14 DAY TRIAL // Only milliseconds separate Internet Explorer 9 from the fastest-browser-in-the-world spot. Microsoft released the final Platform Preview Build of IE9 yesterday, with v1.9.7.9.16.6000 now available for download for testers around the world. With the advent of Platform Preview 4, Internet Explorer 9 has suffered massive JavaScript-related improvements, with the new Chakra engine now a part of the browser’s core, but also with a boost in terms of JS performance. IE9 Platform Preview 4 1.9.7.9.16.6000 is now faster than the same of the recent Firefox 4.0 Beta 2 releases, and also faster than Safari 5.0. In fact, the latest development milestone of Internet Explorer 9 is the fourth fastest browser in the world, according to the scores in the Webkit Sunspider JavaScript benchmark.
“The differences between browsers on this microbenchmark are converging within thousandths of seconds on tests that repeat operations many, many times to find any differences at all,” revealed Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager, Internet Explorer.
In a phone conversation ahead of the release of IE9 PP4, Ryan Gavin, senior director of Internet Explorer emphasized the great progress done in terms of performance with the next iteration of IE. As users themselves can see via the chart below, IE9 Preview 4 is now 11 times faster than Internet Explorer 8.
IE9 Platform Preview 4 now wraps up the WebKit SunSpider test in an average of 326 milliseconds. There are only three browser releases that manage to be faster, but the differences between them and IE9 Preview 4 are less than 100 ms. Opera 10.6 continues to be the fastest in terms of JS execution with 246 ms, Chrome 6 Nightly 6.0.472.11 follows with 249 ms, with Chrome 5.0.375.125 at 276 ms.
With the arrival of version 1.9.7.9.16.6000, IE9 is now faster than Safari 5.0, which completes the SunSpider benchmark in 328 ms, but also managed to deliver superior performance to Firefox 4.0 pre-Beta 2 which only scores 519 ms. In fact, IE9 Platform Preview 4 is over 2 times faster than the Firefox 3.6 (736 ms).
It is also important to judge the overall progress of Internet Explorer. IE8 accounts for an average Sunspider Result of 3746 ms, IE9 PDC 2009 Demo of 832 ms, with IE9 Platform Preview 1 dropping to 590 ms, and IE9 Platform Preview 2 going as low as 473 ms, and IE9 Platform Preview 3 to 347 ms.
Gavin emphasized two aspects of the JS execution contest between browsers. First off, Microsoft continues not to have implemented any sort of optimizations for the SunSpider benchmark. Users can bet that once the software giant will do so, IE9 will rip through the test much faster than it does today.
And second, JS execution performance is only one aspect of the real web. Browser speed is in no way limited to how fast JavaScript is executed, and the promise from Gavin is that the IE team will optimize the browser for real world websites and scenarios, that will actually serve end users, rather than focusing on chasing scores in banchmarks that are less relevant to actual performance.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 4 is available for download here.
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