Site performance improved by 30 percent in IE10 with HTML5, says Microsoft

Developers are getting their sites ready for HTML5 and with the shift happening gradually, Microsoft mentioned on its official blog that sites in IE10 got an average of 30 percent better page load time when switched to Standards Mode. The benefit is similar in IE9, too. With IE10, developers are focussing on writing HTML5 and CS3 code that works with all modern browsers, including Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Basically, Standards Mode is the default rendering mode of all browsers and offers the best implementation of web standards that work the same in all browsers. In addition to Standards Mode, IE provides compatibility modes to keep web sites designed for old versions of IE working. This was particularly helpful in the past, when it was a common practice to first detect a browser and then serve code meant only for it. But this is no longer necessary in many cases because the web standards code is displayed similarly in modern browsers, including IE10 and 9 through Standards Mode. This new practice is commonly known as feature detection. Better site performance can make a big impact on your users. Slow web page loading is a major factor in users abandoning a site, it can reduce perceived site credibility and affect product sales and this is a step in the right direction. They’ve got detailed information on how to run in Standards Mode on their MSDN blog.

Here’s a sample of what they discovered when they measured page load after the change in IE10:
39% faster on HP.com (shopping)
33% faster on Shutterfly.com (lifestyle)
31% faster on UPS.com (logistics)
27% faster on Citibank.com (finance)
23% faster on Southwest.com (travel)
11% faster on CNN.com (news)

How did this happen? The explanation given in their blog states, “IE10 and IE9 were both designed for real world site performance – that is measuring all the parts in the browser together rather than looking at a single part in isolation. Having your site in Standard Mode impacts how quickly a page can load and how responsive it is because it can take full advantage of web standards through hardware acceleration, the Chakra JavaScript rendering engine, and theover 2000 other performance improvements. ”

That’s definitely good news for Internet Explorer. Now, we just hope they make tab management and loading time lightning fast.