Add-ons, Measuring Performance
After our recent posts on add-ons performance and installation experiences, we’ve seen some questions from developers. This post answers a few of the more common questions, and offers suggestions about what developers can do to improve the add-on experience.
In this post, we described what IE measures (e.g. the impact of each add-on on page navigation) and when IE measures it. One question is how frequently does IE measure, and how does IE calculate the average. There are many alternatives to choose from in calculating an average time, like a weighted average, or geometric average. IE calculates the arithmetic mean of the last 10 recorded data points. (Load and navigate times are stored and averaged separately from each other, and for each add-on.) This process begins with the first time IE runs any add-on. Each time the add-on runs within IE, IE updates the data and recalculates the average. In IE8, this average is the load time number you see in the Manage Add-ons dialog.
Another common question is how the CPU speed of an individual’s PC impacts the load times of add-ons, and the relationship to the threshold used to inform the consumer about the performance impact of their add-ons. On a slower CPU, add-ons that perform more calculations take more time to load. While the overall speed of a PC may impact performance, consumer tolerance and the thresholds of human perception are constant (Einstein not withstanding). The thresholds IE uses are the same regardless of CPU speed.
Directly related to these questions is “what can an add-on do to reduce the amount of time it takes to load the first time it runs?” Developers have many options here. Some add-ons choose to perform one-time calculations, data caching, and other operations the first time they run. One alternative is to do these operations as part of add-on installation. In earlier blog posts we suggested ways developers can make their add-ons run fast, and tools to use to understand browser performance.
We value the feedback and conversations with developers who want to make their add-ons work well so our mutual customers have a great browsing experience.
Thanks,
Herman Ng
Comments
Anonymous
September 12, 2010
hello will Internet explorer 9 be able for us Ubuntu users to use? cause i love Ubuntu but i like internet explorer :( i had ie before i removed windows xpAnonymous
September 12, 2010
^^ u will not be able to use IE9 on ubuntu because it is not open source software like firefox or chrome web browser. Secondly why u need IE9 on ubuntu? And also IE9 need Direct2D api of windows not linux. As ubuntu have direct rendering enabled thru display drivers u dont need IE for linux ine then next 1000 years.Anonymous
September 12, 2010
I'm looking at the phrase "threshold used to inform the consumer about the performance impact of their add-ons." Does that mean users get a notification if their add-ons take too long to load? (If so, that's WONDERFUL.)Anonymous
September 12, 2010
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September 12, 2010
This could sound foolish. Or maybe not... Why not using hardware acceleration to improve add-ons. You can!!!Anonymous
September 12, 2010
@Miguel: I don't see how...unless add-ons used calculations that could be rewritten to use DirectCompute...Anonymous
September 12, 2010
My number one complain about IE these days is one of polish. People like their browser to be fast. Instant-on (or close to it) wins. That's one of the advantages Chrome has; it is exceptionally fast to load. IE is reasonably fast to load but it does the most annoying thing for every new tab. Even though it is opening "about:blank", it displays "Connecting..." for a short period of time before it hands control of the tab's contents to the user. Why does it need to connect to ANYTHING to load nothing? If you must load stuff, load it in the background and keep that fact invisible to me. I shouldn't need to know or care if IE has to connect or load something for any individual tab. Creating a new tab should be instant and should not make me wait for anything if I haven't set a default home page. Neither Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera make you wait after you create a new tab. Just saying.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
"Just saying" that you don't read? That topic has been discussed to death on this blog for the last 5 years.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
Hello Internet Explorer is dieing look at firefox they listen to what the users want to see in their webbrowsers. well wanna know what i would love to see in internet explorer 9 is Themes! you know a picture or something to go under to URL bar that would be so awesome! Please Replied Thanks!Anonymous
September 13, 2010
Agree with Nathan, I dont know why MS doesnt handle it well despite being many complains from the users.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
Agree with literacy, it has nothing to do with Microosft and everything to do with poorly-written add-ons. Hence, the topic of this blog post. Is it too much to hope that people read before commenting? Prolly.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
@Clue - "Poorly written addons"? I've had this problem with every default install of IE8 I've ever encountered. What add-ons accompany the default install?Anonymous
September 13, 2010
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September 13, 2010
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September 13, 2010
Nathan: Addons,large zones,slow or poor connection and large homepage(lots of js),CPU hogs outside of browser,not enough RAM,damagade or broken installation of Windows/IE,broken/missing files in user directory,malware,old/buggy drivers,... There is way too many things that can go wrong.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
@Klimax - yes, all of those things can make the problem worse. But the problem is there on clean fresh installs of Windows 7 on late-model PCs with good internet connections and "about:blank" for the home page. At the risk of stating the obvious, Firefox and Chrome both have to deal with all of the issues you mentioned too, yet they can somehow open a new blank tab without forcing the user to wait while they connect to nothing.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
Nathan 10:08: What specs were those PCs? (strangly I do as well ; and yet both of us have different experience)Anonymous
September 13, 2010
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September 13, 2010
Will Internet Explorer 9 have Themes like to have a picture around the address bar.? I hope Internet explorer 9 will be faster than google chrome and firefox. Please Reply to this post ThanksAnonymous
September 13, 2010
Nathan, Firefox and Chrome don't have to "deal with" add-ons in the same way, because they initialize their add-ons differently. Further, it's hard to "accidentally" get new add-ons in those browsers, and most antivirus suites don't bother hacking/thunking the heck out of those browsers like they do IE. Of course all of this has been discussed to death here for years, and recreating this discussion over and over again isn't very useful. Some tips over there: blogs.msdn.com/.../ie8-performance-and-speed-tips.aspxAnonymous
September 13, 2010
@Klimax - I don't remember the PC specs; too many and too varied to list in any case. Suffice to say I've seen plenty of IE8 installations and all of them have had at least a 0.5-2 second wait on new tabs at best. I would suggest it's Microsoft's job to do some process monitoring on the issue, not mine. I'm not begrudging them the need to load resources for a tab, just that a more polished experience would be to hide this load time from the user, irrespective of what hardware and software is present and let it happen behind the scenes while I'm typing in the address I want to visit.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
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September 13, 2010
@Ubuntu Fan Clearly just here to adverise Ubuntu Linux -- which already comes with Mozilla Firefox installed, or you can download Chrome or Opera from the repository. Why do you need Internet Explorer so badly? You clearly uninstalled XP for a reason too, so if you're having second thoughts either re-install it or just download Oracle VM VirtualBox and run XP inside your Ubuntu Linux. @mmm Nope... The hardware acceleration could be done via OpenGL on Linux, just to make the point. Still, never going to happen. @clara vargas I have to say "troll" but I fail to see what a research companies mis-statistic on Facebook users has to do with IE? Have Microsoft previously used the data to backup/make a claim that I've missed? @Miguel Web Developer Some add-ons (mostly toolbars, like Google, AVG, Norton, McAfee) take time during loading because they contact servers to share or download data. No amount of hardware acceleration will speed up your Internet connection or their servers! @Nathan Under Tools > Internet Options > Connections tab > [LAN Settings] button do you have "Automatically detect settings" ticked? If so, some seconds may occasionally be lost as Windows tries to determine if there are any settings for your network it has to use (mostly relevant for corporate networks). Also, if this are corporate PCs you're setting up have you any Group Policies that may cause a slowdown by performing certain checks on the browser? @Internet Explorer 6 FAN / Internet Explorer 9 fan forever Hello clearly-the-same-person! Themes support is not critical compared to standards improvements then some badly needed overhauls of the options dialogs and the introduction of other features like a download manager. @Michael As above: not a desperate feature compared with other features in need to updating. Also, is IE alone in being the only browser without themes? Does Safari support them? (I know Firefox, Chrome and Opera do.) As for fastest I'm sure this can be achieved with good programming from the IE Team. ;)Anonymous
September 13, 2010
hello will the Address bar and all the button and everything in internet explorer 9 be in areo glass on windows 7. and i love the idea of a faster and better internet explorer but will the back and forward button look the same as they were in Internet explorer 8.0? and @Ubuntu Fan EW! What is Ubuntu? Btw i love windows 7. Can't wait till 2012 for Windows 8! :) ♥ ☺Anonymous
September 13, 2010
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September 13, 2010
Hello i have made a webbrowser that does the same as Internet Explorer and firefox and google chrome and opera would do if they were put all together but just different coding and it loads every webpage under 1 second and it has a Built in Antivirus.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
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September 13, 2010
IE 8 tab DOES take time to open with a connecting label.. MS need to work here as well to make the browser open and work fast, if any addon is making the IE experience slow, they show disable them automatically with a user message. BUT ULTIMATELY WE NEED A FAST IE EXPERIENCE. MS are you listening??Anonymous
September 13, 2010
will Internet Explorer 9 Protect us from Websites that may harm our computers? if not i will continue to always use Internet Explorer 8. And Microsoft Should Come out with 1 more Service pack for windows xp. And is all the rumors about Windows 8 true that it won't have a taskbar it will be different than windows xp, windows 2000, windows vista/2007, Windows 7/ Windows 2009.????Anonymous
September 13, 2010
@Online safety: IE9 will continue to support (and improve upon) the award-winning SmartScreen Filter introduced in IE8. Service Pack 3 was the last-ever service pack for Windows XP.Anonymous
September 13, 2010
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September 14, 2010
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September 17, 2010
Website developers and graphic designers often run many different browsers on their computers, so they can see how their creations render under different browsers. Remember there have always been two sets of web standards. The official standards, and the standards recognized by Internet Explorer. So a page written to the "standard" will not always render in IE, and web pages written for IE won't always work with alternative browsers. Think I'm wrong? Google "user agent switcher" for Firefox. An actual add-on that allows your browser to lie about it's identity! These days Chrome is the fastest browser on the planet, there is a PC, MAC and Linux version although Chrome DOES have some privacy issues which are not easily resolved I still highly recommend Chrome. Unless you're a programmer or web designer there's no need to run IE on Linux.