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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
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Google Chrome Frame boosts IE speed up to Chrome levels

By | September 24, 2009, 11:37am PDT

Summary: So, just how much of a performance boost do you get in Internet Explorer when you install and make use of Chrome Frame?

So, just how much of a performance boost do you get in Internet Explorer when you install and make use of Chrome Frame?

Quite a lot, as it turns out!

Note: All tests carried out on Windows Vista 64-bit.

I decided to take Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 and see what different Chrome Frame made when running the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test. For comparison I also ran the test in Google Chrome 3 browser.

The results are staggering:

Bottom line:

  • IE7 using Chrome Frame is about 40 times faster at running through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test than IE7 alone.
  • IE8 using Chrome Frame is about 10 times faster at running through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test than IE8 alone.
  • Using Chrome Frame, IE7 and IE8 are almost as fast as Google Chrome itself at processing JavaScript.

Very impressive stuff indeed.

As to resource usage while running Chrome Frame, I didn’t see any noticeable increase in CPU or RAM usage. In fact, right now I can’t see any downside to Chrome Frame.

Very interesting …

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Topics

Google Inc., Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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Most websites consist of text and images...
prof123 1st Oct 2009
You obviously don't know what you are talking about.
Why don't you look at the HTML source of this page
(View/View Source). Search for "JavaScript", you will find
tons of it. Also, this page will render much faster in
Chrome than IE... noticeably faster.
View in thread
0 Votes
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If only it was for Firefox...
DevJonny 24th Sep 2009
...but still astonishing results!

Could this be the start of hybrid browsers? Will there be a FF version?
0 Votes
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irrelevant
Linux Geek 24th Sep 2009
Nobody uses IE 7 or 8 because of security.
Making a bad product worse is not what windoze users need.
This shows again the virtues of FOSS vs proprietary software.
0 Votes
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Get a grip on reality
ElTel 25th Sep 2009
"Nobody uses IE7 or IE8...."

Please let me know what exotic substance you were smoking when you came up with that little pearl of (inane) wisdom.

Obviously you are more than entitled to your own opinions, but please check your facts before foisting them on others.
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FOSS ideology...yawn
connor33 25th Sep 2009
Google chrome was created by internal developers and could have just as easily been closed source. The quality has nothing to do with open source.

If the belief that "FOSS makes it better" was true then The Gimp would be better than Photoshop 5 and Linux would have more than 1% marketshare.
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Those who look for speed
LBiege 24th Sep 2009
... already are using FF, Saf or Chr instead of installing a plug-in in IE. Don't know why Google bothers developing one for IE.
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Why Bother?
mitzampt@... 25th Sep 2009
Google tries to push HTML5 support to the bunch that hates upgrading IE6... they are preparing the wave, literally grin
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Corporate IT departments should consider it
linuser 24th Sep 2009
I know the plug-in has not been officially released, but hopefully IT departments around the world are at least considering/evaluating it.

If their environment is restricted to IE6, Google Chrome Frame would allow them to:

1. maintain support for their existing IE6-dependent apps/sites.
2. begin building new intra-net apps/sites that leverage modern web technologies like HTML5.
3. gradually migrate their IE6 apps/sites, to modern web technologies, when time & resources permit.
4. avoid browsing the internet, with a non-standards-compliant browser (which creates hell for web developers).

In the end, this solution could be exactly what they need.
0 Votes
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Only *if* IT departments adopt it and users can install it
T1Oracle 24th Sep 2009
If installation requires admin rights in XP then this plugin will be of little if any benefit to web standards.
0 Votes
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YOu do know about group policy don't you?
cornpie 24th Sep 2009
Just checking.
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Engineer, not an admin. I guess that works though. nt
T1Oracle Updated - 28th Sep 2009
nt
0 Votes
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Twice the attack surface area, twice the fun!
D T Schmitz 24th Sep 2009
nt
0 Votes
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Why not just use Chrome then?
PB_z 24th Sep 2009
I don't get it... you're essentially running Chrome, just stuffed inside the IE window. Why not just use Chrome? It would probably be a lot more stable and secure than the frankenstein IE/Chrome hybrid.
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That's just what they'd expect you to do
blorincz 24th Sep 2009
...
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RE: Google Chrome Frame boosts IE speed up to Chrome levels
jack of daniels 24th Sep 2009
Awesome! I feel the need, the need for speed!
0 Votes
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RE: Google Chrome Frame boosts IE speed up to Chrome levels
scampmichael 24th Sep 2009
As a developer, I think this is fantastic. All browsers
should create plugins for all other browsers. Developers
can then create for their favorite without having to
worry about cross-browser compatibility. What a creative
relief from tedium.

The result would be developers would choose the rendering
engine in lieu of marketing types and lawyers playing
their proprietary games.
0 Votes
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IE-specific features and extensions won't work == user confusion
PB_z 24th Sep 2009
IE features like accelerators and webslices don't work when Chrome Frame is rendering the page. Likewise, IE extensions that interact with the page content (like spellcheckers, highlight bars, form fillers, etc) will not work with Chrome Frame. These problems will confuse the majority of users, especially if there is no obvious visual clue that Chrome Frame is displaying the page.
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Web app launchers
linuser 25th Sep 2009
One of the most powerful features of Chrome & Firefox is the ability to create desktop shortcuts to frequently used web apps/sites.

e.g.
CHROME: Page Menu -> Create Application Shortcuts...
FIREFOX (with Prism Add-on): Tools -> Convert Website to Application

These shortcuts take you to directly to web apps/sites, without the need to launch a browser (e.g. Google/Zoho/Salesforce Apps, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Google Maps, Fast Flip, etc.).

Anyone who hasn't tried this feature, should try it. It is a REAL time saver!

It would be nice, if the Google Chrome Frame plug-in could somehow add this feature to IE, but I guess having blazing fast JavaScript, web standards compliance & HTML5 support, are big enough bonuses already.
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These tests are silly
connor33 25th Sep 2009
How do these benchmarks represent real world browsing at all? Does your surfing consist of opening javascript files on your hard drive?

Let's see some blind tests on a modern machine. I'm willing to bet that most people can't tell the difference.
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The what?
mitzampt@... 25th Sep 2009
Sorry to disturb your "concentration", but these benchmark test the performance of the engine you are stressing when rendering your daily pages. The test suite isn't there for nothing... Most sites are pushing the envelope regarding content and adds plenty javascript. So these test are as much as a demo as a real world site, unless probably you use any of the sites compatible with w3c and lynx
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Javascript is a minor part of web content
connor33 25th Sep 2009
Have a look at the source of a website sometime. Most of the code isn't javascript and more importantly the rendering engine is usually delayed by waiting for multimedia to download, not javascript processing speed.

This test is just as silly as delcaring an nvidia card faster than ati card by solely looking at opengl benchmarks. Do most games use opengl? No, most games use directx.

A more accurate test would be total time to render typical websites using a typical connection.
0 Votes
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Wrong
K B 27th Sep 2009
Javascript plays a major part in most modern websites and it's use is increasing. You may not see it if you view source, because most javascript now lives in external files. You'll just see a script tag with an src in it instead.

It offers usability enhancements, tracking ability and dynamic page content.

Apps like facebook, google maps and google docs rely very heavily on javascript. Even Craigslist uses a good chunk for their site.

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RE: Google Chrome Frame boosts IE speed up to Chrome levels
garin915 25th Sep 2009
have a try later
0 Votes
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Javascript benchmarks are ********
IE9 25th Sep 2009
Javascript benchmark work by massivly repeating scriptcode. A browser that precompiles script to executable code will benifit highly from this.

Real webpages generally have nonrepetative javascript. Precompiling that often does not improve performance significantly.

Average webpage rendering is also only 10 percent about javascript.

So whilst Chrome may be fast a javascriptbenchmark is useless as a reference for browsing speed


0 Votes
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Proof? [nt]
mitzampt@... 25th Sep 2009
[nt]
0 Votes
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Proof of what?
connor33 25th Sep 2009
Proof of what? That web pages don't consist entirely of javascript code? Do you really have to ask?

Most websites consist of text and images. When you visit websites your browser isn't sitting there crunching precompiled javascript. A better benchmark would be to see how long it takes the browsers to render typical pages.
0 Votes
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Most websites consist of text and images...
prof123 1st Oct 2009
You obviously don't know what you are talking about.
Why don't you look at the HTML source of this page
(View/View Source). Search for "JavaScript", you will find
tons of it. Also, this page will render much faster in
Chrome than IE... noticeably faster.
0 Votes
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Real webpages generally have nonrepetative javascript.
shis-ka-bob 28th Sep 2009
what!?

Once you start getting beyond simple page validation, you often have JavaScript being repeated on many DOM elements. O there are many web pages that have repetitive JavaScript.

Google is aiming for better performance on web applications, like GMail. JavaScript performance is a big deal to them.
0 Votes
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3 times and no more gnomes
amj2010 25th Sep 2009
we have downloaded the ....thing and checked it out, it was useless to us.
0 Votes
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From another ZDNet article
ElTel 25th Sep 2009
Apparently the folk at MS aren't too happy...... ?With Internet Explorer 8, we made significant advancements and updates to make the browser safer for our customers. Given the security issues with plug-ins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plug-in has doubled the attach area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take. For a deeper look at how the browsers stack up in security, take a look at the latest phishing and malware data from NSS Labs.?
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What a crock....
ryanstrassburg Updated - 25th Sep 2009
It is faster, that is great... Faster is better usually, but not always and hopefully the speed increase is not a result of cutting corners and otherwise bad practices in programming. Assuming it is not I'd have to say good job, I'm impressed except for a couple things...

I have yet to find a page that uses Chrome Frame within IE thus making it a useless installation, even Googles' own V8 benchmark is not utilizing Chrome Frame... Thus, they (Google) releases a product that cannot be benchmarked in comparison to the native product making it useless.

Bottom line for this test, Chrome Frame is useless right now. I cannot find a benchmark that actually tests Chrome Frame thus any results I saw in IE were +/-1% of benchmarking prior to Chrome Frame being installed.

To see what benefit I should expect I installed Chrome, I was impressed with rendering speeds and such, that is great. Overall sites I visit though were not noticeably faster.

Another problem, any web page viewed by IE and to benefit from Chrome Frame requires a special tag within the page. That is lame and unlikely to spark interest among the masses... The bottom line is using Chrome is more feasible that updating billions of web pages to utilize Chrome Frame. There is rehtoric around Microsoft of proprietary stuff, Google has done no different in this case.

All said and done with the posted results of this article, that is 5000ms of my life I will never get back, oh no!

Please, someone post useful links to compare speed difference of IE8 JS vs. Chrome Frame. It is irritating at best when articles are posted without reference links to specify "How the results were acquired", "Where the results were acquired" and some real-world comparable tests of average browsing if a point is to be made. I like the update of what is happeneing but there is nothing from this article that helps back the claim to the user such as a SunSpider JS Bencmark that utilizes Chrome Frame.

I tested Chrome vs IE8 on DeVry University site ( http://www.devry.edu ), IE was actually faster in some cases and both comparable overall... That is a real-world browser test. I see no need to update based on a benchmark result made to exploit the good and suppress the lackings of one browser over another.
0 Votes
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Standards-compliance & HTML5
linuser 26th Sep 2009
Speed is certainly important, but standards-compliance & HTML5 support rate even higher for me.

Since there will no longer be an excuse for people to browse the internet with a non-standards-compliant browser, major websites could begin blocking them completely.

This would lead to:
1. reduced website development & maintenance costs (no more hacks, to support IE).
2. more extensive use of JavaScript (since modern browsers executed it VERY efficiently).
3. the deployment of powerful HTML5 web apps.
4. the beginning of the end, for proprietary Flash & Silverlight plug-in technologies.

VERY exciting!
0 Votes
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Cool HTML5 Sites!
linuser Updated - 26th Sep 2009
I just discovered a YouTube demo using HTML5 instead of Flash & tried it with Chrome 4 on Ubuntu. It looks great! Perhaps, people who installed Google Chrome Frame can try it as well. Not sure if the "cf:", in front of the URL, is required.
http://www.youtube.com/html5

Every day, I seem to discover more HTML5 sites & demos. Check these out, if you're interested:
http://demo.sproutcore.com/video/
http://dev.rgraph.net/
http://html5gallery.com/
http://tinyvid.tv/

There's a Javascript NES emulator here. I only tried Pac-Man. Definitely needs Chrome, to play!
http://benfirshman.com/projects/jsnes/
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More Google butt kissing...
transposeIT 26th Sep 2009
Sigh...
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Microsoft may even be a little happy about this
linuser Updated - 27th Sep 2009
Google has developed a solution that:
1. allows IE to maintain support for existing, IE-dependent apps/sites.
2. brings all versions of IE into full compliance with the latest web standards.
3. brings blazing-fast JavaScript performance to all versions of IE.
4. brings the latest HTML5 functionality, to all versions of IE.
5. reduces web development & support costs (no more IE "customizations").
6. reduces/eliminates the need for Flash/Silverlight (devs can use HTML5 audio/video/canvas, etc.).
7. reduces/eliminates the need for users to change to another browser, to get these enhancements.
8. reduces the need/urgency for Microsoft to do it.

I think Google deserves a lot of credit, for figuring this out.
0 Votes
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RE: Google Chrome Frame boosts IE speed up to Chrome levels
Mr Piston 28th Sep 2009
I don't like google Chrome...I Like IE8
IE is simple...

http://www.france-radio.co.tv/
http://www.france-radio.co.tv/
http://www.france-radio.co.tv/

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