Is Edge the fastest browser?
Honestly, this is just PR hype. Yes, Edge beats the competing browsers indicated in the benchmarks indicated. But that is honestly meaningless nonsense.
Firstly, these benchmarks are largely synthetic. And really, any benchmark is. Which is simply to say, benchmarks aren't "real web sites" and they aren't specifically the websites you care about. These benchmarks are simply a set of timed tests (or potentially combined with tests of supported features) that target performance on very specific things which the creator of the benchmarks hopes is representative of actual performance.
Of course, if you look at sites that aggregate results, what you'll notice is that no browser dominates all tests. And that means that each benchmark has its own criteria of what is important to measure. And that is a result of two things; the internet is dynamic and frameworks frequently change, and every web site is different. As the web evolves and common frameworks change (along with design paradigms often), so too do the metrics which prove most useful on those web sites. And, of course, type of website has a lot of impact as well. A site which is just an online game is very different than YouTube, which is very different than GMail which is very different from Blogger. And what metrics would make for the fastest browser will also deviate in each of those cases.
Another factor to consider is that browsers are constantly updated. Chrome and Firefox get updates fairly regularly. At the moment, Edge does too. Often times, the changes in those builds include performance enhancements or potentially even things which slow the browser down in some scenarios. The crux of the argument is that results today are short lived. In a month the results will be different yet again.
Also, these results don't factor everything in either. Possibly the biggest thing browser benchmarks overlook is RAM usage. A browser which could theoretically wipe the floor with every other browser wouldn't be of much use if it required several gigs of RAM to achieve that performance. Reason being, where browser performance matters most to the average user is on lower spec devices. On a desktop with plenty of RAM and a high powered CPU pretty much any of the big name browsers are fast enough and the benchmarks are just about bragging rights.
This is important news for Microsoft. It shows that in some areas they are definitely getting things to a competitive point. Since this will eventually replace IE, it would certainly help if it didn't look worse on paper than its predecessor. And that is really all the value there is to this. It is a PR gimmick.
Firstly, these benchmarks are largely synthetic. And really, any benchmark is. Which is simply to say, benchmarks aren't "real web sites" and they aren't specifically the websites you care about. These benchmarks are simply a set of timed tests (or potentially combined with tests of supported features) that target performance on very specific things which the creator of the benchmarks hopes is representative of actual performance.
Of course, if you look at sites that aggregate results, what you'll notice is that no browser dominates all tests. And that means that each benchmark has its own criteria of what is important to measure. And that is a result of two things; the internet is dynamic and frameworks frequently change, and every web site is different. As the web evolves and common frameworks change (along with design paradigms often), so too do the metrics which prove most useful on those web sites. And, of course, type of website has a lot of impact as well. A site which is just an online game is very different than YouTube, which is very different than GMail which is very different from Blogger. And what metrics would make for the fastest browser will also deviate in each of those cases.
Another factor to consider is that browsers are constantly updated. Chrome and Firefox get updates fairly regularly. At the moment, Edge does too. Often times, the changes in those builds include performance enhancements or potentially even things which slow the browser down in some scenarios. The crux of the argument is that results today are short lived. In a month the results will be different yet again.
Also, these results don't factor everything in either. Possibly the biggest thing browser benchmarks overlook is RAM usage. A browser which could theoretically wipe the floor with every other browser wouldn't be of much use if it required several gigs of RAM to achieve that performance. Reason being, where browser performance matters most to the average user is on lower spec devices. On a desktop with plenty of RAM and a high powered CPU pretty much any of the big name browsers are fast enough and the benchmarks are just about bragging rights.
This is important news for Microsoft. It shows that in some areas they are definitely getting things to a competitive point. Since this will eventually replace IE, it would certainly help if it didn't look worse on paper than its predecessor. And that is really all the value there is to this. It is a PR gimmick.
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