Regeneration

During the last ten years, Internet Explorer (IE) has completely lost its reputation - mostly thanks to its poor performance, stability issues, security vulnerabilities and a lack of functionality. IE became a joke among PC users. But luckily for its fans, Microsoft hasn't given up hope. In fact, it improved things drastically in the last three versions. However, IE9's performance is still remarkably poor compared to the other web browsers.

This brings us to Internet Explorer 10. Now if you may or may not know, Microsoft has completed its development, included it with Windows 8 RTM, and released it as a download for Windows 7 PCs. Since Windows 8 RTM is now available on MSDN and TechNet, we were able to benchmark IE10. Has IE gotten any faster? Read on to find out.

After installing Windows 8 RTM, we noticed that IE10 comes with an Adobe Flash Player 11.3 pre-installed. It is also worth mentioning that on the Metro UI, IE10 runs 64-bit tabs by default. But on the desktop UI, IE10 runs 32-bit tabs by default. In order to enable 64-bit on the desktop, users must tick the "Enable Enhanced Protected Mode" option in Internet Options > Advanced > Security.

Hardware Specification:
• AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
• ASUS Crosshair IV Formula
• 4GB DDR3 Crucial Technology
• AMD Radeon HD 6870

Software Specification:
• Microsoft Windows 8 Professional RTM 64-bit
• Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit (Just for IE9)
• AMD Catalyst 12.8
• Adobe Flash Player 11.3
• Google Chrome 21.0.1180.79
• Mozilla Firefox 14.0.1
• Internet Explorer 10 RTM 32-bit
• Internet Explorer 10 RTM 64-bit
• Internet Explorer 9.0.8 32-bit
• Internet Explorer 9.0.8 64-bit
• Opera 12.01 32-bit
• Opera 12.01 64-bit
• Apple Safari 5.1.7

Note: All browsers were tested with default settings. We didn't touch anything.



Futuremark Peacekeeper is a free and fast browser test that measures a browser's speed. If you use social networks like Facebook or Twitter, watch online video on YouTube, enjoy online shopping on Amazon or eBay, or just like reading news and blogs then switching to a faster browser could give you a smoother and more enjoyable browsing experience.



Rightware BrowserMark is a benchmark tool designed to measure browser performance of mobile and embedded devices. BrowserMark measures a browser's performance in JavaScript and HTML rendering. BrowserMark was designed to tell an end-user which browser performs the best on their mobile or embedded device.



WebVizBench is an animated and interactive radio playlist visualization and benchmarking application written entirely in HTML5, optimized for Microsoft IE9, and tweaked to harness the power of GPU-enhanced Web browsing.



A set of JavaScript benchmarks that demonstrate V8's performance. Equivalent benchmarks have been used for other object-based languages, they are intended to reflect the performance of well-structured object-based applications.



SunSpider is a JavaScript benchmark. This benchmark tests the core JavaScript language only, not the DOM or other browser APIs. It is designed to compare different versions of the same browser, and different browsers to each other.



To measure the web browsers' memory usage, we opened four tabs and ran a Google Search on every each one of them. The results were taken with a Windows Task Manager.

Conclusions:
According to our benchmarks results, Internet Explorer 10 seems to deliver better performance than its predecessor. Microsoft has done a great job improving IE's JavaScript performance. In addition, the 64-bit version has been dramatically improved and no longer buggy like it used to be in IE9. There is even a significant reduction in memory usage. Therefore, IE10 is clearly an update you should look forward to.

  

Regeneration

By the way, in case you missed it... make sure to check out our Web Browser Performance Roundup for Q3 2012.

squall_leonhart

do me a favour

leave your OS up for 2 weeks (standby permitted) and see if ie 10 has choppy scrolling when smooth scrolling is enabled.

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DOOMJESUS

maybe, some day, if they would simply allow their customers to just browse the web with it instead of using against their customers as a tool to monitor the users' internet activity, maybe, just maybe, it might be able to perform worth a shit...

...naaaahh! IE will always be the internet's biggest joke and the consumers will forever be the punchline...

curnet

I use IE10 and I've used firefox and chrome, and I still prefer IE. The same way you bash other for using anything other than firefox or chrome, and that you believe it's the best and that IE is just a joke, well the same goes for the other side.

Just as you say it's faster to use those two compared to IE, I have had enough experience with all of them, and IE is still much better and more stable.

scottwilkins

@DOOMJESUS, um, jokes on you if you think FF or Chrome are truly better.
@squall_leonhart, don't blame I.E. for graphics drivers problems. Either update your drivers, or turn off hardware accelleration and you'll see smooth scrolling work fine after 2 months of up time. Or simply turn off smooth scrolling, is that so hard to do? It's only a feature, not a requirement.

Anyway, all these performance marks are theoretical. Use the browsers daily and you'll actually not be able to tell a difference in stardard web browsing. They are all fast in their own right. That in consideration, I'll stick to I.E. simply because it works and works well. Those who bash it are stuck in the past when I.E. 5 did stink, and boy did it stink. But we are many versions past that, and moving foward. Either get on the bus, or get run over by it. Looks like some folkd here are well positioned right under the left front tire...

blindartist

Im a web developer and IE is a joke, I wish the internet would do away with it all together, not only do they consistently fail to properly support web standards they force you to give IE special treatment whenver you trying to do pretty well anything but the most basic HTML.

IE is slower, it is less stable and it has far more page rendering and code recognition problems then all the other browser, pages that work perfectly in FF, Chrome, Opera and Safari may not work in IE unless you baby the BS browser and code the webpage specifically for it.

When IE is gone drinks are on me.

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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

mkey

If IE was the only browser choice, I'd use curl to surf the web.

Also, when I create some small sites, I intentionally leave out support for IE, that's how much I appreciate it and its users. Truth be told, if I worked on some more serious project, I'd probably have to revise that statement, due to a large number of IE dumbshit users.

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... what?

scottwilkins

@blindartist. Um, I.E. 9 and 10 are HTML5. So if you can't web develop in HTML5, you need a new job. And I.E. since 7 has been more stable than BOTH Firefox and Chrome put together! I'd like to see you support 8,000 users and say that I.E. isn't stable! Seriously.

@mkey, people like you are the problem. Not I.E. You need to grow up, and join the adult world that knows how to work with everyone. Stop acting like a princess and get with the program. I've been a web developer since before the .com era, and even then the real programmers knew you had to work with everyone no matter what.

Unregistered

Actually using browsers on a daily basis, IE9 uses MUCH less RAM and is significantly faster than Firefox, to the actual users point of view. I IE, Opera, Firefox, Chrome and Safari somewhat regularly, depending what I feel like opening on any given day, so I know. And I use all of them to develop with.

Firefox has so many memory leaks and is the slowest browser I have ever used, ever since version 2 came out. Chrome might be as fast or faster than IE, but there is absolutely no comparison between IE9 and Firefox in terms of speed. I don't know how these tests run, but they're not a true test for the end user, that's obvious.