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IE6 SP1 Will Be Last Standalone Version
mokiejovis writes "Program manager Brian Countryman stated that "as part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation." See the Microsoft TechNet article." Several of the people submitting this story have come up with elaborate theories about why: killing competition, etc. etc. I think the truth is just that Microsoft intends to integrate DRM very tightly with their OS and browser, and they're aren't going to try to backport that to, say, Win98, so they just aren't going to release new versions of their browser for old, DRM-less operating systems. In the future server-side browser detection may be more about detecting whether the browser supports the DRM your "web service" uses than what version of Javascript or CSS the browser supports.
In the future server-side browser detection may be more about detecting whether the browser supports the DRM your "web service" uses than what version of Javascript or CSS the browser supports.
Browser detection has always been about identifying what capabilities the browser supports, or what bugs need to be worked around. Otherwise you wind up with sites that don't work in some browsers, and everybody bitches at you for not supporting them. The key is to not redirect to a page recommending that the user download IE or Netscape, since that really pisses people off.
I don't plan on producing DRM-protected content, so I don't plan on detecting browser support for it.
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> IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation.
That's a pretty funny statement. The service packs are bug releases, hence they contain required changes that were not originally planned. How can Microsoft claim this is the last one that will be needed? Does this mean Microsoft will just abandon all of their users still running older versions of Windows?
I suggest this is just laying the groundwork for FUD to force users to pay Microsoft to "upgrade" their OS in order to replace the latest IE security vulnerability with a whole new set of problems, vulnerabilities, incompatibilities and restrictions.
Tying a browser to hardware can be really bad for us mozilla men. Online Banking will jump on it real fast. Secure communication will later require IE for authentication. This would put us at a huge disadvantage. I had a thought: Would it be possible to run a "Virtual Palladium" (software driven)? It'd involve running parts of the software in a virtualization machine like bochs. Microsoft patented the hardware not any software.
What I am expecting will happen is that IE will be absorbed into the integrated office environment, in the same way the Word/Excel et al are being drawn into just one package.
By bundling everything in together (probably with a mail client), M$ no longer have to worry about the opposition packages. It also would no surprise me to see integrated OS and Office package bundles/licenses, to keep out the competition.
As for the lack of support for DRM in Win98 being a motivation for no longer producing a standalone version, remember that M$ officially no longer supports Win98 installations.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
And AOL just gave how much away for the rights to use this for the next 7 years???
How many minutes has it been since Microsoft spent 3/4ths of a billion dollars putting that Netscape stuff to rest? It was a strange set of arguments they had, simultaneously attempting to prove that IE was "an inextricable part of the OS" and yet entirely optional with no unfair advantage over any other browser option the user might attempt to use.
Now that that case is put to rest it's about time they made sure that the next generation of DRM technology can't be run under WINE or on the MAC. The best approach I can imagine for this is to have is use an entirely proprietary API for IE and to update it with WindowsUpdate. It's not hard to imagine the newbie surfing along who gets this webpage.
Our web servers have observed that your computer needs several security updates available for free from Microsoft [here]. For the safety of our customers we cannot allow you to continue surfing our site until these updates are in place. We apologize for any inconvenience.
At that point the user is using the latest IE with DRM enabled with no idea how many or few sites need it. All your content can then be DRM protected by default with FrontPage, and the user's take is that everything "just works" when they use IE, and has intermittant and annoying problems with every other browswer. This strategy is getting old.
As a web designer, this worries me. How am I supposed to test my sites from here on out? Before it was as easy as loading up said site into IE 6 or IE 5 or what have you and seeing if the layout was as it should be. What now?
Not that I need a version number, but I would like to know how they're going to dole out any updates to Javascript, CSS, and the like. I sure hope it doesn't become small updates like "CSS Update 12-2-04". The goood thing about browsers up until this point, new features were released all at once in slow updgrade cycles, which meant you were testing at a stationary, not a moving, target. I'm curious to know how this will be handled from now on.
And yes, yes I know, "code to standards", which is the way it *should* be, but in practice, there's the reality that not all browsers output the way you need them to (especially IE).
On a similar note, wouldn't this make things even worse for Microsoft's with regards to the antitrust case in the EU? If I'm not mistaken, the Media Player bundling is a big deal already?
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
You should look at MozDev - there's a furious amount of development going on for extensions and plugins to the basic browser. It's amazing, and something I haven't seen in the IE community since the dot-com money went away.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
I've seen the inevitable 'online banking' scenario thrown up here a few times. What's going to happen is this...
:)
At some point, bank X will say "we're now going to require IE8 to secure online banking".
People will complain and say "hey, but I only have WinXP, and I can't get Win2006" (or whatever it becomes).
Microsot will have contacted banks and negotiated a way for banks to giveaway (or sell) copies of the latest Windows version, locking in users who may have considered switching at that point.
Bank replies with (or promotes in branches)
"Hey - to give you the ultimate in security, we're going to require Windows 2006 - the best in security. If you don't have a copy, we can sell you an copy for only $29.95, which can be applied to your checking account over a 3 month period - that's less than $10 month for modern security!" or something like that.
People will just use it because it's going to be pushed by most major banks. MS is the only company that can afford to do this (buy mindshare from large companies) and they're about the only company can can't afford NOT to do it as well.
Perhaps banking with MS software will be 'free' and using something else (linux/mac) will cost a 'security fee' because you're using something that can't be 'trusted'. There are teller fees, why not 'browser fees' for 'untrusted' browsers?
Microsoft may have already bought a bank (or started their own) in the next few years anyway. Banking fees are certainly a stream of steady income. If WalMart can sell used cars (probably real estate at some point too!) does MS banking sound all that far-fetched? Perhaps everyone writing M$ will give the idea even more credibility!
creation science book
Honestly, what Slashdot is these days, rather than the great tech news site it used to be, is generating page hits. This means posting Microsoft articles at least once a day with some flippant remark or editorial in the summary so as to cause "controversial" discussion. The company likes that.
SCO is a big thing as well which gets hits, so even when there is no real news about it, we get "today's SCO news" posts.
It's getting harder and harder to believe the editors are genuine in their mantra that they simply post what interests them. Being corporate-owned, there are other motives at play in the selection of articles, the headline used, and the summary chosen or written.
"Sufferin' succotash."