Microsoft Wins Browser War, Abandons 'Innovation'

rocketjam writes "Web developers are expressing frustration with Microsoft's apparent abandonment of its 'operating-system-integrated' Internet Explorer web browser. An article on C-Net points up the efforts of the Web Standards Project as well as Adobe Systems to prompt Microsoft to fix long-standing Cascading Style Sheet bugs in IE as well as continuing to add other improvements which have virtually ceased since Microsoft won the browser war. While alternatives such as the Mozilla Project and the Opera browser still exist, their marketshare is miniscule." In a related story, an anonymous reader points out that the bugs aren't just in rendering, they're security holes as well: "iDefense and eEye have basically said that Internet Explorer is full of holes and just surfing the Web using it is "unsafe". There's 31 un-patched holes in IE, but MS won't talk about it... It took them nearly a month to roll out a new patch after this one was found to be more or less useless."

Comments

Just cause it's there don't mean im using it...

[192939495969798999]

Sure, Microsoft got it's browser on a ton of computers, but I would argue that not that many people that have IE are using it regularly. I know a ton of people that will use IE for a little while, and then when it locks up on a page (inevitably), they switch to another browser. Anyone got the stats on the # of hits / percentages from different browsers, versus the # of actual PC's with IE?

I blame the anit-trust lawsuits

[Utopia]

IE development is still going on -- Looking at the Loghorn builds. There are several new improvements .
But Microsoft won't release the changes as a new version because of the whole anti-trust bullshit.

The alternatives suck...

[evilviper]

I have to say, even though Mozilla is better than IE, it's not significantly enough so... It's bloated beyond belief, slow as hell, unresponsive, doesn't have many special/exclusive features that people would want (other than javascript controls) etc.

Personally, I think people should be looking at projects like Dillo (which is an extremely small, extremely fast browser), and put a little effort into adding what it still needs. Port the thing to windows, and after a single demonstration of how incredibly fast it is to load pages, as well as startup times, you'll have everyone dumping IE in a second.

That's why the browser war is over... IE has an illegial leg-up, as we know so well, and the competition doesn't really compete.

Re:Lazy, half-assed critics

[Oddly_Drac]

"Maybe you ought to look at your over-reliance on window dressing and geegaws, and pay more attention to good basic information design."

I apologise in advance for breathing, and ask your forgiveness. I didn't catch the name of your book, though.

"I do still blame developers for this one."

Non-standard compliance of browsers? Or the vast amount of non-standards compliant code still around? Psst. Try 'view source'.

"Exactly what brilliant thing are you forced to deprive your users of, because of browser compliance issues?"

Specific layout elements, dumbass. Those mentioned in the w3c standards documents for devices other than browsers; broken or buggy implementations of CSS that _should_ allow for a flat development model across the board, but instead frustrate when you get the positioning of an element correct under one browser, and then have to figure out why it didn't work in another. And before you harp on about design, bear in mind that in the commercial universe, there are the graphic designers that demand certain things, and I have to be stubborn to a point to stop them using flash, activeX, that cute little java scroller, but you can't be stubborn all the way because they fire you for things like that.

Catch a clue, and stop assuming the worst of someone you haven't even engaged in conversation. Jesus.