Slashdot Mirror

This post might explain some of the issues? I know I did have problems in some of the early IE9 betas but I later used the cleartype tuner and haven't had any problems with IE9 or Firefox 4 since, fonts look great.

This is on Vista or Windows 7? Most of those issues should be fixed in Vista.

If you're still running XP, you should check out the MakeMeAdmin script. It makes this *way* easier.

That only works until they have all their holes plugged. See Xbox, homebrew on Xbox1 was extremely popular, homebrew on Xbox360 has a far harder time, as it doesn't work at all with modern Xbox360 and even with older models requires hardware modifications and that is with a console that has been on the market for five years. Sony will certainly have learned their lessons with PS3 and PSP and won't make the same mistakes again. So I wouldn't count to much on hackers breaking the security of whatever comes next, as past successes where in large parts based on the developers not really putting any real effort into the security, not on all security being breakable.

Actually, homebrew on the Xbox360 is officially supported - Microsoft provides the tools and everything. To run it on a real Xbox360 requires $99/year, but it's homebrew.

In fact, it's quite popular leading to the same problem that the Apple App Store and the Google Android Marketplace has - there's just so much stuff it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff.

XNA

Microsoft XNA site

Sure it's not the full thing (it doesn't do leaderboards, Live networking or gamerscore) but it's still a supported mechanism, and games can be sold too. The only approval process is that of your peers.

That's pretty much why there's very few people working on native homebrew - why do it when Microsoft provides a supported mechanism?

> Joking aside, I am kind of curious what thuis "as microsoft would have you beiieve" comment is coming from.

This blog post, which was linked to in the article. Especially the last section ("Full Hardware Acceleration is the Difference") would lead the reader to believe that the difference was architectural.

The first was sent in January with the correct amount. The second is sent in March, with the earnings double the actual amount. There are stupid, stupid people working for MS.

Here's a picture of one, named Justin Bonsey. One look at his Google profile and it pretty much sums it all up.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/6862/justinbonseygoogleprofi.png

http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77454.aspx

I am very surprised that nobody has said that this yet.

Number one rule: never login as Administrator (or root), unless you need to do maintenance. Playing a dvd is not maintenance.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aaron_margosis/archive/2004/06/17/157962.aspx "Why you shouldn't run as admin..."

So a message to all pc-fixers out there: if your friend does want the automatic login, make sure it automatically logs in to an account that is in the "Users" group. And you could even go as far as not giving the Administrator password to your friend.

If users log in as Administrator when all they want to do is surf the web, write some email, write a document with MS Word or play a dvd. Then do not blame Microsoft if your pc gets hacked. It's your own fault.

This particular article by Aaron Margosis was written seven years ago.

If you read this article from the IE blog (from 2005), they claim that ActiveX plugins run in a sandbox. The MSDN documentation for low rights IE has similar contents.

The actual quote from the (paywalled) article is

The company is offering what Mr. Watson said was a standard split on app sales: 70 percent to the developers, 30 percent to Microsoft.

The 30% is indeed the normal amount that Microsoft takes on all WP7 apps, so it looks like that is what the summary is referring to, although the wording was very misleading.

If MS wants apps, do what apple does. Offer one button on the web site that will download a complete, unencumbered, and free as in beer development kit. Do not play games such as 'students get it for free' or 'you have to develop for us because we are the best' Just give us the tools.

You mean like this link to the free as in beer development kit, which is linked from a large "Download the free tools" button on the first hit off Google or Bing for "windows phone 7 development kit?"

It is highly unlikely that Microsoft would screw Bob (the real name of Paint.NETs author). Its just not the right thing to do. It is very unlikely that Microsoft would tell Bob to stop working on paint.net. First, it would make Bob very happy, second its very, very unlikely that Paint.NET would be materially impactful to anything Microsoft would do. Of course, I cant say this with authority, but I know Bobs management chain really well (I used to be his skip manger) and we just wouldnt do this.

I know slashdotters love to assume that being a developer at Microsoft is a mind-numbingly boring, tedious, manual, excruciating, soul-crushing bureaucratic exercise. This couldn’t be further from the truth – especially in Windows.

People that work at Microsoft , like Bob, work for real people. Human beings. Nice folks. Mangers, like myself enjoy treating people fairly, liberally, and nicely. It makes us happy. It engenders friendships. It is essential to making work fun and enjoyable.

I know folks just dont want to believe it, but Microsoft has some of the most liberal and supportive policies of any company, not just high tech companies. We treat our people really well. Yes, yes, not everyone is happy - just go read the Mini-Microsoft blog. But, I claim this is a very small minority - compare the number of posts on MM with the number of blogs on blogs.msnd.com and blogs.technet.com. Whats the factor? 1,000 to 1? Higher?

-Foredecker

It might have been a bit unfair that MS had a stranglehold on the browser market for those PCs that had Windows pre-installed.

Except that IE's market share was slipping long before the EU felt the need to pointlessly start throwing their weight around.

Choice is good, and it's great that the EU evened the playing field. But too many choices will confuse the general public.

The EU did not level anything. All they did, as you note, is introduce confusion. Anyone who's read much of Raymond Chen's blog knows the thought that goes into initial user experience. Starting off by throwing up dialog boxes and asking the user questions they cannot answer is NOT helpful and just reminds people that computers are hard to use.

Something like 90% of users probably fall into one or two categories when it comes to the stupid browser ballot:

1. Already have a browser they like. Ballot serves no purpose.
2. Have no idea what a "browser" is, and just want to check their email. They click a button randomly, or maybe based on which icon is the prettiest. Ballot still serves no purpose for the user -- all it manages to do is artificially spread around market share to no-name browsers.

Given TFS's saying "The answers are very mixed.", I would guess most fall into the 2nd category. Maybe browsers that haven't seen an improvement should make shinier icons.

It is a folder. It is not a directory. Because the file is deleted. Also because it's the union of all recycling bins.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/02/16/10129908.aspx

Here's a verbose answer to the question: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/02/16/10129908.aspx

The recycle bin is a folder, but not a directory.

True, but indie game devs usually do not have the man power to develop in C++

My experience differs. And even you disbelieve that it does, please replace "C++" in my comment with "any language not known to compile to IL that 1. is verifiably type-safe and 2. doesn't use Reflection.Emit". One situation is that someone has an existing game in an "unsafe" language working on one platform and wants to port it to 360. Or that a scripting language engine works on the DLR but the 360 doesn't support the DLR because the 360 lacks Reflection.Emit (source). Just as your team has skilled F# coders, my team has skilled Python coders, but IronPython uses facilities that aren't present on the 360.

And even beyond programming language barriers, the Xbox Live Indie Games review policy bans any written or spoken text in a constructed language. This would appear to ban the plot device of a community that speaks a foreign language until you get a plot coupon representing having learned that language, after which the translation convention sets in and you begin to see or hear that foreign language as English or whatever other language you're playing the game in.

See the PDF.

  1.l

“Excluded License” means any license requiring, as a condition of use, modification and/or distribution of the software subject to the license, that the software or other software combined and/or distributed with it be (i) disclosed or distributed in source code form; (ii) licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (iii) redistributable at no charge. Excluded Licenses include, but are not limited to the GPLv3 Licenses. For the purpose of this definition, “GPLv3 Licenses” means the GNU General Public License version 3, the GNU Affero General Public License version 3, the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3, and any equivalents to the foregoing.

5.e.

The Application must not include software, documentation, or other materials that, in whole or in part, are governed by or subject to an Excluded License, or that would otherwise cause the Application to be subject to the terms of an Excluded License.

Well - to some extent the consumer is to blame.

Stop using Administrator when you log in to your Windows PC.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aaron_margosis/archive/2004/06/17/157962.aspx

"If the exploit happens to be written so that it requires admin privileges (as many do), just running as User stops it dead."

Consumers need to learn how to setup and use a Windows PC properly.

By having a browser they make themselves legitimate in having a say in web standards.

Very true and of course they want that. Many of their products are sold to developers and businesses who need to produce content for web standards.

This is especially important because Microsoft is starting to build everything on top of their browser rendering engine. The next version of Office will use the IE rendering engine for it's layout. (The rendering in IE was originally scheduled for Office 2010, but they found it wouldn't be ready in time) Visual Studio 2010 already runs on top of the rendering engine.

This is absolutely incorrect. Visual Studio 2010's UI is written using .Net and WPF which is nothing to do with IE's rendering engine.

I absolutely agree it is in Microsoft's best interest to be a part of the web standards discussion and IE is one of the ways they do that, it doesn't have anything to do with the UI for their major applications.

ok, I copy a previous message I wrote about ribbon (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1379697&cid=29527359):

In short: Microsoft (which I do not support usually) people has done a lot of work usability-wise (see the end of this msg): no it's not eye-candy.

It's ok for some people used to the old interface to complain: they have to learn new ways of interacting, it's costly, but the designer's bet is that it will pay off in terms of efficiency at the end. ALL interfaces need users to learn before (hopefully) becoming efficient. Changing for changing will only oblige users to forget what they've learnt. But changing for more efficiency is valuable, and that's what Ribbon designers claimed they have done, and it seems the processus they have used to design the thing is good. I think you can't blame them for that.

A link about the story of the Ribbon: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx

In summary:

word 1: 50- menu items Word 2003: 250+ (not counting toolbars, small property windows etc)
something has to be done
design took five years

Designers have:
Visited people at their workplace
Visited people in their home
Invited people into our labs for freeform working and discussion
amassed over 10,000 hours of video of people using Office, Over 3 billion data sessions collected from Office users ~2 million sessions per day
Over the last 90 days, theyâ(TM)ve tracked 352 million command bar clicks in Word
tracked nearly 6000 individual data points

Analysis:
Which commands do people use most?
How are commands commonly sequenced together?
Which commands are accessed via toolbar, mouse, keyboard?
Where do people fail to find functionality theyâ(TM)re asking for(in newsgroups, support calls,etc.)?

They also iterate a lot to find new solutions, and they evaluate the solutions until they were satisfying.

Internet Explorer 9 has this feature, though it's presented more as a non-modal enable/disable/ask me later box.

There's info on their blog about it.

Actually, Office 2010 doesn't support Strict, only Transitional. The next release of Office will support both. The problem is, I doubt anything else supports Transitional other than office. See this blog that was posted on MSDN.

I forget the exact quote, but it goes something like this

it was a dancing bunny and I think it was mentioned first at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/larryosterman/archive/2005/07/12/438284.aspx

Here's Microsoft's response to that: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/giorgio/archive/2011/01/14/building-great-browsers-together.aspx

They did no such thing, and will do no such thing.

From the horse's mouth:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/05/19/another-follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx

"In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows."

It seems to me that as WebM support grows with more and more videos available in WebM and with new browser releases like Firefox 4, your objection to it just becomes less and less relevant. Don't be scared. Embrace WebM and be happy.

Microsoft themselves claim the Xbox OS is a custom OS built from the ground up that uses a subset of Windows API's

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xboxteam/archive/2006/02/17/534421.aspx

Hi there, thank you for the post. I just wanted to add a few observations on behalf of the Internet Explorer team.

Firstly, no browser offers a perfect implementation of the Canvas 2D API specification to date - we've documented and shared a few examples from our test suites here: http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/ietestcenter/#html5Canvas

As has been well noted, the IE9 build tested was our beta.

Secondly, in response to the specific issues raised, Giorgio Sardo has posted a response on his blog here:
      http://blogs.msdn.com/b/giorgio/archive/2011/01/14/building-great-browsers-together.aspx

We'll update this entry over time.

Thanks for listening,

Tim Sneath | Microsoft Corp.

Not surprisingly, IE9 Beta is a work in progress.

HI MR AC, or may I call you coward? Apparently I know more than you do coward, or you wouldn't think 1+1=3. Allow me to explain in a way you may be able to understand. You have three browsers on Linux, we'll call them Web 1 2 and 3. Now Web 1 and 2 run as a normal user with normal user rights, whereas web 3 demands root to run and the ONLY work around offered is to make root look like a normal user would you HONESTLY use web 3 over web 1 and 2?

Because that is EXACTLY what you are advocating cow, because both IE and webkit are running and much lower permissions which thus minimize ANY possible damage that could be caused by any drive by malware when compared to Firefox. Since you obviously don't know anything about the subject, allow me to point you towards some reading material on the subject.

As for everyone else, please don't be as uneducated as cow here. Running an application directly exposed to the Internet while having to run third party code like a browser does everyday in a higher level of permissions than necessary is an EXTREMELY BAD idea and yes it IS punching a hole when you have a choice of running in low permissions or high permissions and choose high, because you are purposely exposing yourself to needless risk. If you really don't think that is the case cow, then why don't you explain to us here at /. why running as root is a good idea, hmmm?

Safari only supports H.264. IE9 supports whatever you have codecs installed for, which is H.264 by default but can be WebM / Theora / whatever.

No. Safari supports any codec installed as a QuickTime component, that includes WebM and Ogg Theora.

IE9 supports, and only supports, H.264 and WebM (if the codec is installed). IE9 will not use any other video codecs, even if they're installed. I'd link you to the IE blog post where they outline this but all MSDN blogs appear to be down at present. The IE blog is found at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/

There are other consoles.

Anyone with any experience developing significant software systems knows that [duck typing is] among the stupidest things you can do, and [it does] adversely affect the quality of the software system.

Meh. I've seen programmers much more experienced than me and (I'm going to guess) you argue it both ways. this one's an interesting discussion, but there are plenty more out there.

I'd rather have CPAN's thousands of modules, most of which are extremely high quality and reliable, versus a larger number of shitty Ruby "gems".

Well, I've never looked through the ruby "gems" collection, but my experience with CPAN has been that Sturgeon's Law most definitely applies. Maybe it's improved since I last used it (I stopped being a Perl programmer the best part of 10 years ago), but there's definitely a lot of crap in there.

In the end, I don't think either Perl or Ruby are the way forward, and that's not because of typing issues but because both languages seem aimed at people who think that cute syntax and being able to do everything in 50 different ways is beneficial. It isn't. Conditionals written after the statements they effect? That's a much worse idea than duck typing, because it can completely change how you parse the code you're reading *after* you read it. Worst case: the condition is scrolled off the right hand edge of the page and you don't notice it (yes, I've seen this happen).

I do agree about "monkey patching" though (hadn't come across the term before, but I hate it when it's done in javascript, and I don't imagine it's much better in ruby).

Opera is also typically & over time (as per usual mind you) the OVERALL FASTEST Browser there is per these tests & articles on /. recently, here:

---

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/11/12/037241/Firefox-4-Regains-Speed-Mojo-With-No-2-Placing (Chrome MAY have "edged out" std. Opera lately in version 10 for javascript processing, but I wonder - does it beat Opera 11? If so, still?? It's only a matter of time before Opera "takes the javascript 'speed-crown' away from Chrome again, as it usually does!)

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

http://nontroppo.org/timer/kestrel_tests/

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/cnetuk/crave/software/0,39029471,49302491,00.htm

---

Additionally, this speed superiority is not only manifested in HTML related work, where OPERA gained its reputation as "the fastest webbrowser in the world" long ago, but also in javascript related work as well, typically over time, w/ Opera being the "fastest browser in the world" (see the top test in fact on that note & this older result as well on that note -> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/06/23/html5-native-third-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx ).

Opera's also wildly successful on mobile phones as well (widely known), AND, it's HUGELY USED in Europe.

As far as SECURITY as well & not having unpatched vulnerabilities? Opera has had the least amount remaining unpatched of the "Big 4" webbrowsers over time:

---

Opera 11 security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/33328/

FireFox security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched - too bad, no list for MINEFIELD):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/28698/

GOOGLE CHROME 8 security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/33215/

IE 8 security advisories @ SECUNIA (33% unpatched - too bad, no list for IE9 (which IS more secured)):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/21625/

---

IE (way moreso), & FF (less moreso) used to be "notorious" for bugs/security vulnerabilities, but they HAVE done a good job lately vs. them (FF especially, as it used to show bugs out the you-know-what, there on its security advisory list above - not anymore!)

Opera also passed the "ACID2" test, for standards compliance (it is not alone here, but is over IE & FF, & it was the 6th browser to do so):

http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/03/12/1416222.shtml

Top that off with the fact Opera's FREE, plus it has addons (along with widgets also mind you), and now has "tab stacking" also?

Hey... beat ALL that, with a stick!

APK

P.S.=> Yes, folks: Opera TRULY is, the "innovative & 'SUPERIOR WARRIOR'", in the way of webbrowsers out there, period, & especially OVER TIME (e.g.-> How many features from Opera did IE, FF, or others "steal" from Opera? Tab browsing (opera had it before those did, and even before CHROME existed), SpeedDial pages (FF has this via an addon now), IE's "paste & go" address bar (Opera had that LONG before IE), & yes, even more!)... apk

Its most probably because of lawyers.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2008/05/14/8502228.aspx

How long until an application targeting both GCC and Microsoft Visual C++ can use C++0x features?

I suppose until the standard is truely finalized nothing can really be said to have "full" support. As far as the subset of what is existing now, a simple search finds the existing GCC and VC10 supported features.

"I use dnsmasq myself often. I thought that people in organizations that fear government censorship are better with a hosts file on each computer than with a number of dns caches. The response can still be spoofed or the servers DoSed. Git can do signed commits and updates over ssh. Also one could exploit virtual hosting configuration and gave a server that returns normal content if accessed through its normal domain, and special content if accessed through an entry in the hosts file (good against casual surfers and bots, useless against a determined attack)" - by marcello_dl (667940) on Monday November 29, @03:20PM (#34378624) Homepage

Per my subject-line above? Marcello, you're using the "BEST WAY" to secure yourself - you're using MULTIPLE layers of defense (that speed you up also), otherwise called "layered security".

I covered the DNS "kaminsky" flaw in my responses here, and it's good to see you are AWARE of it, & how it works (e.g./i.e.-> Enmasse spoofing of DNS replies to main & subordinate ones in recursive mode - too bad DNS was written to "accept the first answer", because THAT is "the problem" - that, along with proliferation to subordinates beneath any affected/bushwhacked servers - takes time!).

Now, on the Windows DNS clientcache:

The DNS local caching client has a problem (limited size queue, thank goodness turning it off allows the local diskcache kernel mode subsystem to CACHE the HOSTS file content, & if it doesn't change/get marked dirty? No problem: You STILL have reads/re-reads @ RAM speed that way if you turn off the DNS client cache service in Windows!)

See - they note it here @ mvps.org -> http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm and in Windows? IF You use a relatively "largish" custom HOSTS file? You MUST turn it off!

(I pointed that out to Foredecker, an MS senior mgt. figure who posts here and yes, who conceded other problems I have found in HOSTS also, here -> # http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1467692&cid=30384918 and here at MS -> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx?CommentPosted=true&PageIndex=3#comments also).

Linux? No such hassle... that's 1 thing I will give Linux, for sure/without question, over Windows.

Especially modern Windows 7 &/or VISTA per the above... it doesn't affect Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 (where VISTA &/or Windows Server 2008 + Windows 7 won't use 0 anymore as a blocking addy, whereas Windows 2000 SP #2 onwards will up to even VISTA until MS pulled it on 12/09/2008 oddly, & 0 (vs. other blocking addys)? Hey - it's MORE EFFICIENT (since less chars to read than 127.0.0.1 by far, line by line, & also even 0.0.0.0 based blocking used in HOSTS files)).

I pointed it out, I only hope MS fixes it is all... that was YEARS ago in fact! They still have not... oh well!

APK

P.S.=> Good job though man, YOU sound as if you KNOW what you're about... which is good: Not everyone does. I suppose it's our "job" to set them straight, eh? Especially the trolling naysayers (one is even attempting to impersonate me here now, not a first (by metrix007 (200091))... I suppose though, THAT is when you know you've done a good job - when others have to resort to ad hominem attacks & trolling one, rather than disputing points I have made instead, eh?

Sorry for the delayed reply too - busy dealing with trolls & other responders here is all... apk

Encrypt the list of enabled plugins with a user password

"Encryption" is the wrong word here. What we're talking about is digital signing. The way it would work is that upon installation, the browser would generate a public-private keypair, encrypt the private key with a password of the user's choice, and save the resulting public key and encrypted private key to persistent storage.

At all times, the browser would store the list of enabled plugins and sign it with the encrypted private key. Nobody can generate a valid signature for a list of enabled plugins without the password, and the browser will not use a plugin list unless it comes with a valid signature.

All this is fine as far as it goes, but it'll only work until our malicious plugin installer patches the browser binary and makes it skip the key check; the malware could also replace both the public and the private key with replacements of its choosing. Either way, the user may or may not eventually notice that something is wrong, but if he does, it probably won't be a while, and he probably won't be able to track the malfunction back to the evil installer.

Malware vendors can also wait for the user to type his password when installing a different plugin, then use that password to generate a valid signature for a plugin list that includes anything desired.

The moral is that applications still need to be sandboxed. They're not protected from each other. Without OS-level protection, applications can do horrible things (often without needing elevated privileges at all). Half-measures aren't the answer.

Right now, I'm using C#, Windows.Forms, and Managed DirectDraw for graphics. DirectDraw is very fast at creating and rendering graphics, it does a good job. It's a little tricky to set up, but performance is much better than System.Drawing. I do get tons of warnings that my code is using classes which are marked as deprecated, and the built in XML documentation is also drowned out with a big long warning about how DirectDraw is deprecated, blah blah, then finally when you look at the last sentence, there's your actual documentation.

Also, the program is made for a Windows XP machine, and refuses to run on another Windows 7 machine. I have no idea which dependency it doesn't like.

For C#, SDL is a non-starter. There is an SDL library available, but you are restricted to only using the single SDL window that's created, you can't make other windows or controls in that window. There is also a SDL panel control for Windows Forms, but it's a bad joke that draws to the screen by assigning System.Drawing.Bitmap objects.

The one SDL object per form...that is because WinForms is very thinly wrapped MFC/GDI+ and while for very simple UI applications it works great. It is fundamentally limited due to the fact that it is legacy reaching back to the 16bit windows days and is dependent on USER and GDI objects (these are very limited resources) and also has NO hardware acceleration on most machines.

As for DirectDraw... that IS the reason it doesn't work on Windows 7, Microsoft doesn't even ship those libraries to 7 unless they are specifically installed by the user, and why would they! They have Direct2D, a well designed (but currently buggy because it's new) framework. If you're programming .NET and want access to that power just use WPF which is a thinly veiled layer over DirectX10 (with a built in back compatiblity layer for XP) with some basic work already done for you. Why would you waste your time programming on an obsolete (and soon to be removed) component, when there is a fully supported, well documented framework already available!

While I know the OP wasn't interested really in 3D as a C# guy I have to give a shout out to XNA which has some excellent 3d capabilities from a managed language, I wish that MS would allow others to implement XNA as it would be a major boon to linux gaming if they did

"if you really want speed you'd better not ignore Opera" - by sznupi (719324) on Wednesday November 24, @06:29AM (#34329418) Homepage

Agreed, 110%, and with a LOT of backing recent & past historical data on speed superiority of Opera (and security too as well & more... read on!):

Opera is also apparently lately AGAIN (as per usual mind you) the OVERALL FASTEST Browser there is per this test & article on /. recently, here:

---

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/11/12/037241/Firefox-4-Regains-Speed-Mojo-With-No-2-Placing

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

http://nontroppo.org/timer/kestrel_tests/

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/cnetuk/crave/software/0,39029471,49302491,00.htm

---

Additionally, this speed superiority is not only in HTML related work, where it gained its reputation as "the fastest webbrowser in the world" long ago, but also in javascript related work as well (see the top test in fact on that note & this older result as well on that note -> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/06/23/html5-native-third-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx ).

Opera's also wildly successful on mobile phones as well (widely known).

As far as SECURITY as well & not having unpatched vulnerabilities? Opera has had the least amount remaining unpatched of the "Big 4" webbrowsers over time:

---

Opera security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/26745/

FireFox security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/28698/

GOOGLE CHROME 7 security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/32718/

IE 8 security advisories @ SECUNIA (29% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/21625/

---

Opera also passed the "ACID2" test, for standards compliance (it is not alone here, but is over IE & FF, & it was the 6th browser to do so):

http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/03/12/1416222.shtml

APK

P.S.=> Top that off with the fact Opera's FREE, plus it has addons (along with widgets also mind you), and now has "tab stacking" also? Hey... seriously: Beat ALL that, with a stick! apk

"if you want speed - you go Chrome" - by Haedrian (1676506) on Wednesday November 24, @05:13AM (#34329018)

Oh, really? See this below (CHROME LOST TO OPERA VERY RECENTLY ON THAT ACCOUNT, FIRST URL BELOW IN FACT, in javascript processing (where Chrome does well, but not well enough) & in HTML work? Opera's been WIDELY KNOWN as "the fastest webbrowser there is" for nearly a decade now... & the data below proves it in numerous tests no less - read on):

Opera is also apparently lately AGAIN (as per usual mind you) the OVERALL FASTEST Browser there is per this test & article on /. recently, here:

---

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/11/12/037241/Firefox-4-Regains-Speed-Mojo-With-No-2-Placing

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

http://nontroppo.org/timer/kestrel_tests/

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/cnetuk/crave/software/0,39029471,49302491,00.htm

---

Additionally, this speed superiority is not only in HTML related work, where it gained its reputation as "the fastest webbrowser in the world" long ago, but also in javascript related work as well (see the top test in fact on that note & this older result as well on that note -> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/06/23/html5-native-third-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx ).

THAT'S 5 TESTS THAT SHOW OPERA CONSISTENTLY OUTPACING ALL OTHER COMPETITORS IN WEBBROWSERS SPEED, AND FOR YEARS NOW... CONSISTENTLY!

---

Opera's also wildly successful on mobile phones as well (widely known).

As far as SECURITY as well & not having unpatched vulnerabilities? Opera has had the least amount remaining unpatched of the "Big 4" webbrowsers over time:

---

Opera security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/26745/

FireFox security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/28698/

GOOGLE CHROME 7 security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/32718/

IE 8 security advisories @ SECUNIA (29% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/advisories/product/21625/

---

Opera also passed the "ACID2" test, for standards compliance (it is not alone here, but is over IE & FF, & it was the 6th browser to do so):

http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/03/12/1416222.shtml

APK

P.S.=> Top all that off with the fact Opera's FREE, plus it has addons (along with widgets also mind you), and now has "tab stacking" also? Hey... beat ALL that, with a stick! apk

They've more or less admitted it at: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/11/17/html5-and-real-world-site-performance-seventh-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx

"The benchmark runs an expensive loop, and then does nothing with the results; the benchmark is written exactly in a way that triggers this general optimization [dead code elimination].

Of course, the benchmark could be rewritten to avoid triggering this optimization, which would bring our performance on this specific benchmark in line with other browsers.

The interest in this issue is a great example of why these microbenchmarks fail to represent the real world web. Webkit Sunspider uses an expensive JavaScript loop to approximate sine and cosine. Real world sites would actually use the much faster and CPU-optimized functions already available in JavaScript engines.

These optimizations are relatively new to the world of JavaScript runtimes even though there are many examples of dead code in real-world JavaScript on the Web. These optimizations often require significant flow analysis of the code, and in a real world site, spending too much time analyzing code can reduce the responsiveness of the page. The Chakra engine picks the right balance between code quality and analysis time, and only performs a small set of dead code optimizations. We continue to tune this for IE9, and bugs reported via Microsoft Connect are examples of where the optimization could do more. We continue to tune these and other optimizations for the final release."

In other words, they don't think dead code elimination is really worth it, so they only do a bit, and when they do it, it 'just happens' to optimise this benchmark. They've done no general optimisations.

That's corporate speak for: "Yup, we cheated! Doesn't everyone? The test was stupid anyway!"

Hi, we've posted an official response and explanation at the bottom of this post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/11/17/html5-and-real-world-site-performance-seventh-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx

Bottom line - we built an optimizing compiler into the Chakra JavaScript engine that eliminates dead code where it finds it.

It's a fun conspiracy theory that we'd somehow 'game' SunSpider in this way, but it doesn't make sense that we'd go to all that risk to cheat on just one test out of 26.

Best wishes, Tim Sneath | Microsoft

Mostly they seem to complain on that blog about how benchmarks are not representative of real world performance and should not be the focus of a browser design, rather than 'brag' about the results.
E.g.: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/09/14/performance-what-common-benchmarks-measure.aspx

You can argue this has to do with their results being under Opera's, but bragging about Sunspider speed hardly seems the cornerstone of their IE marketing strategy.

While MS-IE have disclosed a lot of information lately on their blogs, if they're going to discuss Sunspider results (as they did on 28 October with the IE9PP6 tests) then use of sleight of hand to sex them up is fair game for criticism.

They have shown their Sunspider results quite a few times on http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/

MicroSoft themselves say that. In http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dcook/archive/2010/11/08/sd-cards-in-windows-phone-7.aspx it is mentioned, as well as in the knowledgebase article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831 here.

The blog posting actually gives good information on how to get the SD card out of the hive. Apparently you can reset the card with a special command. It would be relatively trivial for someone to write a tool to send that command, providing the low-level drivers permit this. Otherwise, support for this command should be added to the drivers.

Authors often have to make their name writing stuff publishers like before they can actually write the novel they have wanted to do from the start.

You can manufacture and sell your own console if you don't like the restrictions the existing ones have in place.

Of course the XBOX 360 has http://create.msdn.com/en-us/home/membership which requires none of the stuff you've complained about.

Then read this

http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/65871.aspx

and have at it. 99 centes too much you say? How about 0 cents, for any app. For all apps. Who says Micrsoft is greedy? They give it all away. Of course, it's not their apps, but that's beside the point

Then read this

http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/65871.aspx

and have at it. 99 centes too much you say? How about 0 cents, for any app. For all apps. Who says Micrsoft is greedy? They give it all away. Of course, it's not their apps, but that's beside the point.

For instance, Java has much better enum support (they are proper objects) from my perspective.

There are precisely two things that Java as a language has over C#:

- better enums
- "super" in generic wildcards

On the other hand, here's what C# - as of version 4.0, the current stable one - has over Java:

- first-class properties
- delegates & events (yeah, you can do the same with interfaces and anonymous inner objects, but it's 4 times as long)
- full-featured closures
- type inference for locals and lambda arguments
- user-defined value types
- nullable value types (with no boxing)
- ability to extend classes and interfaces from the outside
- operator overloading
- RAII blocks ("using")
- sequence comprehensions with syntactic sugar (LINQ)
- dynamic name-based member and operator dispatch ("duck typing")
- C-style pointers with pointer arithmetic and unions (for when you want to get closer to the metal)
- ability to directly call any C library (P/Invoke), with a type system that fully covers everything in C with direct mappings

I've probably forgot a few. From this list, RAII will appear in Java 7 (IIRC), and closures only in Java 8, and that's about it. Of course, by that time we'll see C# 5.0 with syntactic sugar for asynchronous code.

I am used to being able to hot key swap and click at a fairly fast rate and do so often, which is why the zooming is infinitely annoying.

AFAIK keyboard focus is instantely switched, you can ignore the visuals and just keep on typing.

Though quite frankly I almost never minimize an app anyway (I just shove something else on top of it :) ), so I haven't even noticed the zoom effect until you mentioned it and I explictly went to check it out.

Of course WinKey-M minimizes everything w/o a zoom effect.

And the Aero UI *does* use RAM and resources, even if the heavy lifting is on the GPU,

You can read over on the Engineering Windows 7 Blog (Scroll down to "Desktop Graphics - Reduced Memory Footprint
") about how window contents are stored purely in GPU memory.

If I start Chrome, the icon goes away, so I can't easily start a second instance. Instead I have to either click on the desktop icon (which I never used to even have) or open a new tab and separate it from the parent.

Middle click the running instance of Chrome in the taskbar to open a new instance. The icon is still there, it has just been expanded out.

Granted this is 100% non-discoverable... But I think the idea is that anyone who wants to open umpteen browser instances probably also reads sites like /. :)

Another way to open a new instance is to hit shift-winkey-#, where # is whatever numbered position the chrome icon is on your taskbar when the taskbar is empty.

And yes, this is something I do many times per day. There are 100 little things like this that simply take more time for each step than it used to.

Reply with a list of'em and I'll see how many work arounds I know. :)

and has some decent refinements in some areas,

Being able to slam windows to the side and get them sized to 1/2 screen is insanely useful.

have managed to make networking even harder than it was by virtually forcing you to go throw their wizard and explain what kind of network you have.

I actually really appreciate this, as when I bring my laptop over to someone's house, or to any WiFi hotpot that I don't trust, I can just select "Public" and know that my HD contents aren't going to be shared out over the network. On the flip side of things, home networking actually works now! YAH! (About damn time)

and wireless support may be better, but I've had to explain to more people how to get it to work than I did with XP, so not sure what to tell you there

My main issue with XP was that half of the damn wireless cards would co-opt the really good Windows Wireless UI with their own POS UI that couldn't do half the things the Windows UI could do.

Haven't had many issues with Win7's UI. Normally my interaction with it consists of clicking on the tray bar icon and then selecting whatever network I want to connect to.

Hmm. If it's trying to be covariant "Like Java Arrays," the assignment from ys to xs should be perfectly legal.

You're absolutely correct. My point was that covariance of Java arrays is itself an abomination, as it is not type safe. C# also has this - most likely because it was originally designed to look and feel familiar to Java developers, among other things - and there are regrets about this now.