experience with IE 8 confirms why I don't use IE. It has been very unresponsive for me in multiple situations. I'm sure this is one of many steps Google is pushing for to "speed up the web".

Re:Whats the point...

[Diabolus Advocatus]

You're wrong there mate. On our corporate intranet there's a section of javascript that's 256k in size. IE6 (corporate standard) takes about 20 seconds to load that while Firefox loads it instantly. It's not about how fast the Javascript is received, it's about how fast it's rendered.

Re:benchmarks always forget the user experience

[sopssa]

There are actually other points you can look at. Things like how fast the browser starts rendering the page while its loading makes a huge difference too. If you sit there waiting for the page to load and looking at white/previous page, its slow. If the browser starts immediately rendering the loading page, atleast something is happening. MS improved this a lot in Win7 too. Just if you see that something is happening or whats loading, it feels faster than just waiting. Of course feel is hard to benchmark, so they usually don't, but it counts a lot too.

So just for giggles...

[Penguinisto]

...what's the ACID3 results for such a combo?

Re:So just for giggles...

[Anonymous Coward]

100%, Fool!

Proof : http://static.macgeneration.com/img/2009/07/googlexhrometestacid-20090922-225255.jpg

Re:Defeats the purpose of IE

[Anonymous Coward]

It only uses the Chrome engines for pages that ask for it, or that the user chooses to use it for, the rest get handled by the host IE.

The situation where a corp forces you to use IE because of crap intranet apps, but can't be bothered managing two browsers is exactly one of the prime use cases for this. Particularly if they then buy a brand spanking new application which would run 8 times faster in any browser other than IE.

Re:Safety Warning.

[mini me]

In other words, just use Google Chrome itself. That way you do not have to worry about the additional IE vulnerabilities.

A good idea

[ShooterNeo]

I'm going to go out on a limb here by /. standards, and say that this is a very good idea that is a neat technical solution to a problem. Google's goal is simple : their core strength is that they are incredibly good at creating and hosting web applications. They have some of the most reliable and least expensive (per unit performance) data centers in the world, and they have some top notch coders that have created some amazing applications. The problem is that web applications have to run in web browsers, 20 or more layers of code away from the processor on the host. There's unbelievable performance slowdowns compared to a native application. Speeding up the browser would make many google applications more responsive and compelling, and google could care less whose browser it is. They are freely licensing the chrome code for inclusion in other browsers. The problem with Chrome is twofold : 1. It's an unbelievably complex task to make a web browser work with every website. Mozilla and the Microsoft browser team have hundreds of developers that have worked for years on their browsers. 2. It's very difficult (and expensive) to get people to change browser. Microsoft wins by default most of the time. This browser plug-in solves both problems. Now, only websites that the developer knows will render properly in chrome will call on the plug-in. Users will continue to use IE8, oblivious to the fact that some websites are actually being displayed using the chrome browser engine. Google applications will of course all properly render in chrome, and they will be set up to encourage you to download the plugin if you're running internet explorer. Some google apps may even require it, much like you need flash to see youtube videos. The only problem with the approach is overhead : obviously keeping multiple browser rendering engines running at the same time will eat up a hundred extra megabytes of memory or so. You know, about $3 worth of DRAM.

Re:benchmarks always forget the user experience

[Runaway1956]

This! ^

Benchmarks aside, I feel like Chrome is the slowest thing on earth, because I see NOTHING until the page is finished loading. I try to be objective. I'll load the same page in Chrome and in FF. True, the page FINISHES about the same time, but with FF, I can see bits and pieces as they become available. Since I am interested in the text most of the time, it doesn't matter how long it takes for some other element to load - I'm never going to look at it. I WANT MY TEXT NOW!!

That said - I agree with those who say web pages are to complicated today. Add in useless bloat like flash, advertising, etc. I can't browse any faster today with DSL than I did a few years ago with dial up! Something is badly wrong here.