W3C Web Performance: Continuing Performance Investments
The W3C Web Performance working group recently held the W3C Workshop on Performance on Thursday, November 8, 2012. The goal was to hear current challenges and proposals for new performance ideas for the working group to consider. There were 45 attendees from 21 organizations, including most browser manufactures (Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla), hardware organizations (Intel, Qualcomm, Nokia, Motorola), network organizations (Cisco, Akamai, F5), and top Web properties (GMail, Google Search, Bing, NetFlix, LinkedIn, Zynga, and more). Details on the presentations and discussions from the workshop can be found in this report.
Providing the ability to accurately measure the performance characteristics of Web applications and create power- and CPU-efficient applications is critical to Web performance. The W3C Web Performance working group worked on achieving those goals in its recently completed second chartered period. In under two years, the working group rapidly standardized and modern HTML5-enabled Web browsers implemented these eight interfaces: Navigation Timing, Resource Timing, User Timing, Performance Timeline, Page Visibility, Timing control for script-based animations, High Resolution Time and Efficient Script Yielding. Internet Explorer 10 is the first browser to support all eight of these new APIs.
The working group has since been focused on gathering data to understand which areas to focus on in its third chartered period. In addition to the Workshop on Performance, the working group has invited performance experts to its weekly conference calls and has broadly surveyed the performance community on ideas.
Based on all the data gathered these past few months, the Web Performance working group has decided to focus on the following areas in the third chartered period:
- Timing Metrics The working group will continue to improve the Timing interfaces, Navigation Timing, Resource Timing, User Timing and Performance Timeline. For example, we will consider providing Web workers support in the Timing interfaces and including information on video byte ranges in Resource Timing.
- Efficient Script Yielding The working group will continue to improve on power- and CPU-efficient APIs, like the setImmediate API defined in the Efficient Script Yielding specification.
- Prerender The working group will standardized the prerender feature which allows navigations to appear almost “instantly” in cases where the browser has high confidence that a user will visit an URL. The way this feature would work is that the browser will proactively navigate to a Web page in a hidden tab, when it sees the “prerender” link type or has high confidence that user will visit that link. When the user does visit that link, the browser will make the hidden tab visible, giving the perception of instant navigation.
- Resource Priorities Today, browsers download resources in the priority order that they believe are most efficient in helping the page load occur quickly. However, developers may want to prioritize some resources over others. For example, downloading images above the fold may be of higher priority than those below the fold. Though, developers can give some hints to the browser on download priority, like using the “defer” and “async” attributes in markup, these concepts do not include most resources. To help the browser prioritize downloading resources, the working group is expanding the charter to include interoperable means for developers to give the browser hints on the download priority of resources.
- Diagnostics Interfaces Developers are interested in learning how to make their Web applications faster and less error prone. The working group is expanding the charter to include interoperable means for developers to get browser diagnostics information on their Web applications. For example, using these interfaces a developer could understand where memory is leaking or what errors users are encountering on their Web applications.
- Beacon Today, analytics scripts will block the current page from unloading by running in a loop in order to confirm that analytics data has been sent to a Web server. This behavior will delay the navigation to the next page, resulting in user perception of poor performance. To help developers avoid that pattern, the working group is expanding the charter to include an interoperable means for developers to asynchronously transfer data from the browser to a Web server, with a guarantee from the browser that the data will eventually be sent.
- Display Performance Developers are interested in understanding the performance of their games and animations.
The working group is expanding the charter to include interoperable means for developers to get frame rate and throughput of the display type of information.
This working group is a great example of how quickly new ideas can become interoperable standards that developers can depend on in modern HTML5-enabled browsers. Together with industry and community leaders who participate in the working group, we hope to continue to make rapid progress on interoperable standards that will benefit developers and everyone who uses the Web.
Jatinder Mann, Internet Explorer, Program Manager
Comments
Anonymous
November 27, 2012
I'd like to know the number of core available in the machine to have an estimate of the number of web workers that I can launch... (even if I know that other tabs can be using other core too).Anonymous
November 27, 2012
Internet Explorer and performance in one sentence!!! Lets start with these 4 tests hixie.ch/.../video Compare with Opera and Chrome. Now you will tend to Ignore my comment as if you haven't read it. Because unlike Visual C team at Microsoft, you guys don't want to do your job with seriousness. The day you "actually" start working on IE performance. Hixie.ch has some great challenges.Anonymous
November 27, 2012
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November 27, 2012
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November 27, 2012
@KeyboardJunkie: There's a reason that the tests are called "Silly." You'll also find that IE10 is competitive with everyone else here anyway. @Andrew: Sorry to interrupt your rant, but the value in closing browsers when you've completed a security-sensitive action isn't new; it's always been there, even if you didn't realize it. blogs.msdn.com/.../understanding-browser-session-lifetime.aspxAnonymous
November 28, 2012
It seems people are pointing out edge cases that don't represent real world examples and then saying it shows IE is inferior. If the concern is truely making IE better than point to something closer to real world that could be an actionable item for the IE team.Anonymous
November 28, 2012
Is the "prerender" something that browsers currently support?Anonymous
November 28, 2012
PreRender is a newish feature of Chrome; I'm not sure whether they have it on by default yet.Anonymous
November 28, 2012
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November 28, 2012
@Eric Law, you are the only closest to official person who cares about our comments and we love to have you here with us. :-) Can you talk to the SVG team to consider fixing these three issues I discovered in IE10:
- connect.microsoft.com/.../incorrect-paths-moveto-rendering-in-svg
- connect.microsoft.com/.../wrong-inheritance-with-svgs-fill-opacity
- connect.microsoft.com/.../no-drop-shadow-when-printing-svg (perhaps a lunch break gig for a guy who just finished implementing the entire standard!) I believe if all the genuine bugs, pertaining to IE, reported on Connect, social forums, MS Community and Stackoverflow are collected and get addressed and an update is released for that, IE will be the most reliable for web-devs. Currently it is excellent in performance and eagerly supporting standards too (with some exactness and completeness issues). But I'd like to assume that Microsoft is not just about "fair enough" anymore. Believe it or not, outside Microsoft people spend hours testing, debugging and locating bugs hoping that someone is going to care but its a very hopeless situation. I can imagine the development lifecycle is pretty tricky and the pressure on IE team (as IE has other responsibilities at OS level too). But there must be some way to involve the community and mitigate the gaps in community and updates.
Anonymous
November 29, 2012
when are you going to release the finished IE 10 for windows 7?Anonymous
November 29, 2012
When it's finishedAnonymous
November 29, 2012
IE 10 crashes on sites with many youtube videos on when you play and pause some of them.Anonymous
November 29, 2012
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November 30, 2012
@Daniel: I think you're confused about the security model in all general-purpose operating systems. Anyone with full access to your PC could simply install logging code and monitor your interactions with ANY browser or website. That's why it's important to lock your workstation when you're not using it.Anonymous
November 30, 2012
@keyBoard Site seems to doing some browser detection, as it Runs find in Compatibility mode. This is a developer issue not IE.Anonymous
November 30, 2012
@Frank: If you ever use any browser to access any sensitive site in a "cyber-café," it's safe to assume that your credentials and everything you've looked at will be seen by other people. It's one of the fundamental laws of computer security that you cannot securely browse from an insecure client.Anonymous
November 30, 2012
Throw X-UA-Compatible: requiresActiveX=true on the login page if it requires plugins. Problem solved.Anonymous
November 30, 2012
Not sure if Ie team really have done something except best in theory. Yes, Ie10 is amazing but who have support them. for me the most of application not want me to use Ie10 :( Chrome !, this is only one who can run tweet-deck any many other great apps.Anonymous
December 01, 2012
Hey IE Team, How about you give we users back the customisability that made IE8 such an excellent browser? Dumb down the interface as much as you like, but at least put options there for we users to maintain previous functionality.Anonymous
December 01, 2012
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December 01, 2012
msdn.microsoft.com/.../Hh700404.aspxAnonymous
December 01, 2012
What exactly are you "really" missing ? If it takes you more than 10 seconds to think of anything, just admit that your are yet another anti-MSFT troll, so pleasee don't bother visiting this blog and get yourself another browser. ~happy interneting~ ^^ isn't it why we come online?Anonymous
December 01, 2012
@"@Harold" (the one who replied, not the original poster) - Are you sure this list applies to new style Internet Explorer 10 as well? I would not be so sure, some of these are extreme difference (all of the features that suddenly use toStaticHTML) and would certainly break websites. For example, document.write cannot inject script tags anymore. Many websites, unfortunately, rely on this. I believe this really applies only to Windows Store applications.Anonymous
December 01, 2012
Why is IE 10 for windows 7 unfinished? Is the code different from the windows 8 version by a lot?Anonymous
December 01, 2012
Not all but some of them doesn't work. Mostly those related to window. window.confirm() doesn't work but document.write and body.behaviorUrns do work This is the closest list I have found. Beyond that list all JS functions are working on "IE10 Modern UI".Anonymous
December 02, 2012
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December 02, 2012
Wondering if anyone else is experiencing this bug in IE10-Desktop (I am on two machines... non-touch Desktop and Laptop): Open three tabs. Close one. The tabs are now wider, taking up the same space as three tabs, only there's only two. Open another tab and then close it. The tabs get even wider. Close another, and the remaining tab is super-wide. The tab sizes will reset when you mouse over certain objects. I have the favorites bar active beneath the tabs, and if you mouse over one of the favorites buttons, the tabs will resize. This bug is not present in IE9Anonymous
December 02, 2012
It is not a bug. <3 this feature.Anonymous
December 02, 2012
@pmbAustin, This is a feature, not a bug! Suppose you have 10 tabs opened. Now you want to close 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th tab. You will need to first one of them, move your mouse to its close button and click 4 times. The next tab would replace the position of the closed one and you don't have to move your mouse to point the next tab's close button.
- Stan
Anonymous
December 02, 2012
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December 03, 2012
How do I block a certain popup in IE10?Anonymous
December 03, 2012
It's a bug to me. I really hate it. I end up with one HUGE ULTRA WIDE tab after closing a bunch of tabs. Very annoying and ugly. I'm not sure I "get" how this is a feature. It seems to be trying to solve a problem I've never had. At the very least let me turn this new behavior off, because it's awful. It just LOOKS like a bug. Really weird behavior. Okay, another bug: the synchronization is really annoying. I have a desktop and a laptop both on Windows 8, synchronizing the favorites. In one, I delete a favorite. It almost instantly comes back. I usually have to delete it two or three times before it "sticks". It's VERY frequent. It doesn't happen every time, but it happens a majority of the times. I had one that kept popping back a few seconds after being deleted for FIVE TIMES before it stayed gone. This is not what I expect from "synchronized favorites/bookmarks".Anonymous
December 03, 2012
@pmbAustin, this is NOT a bug. It is a PRODUCTIVITY feature. Many power users had this hiccup while closing multiple tabs. You just need to move the mouse away ONCE, when you are finished closing all the tabs you wanted and the rest will be resized on mouse out (as opposed to moving the mouse each time after closing a tab to target the next tab's close button) The other issue about favorites is not reproducible on my system: Windows 7 x64 Ultimate edition, IE10 release-preview. I deleted a favorite just once and it never appeared again. Btw, blogs is not the place for this kind of discussion; reporting bugs. Microsoft Connect certainly is. You can attach log dumps and screenshot to help people reproducing the issue. Unless your intent is merely trolling and foul mouthing against the product. In which case, you will never get satisfied because AFAIK b*tching is a personality disorder.Anonymous
December 03, 2012
AFGDHIAnonymous
December 04, 2012
When and how often will there be updates to IE10 preview?Anonymous
December 04, 2012
Test to load a web page from a server with 1000+ 1x1 pixel images. The client and server are separated by a 1gb switch. This tests the slowness of multiple connections. This measures end to end minimal connection times.Anonymous
December 04, 2012
Why would you test a ridiculous scenario with 1000 images. The result would be meaningless as it is not a real world scenario.Anonymous
December 04, 2012
@Stan - MS Connect was a complete and utter failure due to miss-management by Microsoft and a lack of any real commitment to public bug tracking. Everyone I know that participated in the IE7 round and the IE8 round were extremely offended when their hard work was ignored and then deleted. Needless to say bug reporters were not going to be burned 3 times in a row and as such Connect was nearly completely abandoned by developers during IE9 testing. You couldn't pay most developers to participate on connect anymore - I know I certainly won't ever go back. The requested apology for the terrible behavior was also ignored - another sign of Microsofts closed corporate mentality instead of actually working with the community.Anonymous
December 04, 2012
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December 04, 2012
What is the point of daily coming back to blogs website with this same argument? If you don't want to submit a bug report on Connect, then don't post it here either. Blogs is not the place to submit bug report.Anonymous
December 04, 2012
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December 04, 2012
@"@Peter" the point is pretty darn obvious! You're the only one that doesn't get it! A:) Please Immediately Stop telling people to report bugs in Connect - We REFUSE to do so (see endless rants on this blog as to why) B:) Please Immediately Stop telling people to not report bugs here on the IE Blog - This is the ONLY place where the bugs can receive proper attention by both Microsoft and Web Developers that want to read about the bugs, check out test cases posted online, and readers can then start Tweeting / using social networks to advise others about the issues and add public incentive for Microsoft to actually respond/fix the issues! Please post all IE bug reports right here on the IE Blog. Even if you do decide to waste your time filing one in Connect, put a copy of it here on the IE Blog so that the rest of us can read it/follow up.Anonymous
December 06, 2012
I really haven't seen many rants about connect on here and I've certainly not seen any bugs get noticed in these commentsAnonymous
December 06, 2012
@@Steve, Take a look at Real McCoy's comment above. He has reported three issues with SVG which I can reproduce with ease, following the steps of reproduction in bug reports. Out of those three reported bugs, two of them are already closed as Won't Fix. As opposed to other teams at Microsoft, IE team never use Closed as "Deferred" (putting the bug in "pending" category). They close it straight-forwardly and expect you to resubmit the bug report when next version of IE arrives and accepting bugs. At that point, they are focusing on tons of new standards to incorporate, therefore most of the old bugs get closed "by design". This is the reason there are ages old bugs never resolved. Not everyone criticizing is ranting. People actually feel "pain" when they report something to IE team, hoping someday the team member will acknowledge and update them about the status of the issue, but the next morning the bug report is closed (as won't fixed or by design). If you have ever followed any other product on Connect, you will notice that IE team is the only one having having difficulties in keeping the bug reports open and giving proper feedback to the reported bug. An example would be the Visual Studio team. They tend to keep the bug report open unless it is solved and during that period they update the concerned users about the progress on "vcblog" and connect as well.Anonymous
December 06, 2012
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December 07, 2012
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December 07, 2012
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December 07, 2012
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December 08, 2012
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December 08, 2012
"the browser is still behind in many, many new features and technologies." In IE10 RP on Windows 7 and RTM on Windows 8, all the W3C specifications are supported which were released before 14th September 2012. html5test.com is just showing an unnecessary marathon. For developers, its a nightmare to use experimental/proposed solutions and by the time it is approved, the specification is altered. This is what happened in case of Gradient. The modern gradient is specified diagonally while the old one used to specify vertically . . . "Haste makes waste"! Secondly, Windows RT is supposed to run apps for tablets like iPad and Android. It is not supposed to run resource hogged desktop applications. Like you cannot run Linux application on Android or Macintosh application on iOS, you cannot run Win32 application on WinRT. PERIOD. Now, if you don't know a sh*t, don't argue like stupid babies just to prove your point you freakng anti-Microsoft TROLLBOY!Anonymous
December 08, 2012
Oh, well, I guess I saw that "you are a troll" comment coming. It supports new as well as old specifications, but nothing close to the competitors. Every browser has its own focus, of course. Windows RT sounds to me, like the worst of both of the worlds (desktop and mobile), if you think about it. On one hand, it is Windows, but it is not really Windows, because you cannot really run everything you want on it. And it is not a normal mobile operating system, too (Windows Phone is closer to that). Android and iOS are Android and iOS. Mobile operating systems. If you choose to use the same brand (Windows), but not providing as much capabilities, you confuse your users that expect a "Download" button to download software that you can run. "But, hey, it is this Windows system, there is a desktop and everything, even Office, why can I not run this software? how weird and disappointing". "RT" means nothing to users. Even developers could have some hard time understanding "RT" (what, run time? so? what is that supposed to mean?). Yes, I can understand the totally different architecture, but the mere user? yeah, right. Do not fool yourself. Users are not smart when it comes to "operating system" (or "browser"), if they even know that it has a name, let alone architectures and reasons for limitations. But, I guess I know nothing, like you stated. Anyone that write 'bad stuff' (even if they also appreciate some good stuff) about Microsoft is a troll, of course. (Stop looking for trolls.)Anonymous
December 08, 2012
*writesAnonymous
December 08, 2012
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December 08, 2012
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December 08, 2012
Windows RT will unfortunately become the new "Windows ME" as the community discovers that it is only a 1/2 windows install. Sadly the best part of windows will always be its powerhouse desktop and this "Mehtro" as it has often been called will always be a fluffy layer on top. The full name of "Windows RT" is "Windows Restricted Tablet" handcuffed at the hardware level to never be able to be capable of being a full windows machine... But designed to mock you every time you flip to the desktop and think that you can do something.Anonymous
December 09, 2012
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December 09, 2012
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December 09, 2012
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December 09, 2012
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December 09, 2012
@@Nick, as of this moment (44th day of its launch) Windows Store has 28,339 apps available and the number is growing. Further details on: http://metrostore.preweb.sk/ Haters gonna hate. Don't waste your time!Anonymous
December 09, 2012
IE10 is good.Anonymous
December 09, 2012
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December 10, 2012
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December 10, 2012
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December 10, 2012
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