IE9 vs. Firefox 3.7 and 3.6, Chrome 5.0 and 4.0, and Opera 10.50

While, with Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft refused to enter the JavaScript engine race, the same is not the case with Internet Explorer 9. Moreover, IE9, with a new JS on-steroids engine, is now fairing pretty well against rival browsers, although the browser is still early in its development process, having been released as a Platform Preview build. In fact, the Windows Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview Build 1.9.7.7.45.6019 is on par with its rivals when it comes to performance thanks to the integration of a new JavaScript engine codenamed Chakra.

During the day-two keynote address on stage at MIX10, Dean Hachamovitch, general manager, Internet Explorer, provided the results of IE9’s performance in comparison with rival browsers, in the Webkit Sunspider test, a particular industry JS benchmark. “You’ll notice that IE9 is faster at this benchmark than IE8 and several other browsers. It’s interesting to note that the difference between today’s IE9 preview and the browsers to its right in this graph. It takes about 70 seconds to identify a 300ms difference between browsers,” Hachamovitch said.

The Webkit Sunspider test was done with IE9 and a variety of browsers, including Opera 10.50, Google Chrome 5.0 and 4.0, Safari 4.0.5, Firefox 3.7 Alpha 2 and Firefox 3.6 on a Dell Optiplex, featuring a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel processor, 4GB of RAM, Intel Integrated Video, and Windows 7.

When it announced the release of Opera 10.50 at the start of this month, Opera Software claimed that it was the fastest browser available. Microsoft says the Sunspider confirms the claim, with Opera 10.50 averaging 285.20 ms. Chrome 5.0.342.2 (dev) is the runner-up with 293.47 ms, followed by Chrome 4.0.249.89 with 373.87 ms, and Safari 4.0.5 (531.22.7) - 407.93. Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview is now the fifth fastest browser in terms of JS performance with an average of 598.80 ms, having bested Firefox 3.7 Alpha2 Pre-Release with 610.20 ms, Firefox 3.6 - 699.80 ms, IE9 PDC 2009 Demo - 834.00 ms, Opera 10.10 - 2491.93 ms, and IE8 - 3825.53 ms.

“As we continue to make IE9’s script engine faster for real world sites, IE will continue to become faster at this particular benchmark as well. To date we’ve done very little specific tuning for Webkit Sunspider. As with most benchmarks, depending on your machine, the differences may vary,” he added.

Microsoft continues to underline the fact that lightning-fast JavaScript speeds are not equivalent to the overall browser performance. The company’s own test indicates that the perception of browser performance is more often than not related to other subsystems in the browser and not necessarily with JavaScript. However, Microsoft seems to have also understood that the JS race is a matter of public perception ahead of anything else, and that failing to play the game only gives more fuel to naysayers to criticize it for failing to fall in line with other browser makers.

“To improve JavaScript performance even more, Chakra does something quite different from other script engines today. It has a separate background thread for compiling JavaScript. Windows runs that thread in parallel on a separate core when one is available. Compiling in the background enables users to keep interacting with webpages while IE generates even faster code. By running separately in the background, this process can take advantage of today’s multi-core machines – so, users with a Core2Duo or QuadCore or i7 can apply that power to making webpages faster without any additional effort,” Hachamovitch stated.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview is available for download here.