Is Microsoft Edge Going to be the Best Browser Around?

By Tsahi Levent-Levi

July 21, 2015  

The newest game in town.

Measuring Microsoft Edge

Apple’s Safari. Haven’t used it so can’t say anything. Just that most people I know are really comfortable using Chrome on Macs.

Chrome? Word’s around that it is bloated and kills your CPU. I know. On a machine with 4Gb of memory, you need to switch and use Firefox instead. Otherwise, the machine won’t survive the default tabs I have open.

Firefox? Hmm. Some would say that their Hello service is bloatware. I don’t really have an opinion. I am fine with using Firefox, but I prefer Chrome. No specific reason.

From a recent blog post from Microsoft, it seems like Microsoft Edge is faster than Chrome:

In this build, Microsoft Edge is even better and is beating Chrome and Safari on their own JavaScript benchmarks:

  • On WebKit Sunspider, Edge is 112% faster than Chrome
  • On Google Octane, Edge is 11% faster than Chrome
  • On Apple JetStream, Edge is 37% faster than Chrome

Coming from Microsoft’s dev team, I wouldn’t believe it. Not immediately. Others have slightly different results:

Here’s the rundown (click on an individual test to see the nitty-gritty details):

Some already want to switch from Chrome to Edge.

Edge is even showing signs of WebRTC support, so by year end, who knows? I might be using it regularly as well.

Edge is the new shiny browser.

Firefox is old news. Search Google for Firefox redesign. They had a major one on a yearly basis. Next in line is their UI framework for extensions as far as I can tell.

Safari is based on WebKit. WebKit was ditched by Google so Chrome can be developed faster. As such, Chrome is built on the ashes of WebKit.

Internet Explorer anyone?

Edge started from a clean slate. A design from 2014, where developers thought of how to build a browser, as opposed to teams doing that before smartphones, responsive design or life without Flash.

Can Edge be the best next thing? A real threat to Chrome on Windows devices? Yes.

So, where exactly is WebRTC available? Check out my free WebRTC Device Cheat Sheet.

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