Chakra is a proprietary

JScript JScript is Microsoft's legacy software, legacy dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 and older. JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Aut ...

engine developed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

. It is used in the

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

. Microsoft later developed a new JavaScript engine for its

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

browser, which is confusingly also called

Chakra Chakras (, ; sa , text=चक्र , translit=cakra , translit-std=IAST , lit=wheel, circle; pi, cakka) are various focal points used in a variety of ancient meditation practices, collectively denominated as Tantra, or the esoteric or ...

Features

A distinctive feature of the engine is that it JIT compiles scripts on a separate

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

core, parallel to the web browser. Though Microsoft has in the past pointed out that other elements, such as rendering and marshalling, are just as important for a browser's overall performance, their improvements to the engine were in response to evolving competing browsers, compared to which IE8 was lagging behind in terms of client-side script processing speed.

History

SunSpider tests performed on November 18, 2009 showed the

PDC PDC may refer to: In science and technology Chemistry, biology and medicine * Phosducin, a human protein and gene in the retina * Pyridinium dichromate (Cornforth reagent), a chromium-based oxidant * Pyruvate dehydrogenase complex, an enzyme ...

version of IE9 executing scripts much faster than IE8, but slower than Firefox 3.6,

Chrome Chrome may refer to: Materials * Chrome plating, a process of surfacing with chromium * Chrome alum, a chemical used in mordanting and photographic film Computing * Google Chrome, a web browser developed by Google ** ChromeOS, a Google Chrome- ...

4, and

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the ...

Nightly. The same test performed on March 15, 2010 showed the first IE9 Platform Preview (using the then-current version of Chakra) to be faster than Firefox (with SpiderMonkey), but slower than

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

(with SquirrelFish Extreme), Chrome (with V8), and

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...

(with Carakan). On March 8, 2011, Microsoft published results showing the 32-bit Internet Explorer 9 to be faster than Safari, Firefox (with TraceMonkey), Chrome, and Opera. March 2011 performance tests for

ZDNet ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication. H ...

concluded that Internet Explorer 9 (32-bit),

10, and Firefox 4 release candidate were "pretty evenly matched." In 2012, subsequent versions of Chakra, such as the version included in Internet Explorer 10, introduced additional performance changes, including JIT compilation on x64 and

ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configure ...

s, and optimizations related to

floating point In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be r ...

math and garbage collection.

References

{{Internet Explorer 2011 software JavaScript engines Microsoft free software Windows-only free software