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Newer IE versions found to be dramatically more reliable

Sauce Labs' 55 million tests of Web pages and apps find Microsoft's browser the most crash-prone, but IE10's error rate is a sixth that of IE6.

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Stephen Shankland principal writer
Stephen Shankland has been a reporter at CNET since 1998 and writes about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Expertise processors, semiconductors, web browsers, quantum computing, supercomputers, AI, 3D printing, drones, computer science, physics, programming, materials science, USB, UWB, Android, digital photography, science Credentials
  • I've been covering the technology industry for 24 years and was a science writer for five years before that. I've got deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and other dee
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Stephen Shankland
The error rate for IE has dropped significantly in Sauce Labs' testing of Web sites and Web apps.
The error rate for IE has dropped significantly in Sauce Labs' testing of Web sites and Web apps. Sauce Labs

Microsoft is making progress revamping Internet Explorer to shuck its bad reputation among Web developers, newly released measurements of browser reliability show.

Sauce Labs' Selenium service has run 55 million automated tests of Web sites and Web apps over the years, and the company kept track of the results. Although IE was the worst performer overall, newer versions show much lower rates of troubles bad enough to crash the browser, according to a Sauce Labs blog post Tuesday.

Overall, IE's error rate was 0.25 percent. But that's largely because of IE6's 0.31 percent rate and IE7's 0.29 percent rate. IE8 dropped to 0.22 percent, IE9 to 0.1 percent, and the latest halves that again.

"Microsoft has been so good at squashing their historically high error rates that IE 10 has an impressive 0.05 percent error rate," Sauce Labs' Lauren Nguyen said.

Sauce Labs' Selenium service to test Web sites and Web apps has found Microsoft's IE to be the browser most prone to crashes.
Sauce Labs' Selenium service to test Web sites and Web apps has found Microsoft's IE to be the browser most prone to crashes. Sauce Labs

Comparing the latest versions of major desktop browsers, Safari 6 is the worst, with a 0.2 percent error rate. Next comes Opera 12 at 0.08 percent, then IE10. "Chrome 27 and Firefox 22 have virtually nonexistent error rates," Nguyen said.

Sauce Labs offers automated testing to developers who don't want the hassle of maintaining test machines for many combinations of browsers and operating systems.