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IE’s sluggish JavaScript engine pushes Firefox into the forefront for Web 2.0 apps
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November 2nd, 2008 by 
Susan Prosser
We made a decision some time ago that our live auction platform would function on all major OS’s and browser platforms. Sure, building a Java applet or ActiveX component may have been the traditional approach, but you risk locking out potential buyers if their system doesn’t meet a narrow set of requirements. Even if their system supports it, people may choose not to participate in the auction rather than installing software they don’t trust on their machine. Fewer participants’ means good domains unsold as buyers were not “present” to bid.
The Aftermarket.com Auction system uses the browser as the application container, much like Gmail or other so-called “Web 2.0″ apps. Most people already have Adobe Flash installed and are using IE 6 or 7 or Firefox 2 or 3, so when the live auction page loads, participants are immediately immersed in the action. New bids start appearing in their browser in near real-time, engaging them in the auction and encouraging participation in much the same manner as an auctioneer builds energy in the room. That is one of the most compelling attributes of our platform, and why other companies are taking notice.
Of course, getting the system working in four different browser combination’s, on both PC’s and Mac’s, is anything but trivial. Nothing mangles the carefully constructed project plan like a good set of cross-browser compatibility issues. Suddenly, that feature pegged for 3 days has dragged into the 3rd week, and not by any fault of the dev team. Once tight, clean code devolves into absolute confusion as we are forced to introduce new code paths to work around bugs in IE without messing up Firefox.
Implementing a good JavaScript framework helped us eliminate about 85% of those problems when we built the latest version of our auction platform. Now we face a new challenge: the JavaScript engine in IE7 is terribly slow, and in IE6, it’s almost unusable.
As web apps become more sophisticated, the JavaScript engine in the browser is pushed beyond what it was ever designed for in the first place, such as form inputs. Now, with our platform, every bid sends the browser into a frenzy trying to update all the pieces of the UI while still letting the user interact with the page. Some browsers, like Firefox 3, handle this relatively well; others, like IE 6, grind to a near standstill. IE 7 is marginally better, but Firefox is still superior, especially considering the improvements to the JavaScript engine in the most recent version of Firefox .
You’ll note that one browser is conspicuously absent from this discussion: Google Chrome. The “risk management” side of my head has been telling me not to list it as an officially supported platform for the auction, largely because I don’t want yet another browser to test in. I was mostly a spectator during the last browser war between Netscape (aka Mosaic) and IE - now I’m right in the middle of the arena, and things look considerably different down here than they did in the stands! I’m also nervous about the stability of the Flash plug-in in Chrome, but both of those arguments are losing force by the day and I’m beginning to yield. Frankly, my team thinks I’m crazy not to put Chrome on the list - some of them have been using it during testing, and they say the comparison between JavaScript engines in IE6 and Chrome is like comparing the zero-to-60 times of a tricycle and a Ferrari.
Our recommendation, if you weren’t sure after all this, is use the latest version of Firefox when you bid at our Aftermarket.com Auction in Gold Coast, Australia. It’s simply that much better.
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Posted in Aftermarket.com Auction, Domain Tools Updates, DomainTools Auction, Web 2.0 |
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 am
Yea but every time there is an auction, here, IE is the browser that ends up working and Firefox hangs or bombs or is just plain old sluggish. So I gave up. No more auctions for me.
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:37 am
Firefox 3.1 with Just-in-Time compilation womps Chrome. Further, nightly builds of WebKit have many of the same performance enhancements that Google heralds. I’m not sure what the fuss is about–clearly it’s just another browser to support and is some sort of economic stimulus package designed to increase the workforce requirements of web 2.0 companies.
November 4th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I haven’t had any problems with IE7. Maybe your framework needs to be optimized.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
UPDATED: Please keep links pertinent to the current thread of conversation. Thank you in advance.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:01 am
asking users to change browsers to participate in any function is the same as asking them to leave… if the browser they are using doesnt support your functions or just doesnt work well, the majority are likely to just move on. Supporting your most likely users is always a safe bet. (Supporting them all of course is safest) Chrome may be the cool choice of wireheads everywhere but you arent going to lose as many customers as you are by not working well with IE.
< UPDATE > All items of the auction items work in any browser - there is no issue on that. But, with all the cross-browser testing we have done, the performance on FF is much better. Any browser can be used; performance may vary.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Susan,
I am not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling when you describe all of the potential problems with various browsers and Java implementations. I use Sniper Software when I am bidding in eBay. The Sniper package I use has created a dummy auction in eBay which allows the software to be tested without placing real bids.
http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/auctionsentry
I was wondering if it would be possible for the Aftermarket.com Auction System to run a simulation or dummy auction which would allow everyone to test their software in advance of the real auction. Obviously there could still be load related problems during the real auction but any serious problems could be identified before the start of the auction.
Since you are supporting an auction outside of the United States, are you planning to offer international TLD’s in the auction and provide better support for international TLD’s in Domain Tools?
Mike
November 6th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Welcome to my daily work world of browser differences.
But good news is on the way. All of the beta browsers at the moment absolutely scream when it comes to JS performance; IE8 beta 2, Safari 4, Chrome, FF3.1
All of the big players have acknowledged not that the web IS the platform and therefore they need to have fast browsers because more and more of the processing is going to be handled client side.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:43 am
When my IE7 started acting up, i downloaded a fix that seemed to have silenced the JS-popup error clan. Never heard from them since! FF sounds good though.
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