IE8 “Epically Porcine”
by John Paczkowski
Posted on September 3, 2008 at 7:37 AM PT
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is significantly faster than IE7. It’s more stable and feature-rich than its predecessor as well. But it’s also something of a resource pig. IE8 Beta 2 consumes 52 percent more memory than IE7 and uses more than double the number of processor threads. In fact, it’s the most resource-intensive version of the Web browser to date, according to Florida-based independent software research firm Devil Mountain Software. “IE8 is epically porcine,” said Devil Mountain CTO Craig Barth. “Microsoft has gone to epic levels of bloat.”
In a 10-site scenario test comparing IE8 with IE7 and FireFox 3.01 running on Windows Vista (SP1), Devil Mountain found that IE8 Beta 2 consumed 380MB of memory to IE7’s 250MB and Firefox 3.0.1’s 159MB. IE8 Beta 2 also used significantly more processor threads than the browsers, generating a hefty 171 threads compared with IE7 and Firefox 3.0.1, which generated 65 and 29, respectively.
That’s a dramatic difference, although to be fair, Microsoft (MSFT) has designated IE8 Beta 2 as “Beta” for a reason, and comparing it with release-quality software isn’t exactly fair. That said, Firefox 3 beta consumed nowhere near the amount of memory IE8 Beta 2 seems to require.
Comments
I heard on CNet’s Buzz Out Loud the likely reason for this is that IE8 beta was built for quad core processors. When it does not run on a quad it takes up significant more memory. Surely Microsoft will have this fixed so that browser checks and adapts to processor on each computer. If true this issue could be getting blown out of proportion.
Posted by Dominic Pannone at September 3rd, 2008 at 10:29 amGreat photo. It expalins it all.
Posted by George Mag at September 3rd, 2008 at 5:50 pmtypical. some smartass tries to fry microsoft because of their own bias. then you try to qualify the troll by saying yes its a beta but…. . if you arent going to be responsible in your ‘reviews’ then you should just go to cnet or ziff davis or somewhere else where we all know you think microsoft is evil and everyone else is good. my original post is edited because of the censorship that exists here. suffice it to say that walt mosberg gave an unbiased review of chrome. john paczkowski did not.
Posted by Robert Freeman at September 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 pm