Microsoft Is Planning To Renew IE Development

jm.one writes "In his weblog the Mozilla developer Gervase Markham (aka Gerv) points out that Microsoft is re-constituting the Windows IE team. You can save Mozillazine's bandwidth(they've been /.ed every day this week) by directly checking out this post at Dave Massy's WebLog at MSDN. They even have set up an IE Feedback section in their channel9 wiki."

Comments

Longhorn even later?

[KamuSan]

So, does this mean Longhorn will be even later?

Re:Longhorn even later?

[dealsites]

You are assuming that they port it without creating more security vulnerabilities. It should be re-written from the ground up with security in mind from the start.

--
Please donate some Gmail invitations for the contest. Only 2 left!

Re:Longhorn even later?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't it be renamed 'Longerhorn' then :)

Re:Longhorn even later?

[Alric]

I have no great love for MS, but there is way too much hypocritical criticism of them.

People constantly complain that MS forces artificial upgrades on their users to increase revenue. More upgrades, with new "must-have" and not backwards compatible features, means more money in their greedy little pockets.

However, recently MS has been delaying products to allow for more time to make sure the software is solid. Meanwhile they are releasing free service packs to help fix security problems.

I'm not saying that MS deserves a humanitarian award. I'm just saying that we shouldn't be criticizing MS because they have pushed back LongHorn. Allowing sufficient time for good development is a GOOD thing.

And on a self-interested note, it gives Linux solutions more time to get a foothold.

Re:Longhorn even later?

[smittyoneeach]

Yeah, and they base it on gecko for improved standards compliance and interoperability. Oh, wait...

Re:Longhorn even later?

[SunPin]

No, it means IE needs better performance on pr0n sites. Vivid.com is all that browser is good for. If it wasn't for the fact that Windows media 9 crashes in Mozilla, IE would have no purpose whatsoever.

Re:Longhorn even later?

[nwbvt]

Yes, it is good they are apparently making sure their product works this time before they release them. I for one don't have any problems with that.

However, XP came out in 2001, as did MSIE 6.0. I believe the current timetable is for Longhorn to come out in 2006. 5 years between releases is a long time in with regard to software. One of the richest software companies in the world should have no problem in putting out new releases earlier than that. What the hell were they doing during those five years? I'm not saying MS should sacrifice quality to get their products out faster, I'm just saying they should get their products out faster. As a consequence of their laziness, they have lost a lot of Windows users to Mac and Linux and a lot of IE users to Mozilla/Firefox and Opera.

Maybe if Longhorn is void of any problems at all it will be worth the wait. But I wouldn't count on it.

Re:Longhorn even later?

[winwar]

Well, I don't think their programmers are incompetent. From everything I have heard, they are excellent.

But one does have to question their management. A large and profitable company, with massive amount of developers delaying an operating system upgrade (maybe a partial to total rewrite?-only time will tell) that will make them massive amounts of money. An upgrade that by most accounts will not be particularly appealing to end users, will have taken at least FIVE years (assuming on time release-not likely given past history), and MIGHT be more secure and stable than its predecessor (based on past history-who knows). Doesn't sound like good management to me.

Re:Longhorn even later?

[EnigmaticSource]

MS Pushing back release dates does not mean that they are shipping a better product, usually the opposite (remembers a "Certified for Windows 97" keyboard)

Re:Longhorn even later?

[Mia'cova]

I completely disagree. Rewriting an application from scratch is the worst thing you could possibly do. This is how Microsoft beat Netscape in the first place, remember? It's a key concept of software design. If you have something that works, build on it. You can argue all you want that IE isn't all that great. And you're right. But, it's still a whole lot better then starting from scratch.

Joel Joel Spolsky (Joel On Software) has an excellent article on this topic that I'd recommend any coder-types reading. It's from way back in 2000 but I find I just keep pointing this gem out over and over.

Here's a link for you. Things You Should Never Do, Part I

Re:Longhorn even later?

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally, I would agree with you and with the sentiments posed in "Things you should never do". However, we are talking two entirely different kettles of fish here:

1. IE has become a tangled mess of security-hole laden crap that I am not convinced it can be just fixed. Netscape had HTML problems, but that represents a smaller portion of the overall browser.
2. Many of the problems in IE are ones of design, not of implementation. In order to be secure, major portions of it need to be redesigned from the ground up with security in mind. At the same time (and this has evrything to do with security, also) the user model could be designed rather than just being grafted onto what is essentially a single-user program. Again, I don't think Netscape was in quite this bad of shape when they made the decision to rewrite.
3. Not too many months ago, Microsoft made the decision to abandon this product altogether. If they felt confident enough in their position to do that then, what makes today any different? Two words; Longhorn delays. If Microsoft thought they had a chance in hell of getting Longhorn out on time (even if that time is 2007), they would not even be worried about IE development right now. They would be developing for whatever they are going to call the browser that ships with Longhorn. After all, it is to their selfish interest to lock people into the new OS rather than creating something else that will let them coast on their older OS even longer. Netscape's only desktop product at the time they did a rewrite was the browser. The long delay incurred by the rewrite was deadly, since they were effectively a one-product company.

But Microsoft can't get Longhorn out on time, so they must give the users something to stem the switch to other browsers. IE 6.0 is unusable right now (don't flame me, if you think it is, my rates for cleaning spyware are outrageous, but reasonable compared to losing all your data by reinstalling). If they rush another POS like WinME out the door (WinME was another "patch 'em up quick" filler product caused by delays in win2k), they risk alienating people even more! So that's maybe a 4th reason: history. Microsoft has done this once with WinME; how credible will they be for Longhorn if they pull another WinME?

Re:Longhorn even later?

[smittyoneeach]

I don't see how you could "totally replace" ActiveX, unless

you are foregoing compatibility with all of the old .tlb and .dll files holding that code, or

implementing a .Net compatibility layer, or

rolling out some unforseen technology to save us from the evils of ActiveX, .Net, and whatever other things do ail us. <your rumor here>

Re:Longhorn even later?

[syousef]

Oh in all honesty I don't understand how intelligent people can make such sweeping statements. It depends ENTIRELY on what you're building on. (A little bit of common sense and a lot less hype would go a long way in IT).

If you have a nice workable product that has some shortcomings or needs some things fixed, yes by all means don't throw out what you have. That would be like buying a new car or boat and throwing it out the first time its scratched, or one part got broken.

If on the other hand you bought a $200 rust bucket with an engine that barely starts where every piece is going to need to be replaced then yes it may take more effort than if you were to build from scratch. At this point ditching it and making an attempt to learn from your mistakes is a good thing.

Now if anyone tells me you can say for certain just how broken IE is without seeing a detailed review of the source - which bits are or aren't worth saving, then I think they are rather naive.

The "Don't trash it, fix what you have" paradigm is no more of a silver bullet than any other paradigm.

Re:Longhorn even later?

[suckmysav]

However, XP came out in 2001, as did MSIE 6.0. I believe the current timetable is for Longhorn to come out in 2006. 5 years between releases is a long time in with regard to software.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft decided to introduce their "software assurance" licencing at about the same time that XP was released, a large part of which was pitched as entitling you to receive "free" OS upgrades. Now the businesses who jumped on board this scheme are finding that in this case there is nothing for them to upgrade to, which means they have basically paid money to MS and gotten nothing back in return.

Re:Longhorn even later?

[Anonymous Coward]

IE really only has one major design flaw -- that you when you are the "local machine zone", there's no sandbox and anything goes.

Interesting point! And why is that? It's because they "integrated" the browser into the OS. Functions that used to be separate in the OS were integrated into the browser components. It makes a certain amount of sense; why duplicate the code that displays bitmaps? One for the browser and one for the OS; instaed, use the same for both. Except that when a vulnerability in the bmp display routines is uncovered, as one recently was, the vulnerabiltiy puts you smack in the middle of the OS, with unlimited access, because the browser is calling the same routines, at the same level, that the OS uses to display bmp icons on the desktop, fer chrissakes!

And this is a prime example of what needs to be redesigned, IMHO. And the entire class of these problems have a root cause; Microsoft didn't make these decisions based on anything except political reasons! They need to base decisions on good engineering, good software design practices, and throw the fscking politicians out of the coding process!

Re:Longhorn even later?

[alset_tech]

Rewriting an application from scratch is the worst thing you could possibly do.

Right, because we all saw how Apple completely failed in rewriting a buggy OS from the ground up. Not like it saved the company and gave them a reputation for security, or anything.

Re:Longhorn even later?

[ErikZ]

I thought the worst thing you can do is pour gasoline on your programmers and set them a little bit on fire?

The best solution for everyone (except Opera)

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft uses the Mozilla source code to create an IE7. No more worries about anti-trust concerns since they're working on an open, free project. Users get a stable, secure browser that's standards compliant. Users get a browser with a rendering engine that's supported across platforms. Heck, it might even be easy enough to release IE for Mac and Unix again!

Re:The best solution for everyone (except Opera)

[MC Negro]

Heck, it might even be easy enough to release IE for Mac and Unix again!

As long as they release it for OS/370, because God knows I want to run two instances of IE in paralell processes.

Further proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft doesn't improve their products-- ever-- except in the presence of a viable competitor

Re:Further proof

[mphase]

Umm no. It proves that Microsoft improves their products in the presence of a viable competitor. It doesn't show they don't otherwise. I'm not saying I don't agree I'm just pointing out that these facts have nothing to do with the main point of the arguement made, only with the exception.

Re:Further proof

[jwcorder]

Why would they? Without competition there is no drive to make a better product. No reason. Well shy of the fact that you should want a better product. But no one is gonna shell out loads of dough if there isn't a price driving the force.

Re:Further proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all.

If MS hadn't continued to make improvement, I think Delphi would have made rather serious inroads by now.

Second off, what you have to understand is that VC++ at this point isn't just competing with other Windows development tools. It's competing with other development platforms. VC++ is basically part of the OS right now, and it's competing with other OSes. If MS doesn't continue to make the Windows platform, and VStudio in particular, attractive to developers, they run the very serious risk that some of those developers, maybe those developing in-house applications and thus in a position to make hardware purchasing recommendations, will take their ball and go to Mac OS X/Cocoa.

In particular Microsoft is at constant risk that people will start developing applications for Java instead of Win32. In this sense Java is an even bigger risk than Mac OS X, because it doesn't suffer from the lock-in effect. Developers can start making Java apps now, run them on the Windows installations they have, and then potentially effortlessly migrate to another OS at any time they so desire. Yeah, Java's not perfect, but the point is that it's an option. If MS didn't keep their development platform up to snuff, it would look like a much more attractive option.

Re:Further proof

[dtfinch]

5% might not sound like big competition, but it's growing, and it's starting on the software developer end, which is a cause for concern.

I'm using Linux (Fedora) and Mozilla Firefox right now. Thunderbird for email. And I have Windows XP, Office XP, Visual Studio.NET, etc. and have barely touched them since my switch to Linux. I use Visual Studio when required for homework assignments, and Microsoft products at work, but that's it.

OpenOffice is a little too slow for me personally. I use it when I need to, but Abiword and Gnumeric can serve most of my needs.

Most of the CS students I know at my college have switched to Linux. So 5% is pretty serious competition when it contains nearly half of the demographic that decides the future of software development.

Re:Further proof

[Drooling Iguana]

Because IE was never about making money directly. It was about perpetuating a broken standard and thereby increasing lock-in. Pretty standard MO for a monopolistic corporation.

Re:Further proof

[VividU]

"Most of the CS students I know at my college have switched to Linux. So 5% is pretty serious competition when it contains nearly half of the demographic that decides the future of software development."

Boy-oh-boy, are you in for a rude awakening. You think code-monkeys have much say in the product development cycle?

You'll get a taste of the real world sooner or later.

Thoughts about Mozilla, Firefox, Internet Explorer

[afriguru]

If Mozilla Firefox hasn't achieved anything else (besides being the first web browser to be rated above IE by just about everybody), the fact that it would spur Microsoft to resume work on Internet Explorer is an interesting achievement. It, at least, will make the world a better place for WIndows users who are forced to use IE due to ignorance or because everybody uses it (that includes me).

Fuck tabs

[Mwongozi]

Give me full XHTML and CSS2 compliance please. Oh, and transparent PNGs.

Too much to ask?

Re:Fuck tabs

[irokitt]

And themes. And software plug-ins that block images. And a plug-in that keeps Flash/Shockwave animations from playing unless I *want* them too. And making it possible to use the address bar to search from Google, *not* MSN. Making it so that if I click on the back button while posting to Slashdot my post is still there. Making ActiveX a way to make browsing more enjoyable, not a way to make my computer install spyware.

These are all features that Firefox has and that I like, and until most of them have been implemented I see no reason to switch back.

Re:Fuck tabs

[jm.one]

Just check out those links. That`s what (among others) is discussed in the wiki (I guess also in the forums, but I had no time and will to go there.

Re:Fuck tabs

[Mwongozi]

IE PNG hack

Re:Fuck tabs

[Chester K]

And themes.

On the simple end, you can set a bitmap as the background of IE's toolbars. On the complex end, you can completely rewrite the UI (see MyIE2, Avant Browser, etc.).

And software plug-ins that block images.

There's no technical reason such a plugin doesn't exist today. IE exposes an interface that you can use to capture and modify/deny a request for everything it loads, including images. If you prefer going all out, IE itself can disable all images.

And making it possible to use the address bar to search from Google, *not* MSN.

Easily done. How else do you think all that spyware out there hijacks your browser's default search preferences?

Making it so that if I click on the back button while posting to Slashdot my post is still there.

Tools > Internet Options > Temporary Internet Files > Settings... > Change the value from "Automatically" to "Every time I start Internet Explorer".

You've got a couple valid points with your other items -- the ActiveX one in particular is already addressed in XP SP2, in fact.

Re:Fuck tabs

[Joe Tie.]

Why themes? I don't understand why everyone would want their apps to look different.

The same reason (most of us) don't wear black t-shirts seven days a week, or sometimes rearrange the look or the actual desktop we sit behind. It's nice to have a little variety in the appearnce of something that's going to be looked at for a large amount of time every day.

Re:Fuck tabs

[zcat_NZ]

Way too much to ask. MSIE does NOT even handle CSS1 properly yet. Every time I design a page (validated xhtml1.0 and minimal CSS1 for layout) I have to do a special layout page just for MSIE, wrapped in conditional comments, to make it render the page properly. I don't think that I'm getting my CSS wrong; I work directly from the w3c documentation, and EVERY other browser manages a fairly close approximation of what I had in mind.

'fixed background' is a particularly glaring example, but I've also had MSIE render a simple '5px' border as 15px along the bottom edge. No reason given, it just decided to do it that way..

Re:Fuck tabs

[arvindn]

Give me full XHTML and CSS2 compliance please. Oh, and transparent PNGs. Too much to ask?

Yes. It is crucial to Microsoft's strategy that they not do that. See here for example.

Re:Fuck tabs

[julesh]

Yeah, I read Joel's article too. However, I don't think XHTML, CSS2, or transparent PNGs are a threat in this regard.

If he's right, what would be a threat is fixing all the bugs in the jscript implementation, providing mechanisms that allow better user interfaces to be developed (e.g. adding anything similar to XUL), or anything along those lines. Microsoft aren't against browser-based applications. But they want you to use ActiveX (or any other technology nobody else has) to achieve it.

So microsoft ...

[alexandre]

... is promoting mozilla so they get /.ed everyday!
We now know their evil plan ;-)

And how exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

...would that be a good thing for Microsoft? You seem to be forgetting MSIE's purpose: As a lock-in tool to other Microsoft products. A browser which is a drop-in replacement for Mozilla-based browsers-- and thus conversely has Mozilla-based browsers as a drop-in replacement for it-- doesn't serve this purpose at all.

Re:And how exactly

[flacco]

...would that be a good thing for Microsoft?

it might shave off a couple of their Douchebag Points.

I have a suggestion...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Dear Microsoft.

patch the holes that make malware so easy to infect a machine so my job's a whole lot fucking easier.

- every goddamn ISP tech support staff.

Re:I have a suggestion...

[0racle]

You want to be out of work too?

Re:I have a suggestion...

[turgid]

patch the holes that make malware so easy to infect a machine so my job's a whole lot fucking easier.

What, and kill the ant-eye-virus and security industry overnight? :-) Surely Bill isn't that cruel?

Re:I have a suggestion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mohandas? Is that you?

Pop-up blocking in MSIE is bad for us

[Anonymous Coward]

I consider the recent addition of pop-up blocking in MSIE (XP SP2) bad news. Advertisers will just find more obnoxious ways to place their adds, making the pop-up blocker in Mozilla less effective.

Re:Pop-up blocking in MSIE is bad for us

[Anonymous Coward]

But the Mozilla Team (or someone else) will come up with a solution whereas microsoft will not (at least not until two years).

that's the little difference!

Re:Pop-up blocking in MSIE is bad for us

[Morgahastu]

Until mozilla.org updates the browser to block the news ads and once again mozilla users are ahead of the curve and windows users have to wait until the next OS from Microsoft.

I've been using a firefox extension that stops all flash animations from starting and replace it with a box to click on to start the animation so I don't get any anoying flash ads.

Re:Pop-up blocking in MSIE is bad for us

[Wild Bill TX]

A new form of advertising involves using DHTML to make annoying "pop-ups" that are an absolute-position element of the page being viewed. I find these often don't function in Opera (my browser of choice), causing them to stick in the upper left corner of the page, rendering it unreadable.

Solution? Disable JavaScript, at least most of the time. Any good web designer will be able to make most common pages entirely usable without JavaScript.

Re:Pop-up blocking in MSIE is bad for us

[aliens]

I gotta say, as much as people bitch about popups. The one popup we have to have on our site (damn sales) is by far the most successful ad we have.

Until people somehow become more intelligent, SPAM and Popups are not going to go away.

Advertisers wouldn't find ways around popup blockers if the popups didn't prove profitable.

I'm just saying, I hate them too, but hey if they work, they work.

Re:Pop-up blocking in MSIE is bad for us

[radixvir]

popups are successful, however probably only to the people out there that dont care about them. people who go out of their way to block them (and yes blocking is off by default in SP2) are just going to be annoyed at the whole deal. i say you can keep popups but dont try to find fancy ways around them. one recent thing ive seen is when you click on a link, it also has has a popup in the mouseup attribute which brings up a window. damn annoying and i refuse to ever buy anything advertised in one of those windows.

Re:Pop-up blocking in MSIE is bad for us

[gad_zuki!]

>I'm just saying, I hate them too, but hey if they work, they work.

So would forcing me to watch 10 minutes of commercials before what I want appears. Think of the trailers at the movies.

It may "work" but it sure as hell doesn't make me want to visit or do business with those people. For example, I knew full well that the Punisher movie was coming out and all the PR and the crappy trailer sealed the deal: i'm not even going to rent it.

The more aggressive your marketing the more hits you'll get, but remember a lot of those will be from people accidentally clicking on your ad, being forced to pass through it, or from people with very low tech skills thinking its part of the site they are visiting. Heck, all the pop-ups I've seen lately misuse words like 'upgrade' and 'patch' to fool more people into visiting these sites.

There's a real cost with doing aggressive marketing and the blowback is already here with pop-up blockers and angry web users, not to mention the hate of spyware. I hope your business isn't put on some blacklist in the near future for 'malicious advertising.'

Good, I think

[dotslashconfig]

Isn't this exactly what we wanted to happen? Microsoft realized that a competing product (mozilla, opera, etc.) is advancing at a rate that might cause MS to lose market share on the browser front.

The positive of this is that the world gets an improved Internet Exploder^H^H^Hrer and Microsoft is adding new jobs. I think that's a win for everyone.

However, my question is why is Microsoft going to great lengths to improve Internet Explorer? Though they could lose browser market share, they haven't yet. The vast majority of desktops running Windows use Internet Explorer, flaws and all. Also, Microsoft doesn't really have much to gain by revamping IE. There's not much money to be made in the browser business anymore. It's not about the browser that is used online, so much as it is the content people are viewing. As long as Microsoft's patented .NET framework becomes mainstream, why care so much about IE? Maybe this is a PR move?

Re:Good, I think

[fwitness]

I believe there is a piece of the puzzle we are missing here. I'm sure that many companies out there would like to do more with their websites, but can't because of the many problems with IE. There must be some companies out there who are MS-friendly that have been telling MS "Can we please get transparent pngs? Oh, and we've been trying to make our new site (with obligatory MS portal) look nice with CSS but IE is not capable of it, and is blocking our development."

Although I believe MS is a bit concerned about losing market share, I doubt that is a motivator. The competing browsers are light years ahead of IE and they have yet to make a significant impact on the number of IE users. It would take a browser going ludicrous speed to make MS revamp IE based on market share alone.

It's even possible there are some MS friendly companies that have secretly been wishing they could make their websites useful for both Windows and (gasp!) those techy Linux gurus.

Re:Good, I think

[jonbryce]

The reason is because Bill Gates is not stupid. He isn't going to wait until MS has lost their market share before doing something about, he will make sure it never happens.

BTW IE is losing market share to Mozilla, though at the moment, the numbers are pretty small.

Re:Good, I think

[westlake]

They have dropped about 1.5% in the last year.

what I see looking at the Google Zeitgeist is a steady upward trend for IE 6 since 2002 and overwealming dominance in 2004.

Re:Good, I think

[HaggiZ]

Why wait until you've lost the share? I was a devout Netscape fan for years until it became apparent that IE was quite simply, better. As a web developer at the time, it wasn't a choice I made lightly.

A few years down the track and I decide to give firefox a try, and was happily suprised. I've since re-built my machine and though what the hell, I'll try GIMP and OO.org instead of Photoshop MS Office. Again I've been pleasantly suprised. Admittedly I've installed photoshop and office because a sudden deadline meant I couldn't take the chance at fumbling around in a foreign application, but appart from that one project I've not needed to touch my closed source commercial counter-parts.

Mozilla/Firefox may just be the start of something bigger as far as MS are concerned. If it gets widespread acceptance, people may start looking elsewhere for their other software.

Personally, I can't see MS having anywhere near the stranglehold they do now in 5 years. The product improvements no longer justify the outlay, and the industry as a whole really seems to be maturing.

Quite scary personally, as almost all of my skillset is MS based. Time to start learning some "real" skills I guess ;)

Re:Thoughts about Mozilla, Firefox, Internet Explo

[saskboy]

Plenty of other browers have been "rated" above IE, in the past, it is just that Netscape was the last one, pre 1999, and IE version 4 or 5.

FireFox is just the latest one, and it is still up to the test of time, and many more beta testers, before FireFox makes it to the forefront of the browser world or at least a share bigger than 1/5.

Hmmm

[chrisgeleven]

So you ask us /.'ers to not /. MozillaZine, yet you provide THREE links to MozillaZine.

Kinda ironic eh?

Window sizing

[red floyd]

Remember if the friggin' window is maximized or not!!!!

Provide user options to kill popups

Don't allow friggin' Drive By Downloads!

Support all W3C standards. Deprecate all your proprietary extensions.

Oh Dear

[Anonymous Coward]

I can say though that somewhat vague requests for "better standards support" are not as useful as a specific example of what you'd like to see changed and specifically why it would improve things. - Dave Massey

What part of "better standards support" does he think is too vague? Does this guy need it spelling out to him or what (rhetorical question by the way)!

Re:Oh Dear

[thetoastman]

Warning - possible troll-bait alert

Personally I have no interest in Microsoft products being improved upon, and I will not be contributing to the "How can we make IE better?" parade.

People at Microsoft must understand the following:

1. Complete and accurate support of publicly available, published standards
2. The web is for information, not execution. It is especially not for execution of programs on my hard disk.
3. Remote information should be treated as non-trusted.

If the people at Microsoft don't understand the above, then they have no concept of user requirements, requirements analysis, or software construction.

That would leave Microsoft as a large corporation of marketing wizards bent on trapping unwary customers much like a pitcher plant traps insects.

Oh . . . never mind . . .

Re:Oh Dear

[NanoGator]

"The standards are described here."

Oh yeah, those are real specfic, that's why none of the browsers out there could agree on how exactly to interpret them.

"How much more fucking specific can you get?"

Are you kidding? You're not even CLOSE to being specific. Specific is when you take the behaviour of a specific tag under certain conditions and describe why it is not acting correctly. That is fucking specific. Your example was about as specific as saying Star Trek sucks.

Darn! I woke them up!!

[Lispy]

I should have kept quiet yesterday. ;-)

Right now, I am hacking away on an article about browser competition on the desktop and how Firefox is gaining ground. Now this! Well, looks like we have reached the point where Microsoft copies OpenSource innovation. It used to be the other way round. That's the good part. Another upside is that there is still time left. Longhorn is far away, and if SP2 is any indication than there won't be another major update to WinXP in reasonable time. But still, the giant woke up. And Microsoft is though competition to say the least... ;-/

Standards support?

[Braudo]

From the blog:

I can say though that somewhat vague requests for "better standards support" are not as useful as a specific example of what you'd like to see changed and specifically why it would improve things.

Re:Renewing IE development?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're going to introduce all new ones.. ;)

Not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the broader picture. The proof would be in that when Netscape died and birthed Mozilla, MSIE development came to a total screeching halt, and didn't start again until the Mozilla project, after years of dicking around, finally managed to create a product (FireFox) that anyone in their right minds would want to use.

This is still just a single example, so maybe I should have used the word "evidence" instead of "proof". But when you look at the repeated examples over the years, it becomes proof.

I can't wait for OpenOffice to become a viable product so that we'll finally see the end to the total lack of improvement that has marked MS-Office development since WordPerfect died.

Re:Not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit. Nobody "loves" OpenOffice. People tolerate it because even though it's third rate, the price is right and it's the only real office suite that runs on Unix. It's GoodEnoughWare.

Re:Not really.

[SkunkPussy]

"I call bullshit. Nobody "loves" OpenOffice. People tolerate it..."

I love it because a 300 page document that MSWord one day refused to open having been editing it fine for months, opened in OO, and when I saved it out again it opened fine in MSWord with no difference from the original. I use OO 90% of the time now.

I 8> OO!

Re:Not really.

[Toresica]

I even use it to create Word .doc files for my instructors, since they are pretty much a MS school.

I used Open Office's Spreadsheet on a project known as "The Excel Assignment" - where they stipulated we would get 0 if we used any spreadsheet other then Excel. (Which meant that the Quattro Pro people were bitter as well). I don't think they even noticed I didn't use Excel. Beat that. :)

Re:Not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it, so there goes your theory down the drain.

It's heavy, granted, but it's very cleanly done (specially when compared to MS-Word and Wordperfect, not so against Lotus' WordPro).

It's pretty by himself (though heavy, as I said), but one can make it look even better (see projects to adapt it to Gnome and KDE).

Could it be lighter? I don't know, but not loading the entire suite would help. MS-Office, besides the Windows startup pre-load, doesn't load Excel when Word is summoned up (or at least I've read so).

Will it be lighter? I believe so, just as happened to Mozilla in recent times...

Anyway, everyday new machines get mightier and old ones die, you know...

Re:Not really.

[Pecisk]

NOT a bullshit. Right, in the begining, it's clearly GoodEnoughWare. But later, when I found lot of functions which helped my productivity, I fell love with it.

Yes, I still want to load it faster, take less footprint in my system, be with more apps, be more correct, support much of Microsoft closed doc format. BUT I know that If I will (or at least 5% of those people who use it everyday) will help developers with bug reports and suggestions, I think it will succeed and everyone will love it.

So, actually, you are wrong. I love it because I see what it can became. In other corner, Microsoft Office have been stagnating for years. And each next version requires newer Windows version for perfect work, etc.

Re:Not really.

[tiger99]

Ah, a real limitation, or maybe a bug, at last! Nothing is perfect...

I have just tried it in OOo 1.1.0 on my Windoze XP box, which is not up to date, seems OK to me, but it might depend on a lot of factors. I can't try the Linux box right now, as I am in the middle of upgrading to SuSE 9.1. I just made up 3 columns, the first filled with numbers, which became X values, the second and third had formulae applied to give me two diverging curves. Your situation may of course have been more complex.

I was using OOo at work a year ago (I had a very enlightened boss who did not care what I used, and an IT department who did not care what I loaded as long as I did not break the network), and the anomalies were few and far between. I used to do all the spreadsheet editing in OOo and then convert the final work to Excel. It did involve graphs with more than one series.

You could submit a bug report, it might get fixed fairly quickly, or at least in the next major release.

Some Excel bugs are still there from the first version! Some even cause serious data loss.

I currently work on a "secure", or rather, independent, network, detatched from everything else, so that our work cannot be corrupted. (BTW it is very pleasant working that way, no spam on the main work PC! Every company should have one for their real work.) We have to independently verify all calculations (safety-critical), if done by hand they will be checked manually by another engineer. Those done by spreadsheet also have to be checked, the calculations performed by the spreadsheet cannot be trusted as it is an unvalidated tool. It is probable that we will be using OOo to do the checking, it will read the same input data, and hopefully produce the same answers as Excel, but as Excel is closed-source there can be no commonality of code, so no common errors. (We do have to check what maths libraries OOo uses, if complied with Visual C++ we may instead have to use the Linux version, or recompile with a different compiler, to get true independence).

Re:Not really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Fellow AC,

I could not disagree with you LESS.

Open Office does EVERYTHING I ask of it. However, the dear MS Office solution has a few minor problems (that Open Office doesn't). This includes :-

a) The ability to draw objects (circles/lines/etc.) that don't jump 20 pages away
b) The ability to count the correct number of pages (page counting??)
c) A normal.dot that works on any system i've ever seen
d) Reliable compatibility between different major revisions of Microsoft Office [eg. 97/2000/2003 are not very compatible with each other]
e) An open standard such that I can recover my document by renaming it to x.zip - and opening it with any ZIP program (eg. WinZip) to view with a TextEditor (eg. notepad)
f) The ability to generate PDF at the click of a button

Now, if you're going to tell me that Open Office suffers from these problems, I'd say "You obviously haven't tried Open Office" - as your comment strongly suggests.

To Joe Average: If you love pretty icons and bloatware -> Use Microsoft Products
To Anyone Else: If you prefer a tool that is flexible and easy to use -> Use Open Office
Sincerely,

Fellow AC
PS Please, please don't continue with the "compatibility" myth. I am forced constantly to change docs between Office2k and Office97 for work. Conversion success rate is LESS reliable than Open Office!!!!

Re:Not really.

[aixou]

I can't believe the amount of Microsoft astroturfing going on around here nowadays

It is in response to anti-Microsoft FUD. Some of the insults/complaints thrown at Microsoft around here are completely ridiculous imho. Two of the most popular complaints are that Microsoft creates bloatware, and that they force users into a strict upgrade cycle. How many other companies are actively supporting products that came out 6 years ago? When Longhorn comes out, its going to scale very well to the hardware (i.e. , if your hardware is subpar, the interface will be at Win2k quality, and will scale up accordingly).

What I find especially amusing about this is that Apple seems to get by with nary a complaint. As much as I love Apple, OSX is very bloated, yet does not scale to the hardware at all (i.e. OSX is the same whether you install it on 300Mhz G3 or 2.5Ghz G5), and Apple barely supports (if at all) any non-current version of their OS.

Yet, almost all complaints will continue to be lodged at Microsoft, and praise will be thrown at Apple as if they are some bride-to-be.

Re:Not really.

[Hooya]

Nobody "loves" OpenOffice

speak for yourself. or at least change that to "at least one person, and possibly more, absolutely loves openoffice." that one person being me.

compare the math editing capabilities of openoffice and ms office and you will realize which is the goodEnoughWare.

i've gotten a whole letter grade 'raise' simply because my take home CS exam (which involved math eqns.) was typeset *much* better than the exam itself. the prof was using ms word. i used oo.o (i used to use latex/emacs but oo.o is more than adequet for most school work and in this space ms office doesn't even hold a candle to oo.o .)

GoodEnoughWare indeed.

Re:Not really.

[adamfranco]

What I find especially amusing about this is that Apple seems to get by with nary a complaint. As much as I love Apple, OSX is very bloated, yet does not scale to the hardware at all (i.e. OSX is the same whether you install it on 300Mhz G3 or 2.5Ghz G5), and Apple barely supports (if at all) any non-current version of their OS.

The same could be said for the Unices of Sun, IBM, HP, SGI, etc (though they support their old systems usually); but like Apple, none of these are Monopolies. When a company has a monopoly, then small problems get magnified as consumer choice is limited.

New Longhorn IE

[wigle]

From using Internet Explorer on a recent Longhorn build, my prediction is that Microsoft plans to add more features rather than support web standards. Thus far they've added Firefox/Opera-esque features like a download manager, pop-up blocking, and a "Clear Browsing Records" menu option. Perhaps tabbed browsing is next? It looks like they will keep adding options until IE is comparable to its competitors, but with regards to web standards I doubt Microsoft will have interest.

Re:New Longhorn IE

[NanoGator]

" It looks like they will keep adding options until IE is comparable to its competitors, but with regards to web standards I doubt Microsoft will have interest."

Probably not. IE's ways of interpreting HTML is a de-facto standard. As long as it works, MS is going to put its energy into other aspects. If it's really that bad (from my own web development experience, it's not.) then the others have two options: 1.) Mimic IE. 2.) Create new interesting web features and lead the parade instead of following behind MS and bitching about it.

Re:New Longhorn IE

[happyhangone]

Why support web standards, when they are the defacto standard browser... There is no reasoning behind a decision like that...

Re:New Longhorn IE

[complete loony]

How about the blink tag?

Re:Oh my

[polyp2000]

Well now that they have decided to sell their own anti-virus software, what better than to create demand for it by developing a new browser platform in order to extort AV software sales. ...

Here's the kicker microsofts AV software will patent the removal of certain M$ originating viruses in such a way that the only way you can remove them without breaching the eula and various patent laws is to use Microsoft AV 2005 Personal Edition (tm).

Upgrade today!

[freeduke]

Dear windows users, you can already upgrade your Internet browser: here and here.

Enjoy

ho-hum

[Johnathon_Dough]

So, somewhere in 2007, this will be released with the often delayed Longhorn. At the least, this will hopefully bring them up to the current level of web standards.

Unfortunately, I would believe there is a better chance that they will instead incorporate a bunch of elements above and beyond standards compliance, that ties a user into IE and Longhorn combo, trying yet again to lock out other web browsers.

Microsoft has seemingly lowered it's self another step.
They used to be a company that copied exisiting technology and made it "good enough", if slightly annoying. Now, they are turning into a reactionary company, trying to play catch up to existing software with some future release.

Internet Explorer Upgrades

[AnomalyConcept]

I recall reading here on Slashdot that Internet Explorer was getting updated for Longhorn. I don't remember exactly where it was, but it quoted one of the members of the IE development team. I think Microsoft will be taking a (small) step in the right direction by supporting standards. Well, if they do. It'd be nice if Mozilla and IE actually rendered things the same way; then you'd only have to develop for one target platform. What about Internet Explorer using the Gecko engine? Maybe Internet Explorer will become one of the 'better' Microsoft products. But seriously, what would happen to products like Firefox/Mozilla if IE became totally standards compliant. I know I would still use it, but what would happen to the argument that Firefox is better than IE? Hopefully Microsoft will actually fix the bugs and have a solid product. Even though it may become a 'competitor' for Firefox, at least the average user who doesn't know more than Internet Explorer will have a usable, secure, browser.

Re-constituting???

[Anonymous Coward]

So one person write in his weblog that he's changing roles from Longhorn to IE, and that means the team is being reconstituted? People at Microsoft change teams all the time. Some people will jump from project to project every year or two, others will stick with it for 4 or 5 years.

This is not any news of anything special. Each version, there's something new planned. Whether or not that sees the light of day is another thing.

The IE team has lived for a long time and will continue to live. The IE team is probably always changing as people move to it and other people move off it.

If someone said "I'm changing roles from Office to Longhorn" does that mean that Office is now dead and Longhorn just now got re-constituted? No. What if it's a big guy on the totem pole? No.

Standards support

[thinkninja]

I can say though that somewhat vague requests for "better standards support" are not as useful as a specific example of what you'd like to see changed and specifically why it would improve things.

Okay, specifically then, go to w3.org. Read specs. Implement.

It's pretty obvious why a web standards compliant IE would improve things (google: web standards). Oh, but it wouldn't allow Microsoft to extend the web anymore with stupid proprietry shit. I guess they're right out the window then.

I seriously doubt IE7 will be compliant. It would be nice, for sure, but given Microsoft's history it's extremely unlikely.

Re:Standards support

[omicronish]

I seriously doubt IE7 will be compliant. It would be nice, for sure, but given Microsoft's history it's extremely unlikely.

Then again Visual C++ 6 had horrible C++ standards compliance, but Visual Studio.NET has improved considerably in that area. IE7 standards compliance might be unlikely, but I wouldn't consider it extremely unlikely.

Re:Standards support

[LocalH]

Fine. Then they can implement a proprietary tag that will allow the developer to set 'compatibility' mode. If the page needs the current buggy rendering to appear properly, the developer need only add the tag. Hell, with many CMS's, it would be quite easy to add the tag once and have it apply to every dynamic page generated (static pages as well, if you use includes).

And the default mode should be 'strict standards'. Then, when this new IE version has been around for a while, and maybe even some version number bumps, standards-based coding will be much more prevalent. Microsoft can still have their proprietary stuff if they really need it (ActiveX pretty much), while still rendering standards-based sites correctly without requiring brainless hacks that only complicate web development and hinder the state of the Web as whole.

I know IE6 has something similar to this, that triggers on the DOCTYPE used, but it's my understanding that this is dodgy as hell, whereas the method I am proposing would be explicit and straightforward, not to mention it wouldn't break compatibility with other browsers that don't need the tag.

The only problem is, this would break pages that rely on the buggy rendering, and that are no longer being updated or maintained. But I think that is a small price to pay, to move towards standards-based web development. The requirement to incorporate hacks in your code for IE has precluded me from doing professional web development, as a personal decision. There are an assload of other industries that simply would fall apart without standards, and I don't see how the web development industry has made it as far as it has, with all the hoops that you have to jump through just to get a site that displays properly on the two most commonly used browsers. Especially if you want to use advanced features like transparent PNGs.

This could be dangerous

[Moblaster]

Considering how IE is "integrated with the operating system," a new version of IE that suppresses pop-up ads could mean that Longhorn is genetically determined to be born with a passive-aggressive personality complex.

Oh look what uncle Steve has here for little IE

[Anonymous Coward]

Developers, Developers, Developers

Maybe not as big news as you think...

[93 Escort Wagon]

I am two people removed from the team working on this (a friend of a friend); so it's possible I might be a victim of disinformation or misinterpretation. But as I understand it, this "new and improved IE" isn't necessarilly for general consumption. It is supposed to be part of a new, all-encompassing version of MSN that's maybe 3 years down the road. Basically you get the new version of Windows at that time, and MSN comes along for the ride. This new IE will only be available as part of the new MSN, which will only be available if you get the new Windows.

On a completely different subject - I can tell you that these folks (working on this new MSN) are not very happy with gmail. :-D

Re:Maybe not as big news as you think...

[zulux]

As a side note...

A friend that works at Microsoft MSN fessed up that Hotmail *still* has a lot of FreeBSD boxes when I causally asked He claimed that Microsoft decided that there wasn't and competitive advantage to move Hotmail to Windows - but because of GMail, Microsoft has decided that the are reasons to move off of FreeBSD. He woulden't elaborate.

Re:Maybe not as big news as you think...

[Vryl]

Gmail seems to have a reasonably interesting database backend, if only to support their 'labels'.

Dunno if it sql, or more along the lines of the filesystem they described in their whitepaper on google.

Now, m$ is moving to a sql backended operating system. If it ever works, it may be interesting, and would support the sort of advanced features that Gmail is using.

At that stage, with what is finally probably a reliable operating system, it may make some kind of sense to move to doze for all the boxen.

Look at this!

[orkysoft]

I was reading this thread on their forum, until I came across this post:

(start quote (note the nested quote))

AndyJ wrote:

Yeah, so here's one guy that's too ignorant/dumb/lazy to get this site (and what a site ) working in IE and the industry is now flocking away from IE.... I'm sure MS is shaking in their collective boots.... Bill G must be apologizing to his kids for loosing his fortune even now.... -Andy

It is that thinking that allowed Linux to become what it is today and allowed Hilter to take over most of Europe. Actions must be made now and not later as little things will grow. Just as weeds grow in your yard if you don't kill them at first sight.

(end quote)

Godwin's Law, anyone?

New feature suggestion

[barcodez]

I would like the ability to completely uninstall IE from windows machines. That would require that IE is loosely coupled with the OS and that in itself would be a huge improvement.

Re:Yes there is

[wfberg]

They can make extensions to enable stuff like ActiveX components. And ActiveX components pretty much require windows to run.

Or better "integration" with Office products (for example, determining filetype based on magic numbers/file extensions instead of filetype).. Things like that.

Re:Thoughts about Mozilla, Firefox, Internet Explo

[r.jimenezz]

Afriguru:

I am a happy Windows XP user (heresy!!!) I used to use Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, and even though I occassionally boot my Fedora Core 2 install, there are many things that I don't know or don't care to fix (in addition to many others I've fixed already) to be a Linux user.

However... My IE takes around 6 seconds (proxy resolution) to render the home page. If I open the browser and want to type an URL to go somewhere else than the home page, I'd better do it before the 6 seconds elapse, or... Pfft!!! It erases all I've written and displays the home page URL!

This simple thing motivated me to install FireFox on my computer. I've been long using OpenOffice.org, The GIMP and many other tools under Windows but didn't want to relinquish IE. This was two months ago, tell you what? I forgot when I last fired Internet Explorer.

I downloaded Thunderbird 0.7 last week...

Bottom line, don't use something because everyone else uses it, and conversely, don't use FOSS just because. Just give the software a try and see for yourself, I guarantee you'll be pleased and nothing wrong will happen :)

"we clearly have much work to do"

[andy55]

I'm returning to work on the Internet Explorer team. A team that I used to work on a few years ago andI'm very excited to be returning to the team where we clearly have much work to do.

Yes, you do have a lot of work to do, Dave. Maybe you guys should have done the job right years ago rather than be in catch-up as well as damage-control mode.

Re:"we clearly have much work to do"

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"Yes, you do have a lot of work to do, Dave. Maybe you guys should have done the job right years ago rather than be in catch-up as well as damage-control mode."

Years ago, IE wasn't just a browser, it was *the* browser. Compare IE 4.0 to Netscape 4.0.

IE 4 was quite an impressive browser at the time. Mozilla and KHTML didn't exist. Opera has little CSS support.

They did do the job right the first time. But they abandoned what they had done. From IE 4.0 to IE 6.0 there are minimal changes in the rendering engine (IE 5 did see a nice speed boost).

It took Mozilla years to catch up to what IE had done. They did, however, continue working while Microsoft had ceased development. Today, Mozilla is more standards-complaint, more secure, and, in some cases, faster than IE (see below).

The IE vs. Mozilla performance debate is complex. IE waits for more of the page to load before rendering, so on slower machines with fast connections, it's faster. Mozilla is faster on fast machines with slow connections. On a fast machine with a fast connection, both browsers are pretty fast (Mozilla does better on large pages, though).

Viability

[MinutiaeMan]

in which case I might say that a combined 5% market share (at best) is hardly "viable".

It's not market share that's important right now -- it's mind share. People are starting to sit up and take notice of Mozilla and Firefox, and that's (probably) what has Microsoft worried. So they start up their IE development again in hopes of keeping their current monopoly.

opera

[ogewo]

MS should just buy up Opera before they become too big.

Re:Tabbed browsing overrated!?

[kundor]

MUCH easier to middle-click, have the link open in the background, and keep going down the page. that way you can mark a dozen links to look at later without losing your place in the page you're at.

Right-click-menu is MUCH less convenient and more intrusive, then the page opens in front, forcing you to alt-tab or click back. plus IE opens the page in some stupid size usually, so you have to maximize. The tab experience is MUCH MUCH smoother. It's like the difference between a scroll wheel mouse and a normal one -- sure, you can get by just as well with arrow keys and the scroll bar on screen, but once you've tried the alternative you never want to go back.

Re:Uh-uh

[aldoman]

Our faculty of the university at which I work has decided on a new layout for their web pages. This was done and delivered to us by a PR agency. I feared that it might be bad, but that fear didn't even come close to what I had to witness.

Imagine having to tell our users (many of which are using GNU/Linux or Macintosh) that our web site only works reliably in Windows with Internet Explorer 6.0 and above. Just because a PR agency can't develop web pages. It's impossible. I had to do something about it.

So when I implemented the layout for our department (scheduled to go live later this month), I scrapped everything they had done. I took a printout of their page (as it looked in Internet Explorer) and marked up what colors and fonts they had used.

Then I set down and wrote the same thing using XHTML/1.0 Strict and CSS1. This was about two days work, but the finished result now validates using w3c's validate tools, and it works reliably in all browsers I've managed to try, all the way back to Mosaic and Netscape 3, with or without images (yes, Lynx, Links, w3 and other text browsers work very well indeed too).

Not only did I get the pages to validate. By using CSS, I was able to get rid of several images they had been using with their design. The overall size of a page, including graphics and CSS, now weighs in at about 35 kbytes. This is compared to around 120 kbytes with the proposed code.

And even better, most things can be cached by the browser (CSS code and images). The only thing that needs reloading when you hit subsequent pages is the dynamic XHTML code, which weighs in at around 5 kbytes, compares to 40 kbytes in the proposed code.

Now, I think our students will like us. This result is even better than the pages that we have today. They render quickly and effortlessly even on old equipment or on extremely slow links.

I havn't been able to convince the faculty to make my code the "default" yet, but they might get the idea once people start noticing that our pages load much more quickly than the rest of the faculty pages.

So, using standards isn't always about making things render nicely in all browsers. It gives you a while heap of nice side effects that isn't worth sneezing at.

Its a paradigm shift....

[cyberjessy]

As most of the comments pointed out, there would be little interest in making IE more standards compliant.

What I see is a focus on bringing a MUCH more richer, Windows-only user experience on the internet. We will see applications being delivered on the internet. Not web pages. They would run on a .Net sandbox with as much security as a webpage or the once-upon-a-time java applets.

In fact, it is possible to run .Net 1.1 binaries off the internet, and they do not have permissions to access your local harddrive. If they do try, a security exception is triggered.

With Whidbey's click-once application deployment model, this will become more mainstream. With Longhorn's Avalon and XAML, the shift to a Windows only, multimedia and 3D rich user experience will be complete. Perhaps, since all of this would be integrated into the OS itself, it would seem much less a part of Internet Explorer.

Yes, that might be what they have in mind. As for the users, most of them would like the ultra-kewl interface compared to HTML documents.

Yeah, XUL can compete with this. But as Miguel Icaza pointed out, it will be hard competing against the tremendous distribution and deployment power of Microsoft.

Re:Thoughts about Mozilla, Firefox, Internet Explo

[tiger99]

Exactly! Sadly, most Windoze users think they "have" to use IE, or the other security hole, Lookout Express. Many believe that nothing else will work with their ISP, or will put them at risk of viruses (the exact reverse of the truth!), or have a huge number of unquantifiable or unexpressible reasons why not....

They should give the alternatives a try, like you I think they will be pleased with what they find. But, people can have strange prejudices......

IE ridiculously outdated,MS bunch of lazy bastards

[karnat10]

It's really making me sad how many people are excitedly awaiting the features IE "will have in SP2 or Longhorn". All alternative browsers have those features today, you can download and use them right away.

If you don't know what a browser is or that you're using one, ask your local superuser to "repair" your computer. But then you're not reading this thread (site) anyway.

But if you know how to replace IE: Why let MS decide when you're going to get tabbed browsing and popups blocked? MS is a saturated monopolist making software for the wrong reasons. The are 1st in marketing strategy, but when it comes to product quality and innovation, it's a bunch of lazy schmucks.

If you've used a "real" browser just once, the next time MS announces that from the 22nd century on their browser will implement (insert your favorite IE web standards bug) correctly, you'll just shrug and probably feel a bit sorry for the poor bastards who get their ashes fscked (voluntarily or not) by an arrogant monopolist.

I disagree about the why part

[bogie]

"I'm not saying that MS deserves a humanitarian award. I'm just saying that we shouldn't be criticizing MS because they have pushed back LongHorn. Allowing sufficient time for good development is a GOOD thing."

Interesting theory but IMHO Longhorn being pushed back is just a sign that MS bit off more than they could chew and mismanaged the project. That's frankly way more probable then the idea that MS is being a good citizen. If MS could have gotten away with shipping Longhorn this year, XP Sp2 would not have gotten nearly as much attention by them. They are in reality just covering their asses while they develop a secure alternative.

I agree that criticizing them for a late Longhorn over and over is dumb as well but I guess I just disagree as to the why MS is doing it part. All IMHO and such.

Re:I disagree about the why part

[ynotds]

It's only 3 weeks since I posted more about this in my journal, so I won't try to do more than reiterate a couple of points here.

A ground up implementation of what is thought to be the Longhorn spec is probably not doable, no matter how many $billions, given the current state of the art of software engineering.

However at some point Microsoft will bring out something that they claim to be their next great operating system, but it will soon be shown to be just another a cobbled together incremental development.

So while I think two earlier respondents to the parent have made valid points, they haven't quite seen past the "just throw money at it" assumption about software development, to which Fred Brooks's Mythical Man Month still has something to say. (Another earlier respondent is just living in fantasy land, so I'm posting this as we don't have mod categories better than "interesting" for "half right" and "plain wrong".)

They are doing it because

[PotatoHead]

mozilla is getting too good. With the advent of xul and fast, safe, standards complient browsing, IE is beginning to look pretty sad.

Now, once another browser gets a foothold again, people will have the option of building web applications that feature nice interfaces (xul!) that don't need a win32 client to run properly.

They don't actually give a shit, they just want to preserve their bloated monopoly.

Re:Its a paradigm shift.... Java's had this years

[GCruick]

Java's has this for years, I'm unclear why the windows weenies are getting so horny over .NET.

".Net 1.1 binaries off the internet" aka applets
"Whidbey's click-once application deployment model" aka java webstart
"With Longhorn's Avalon and XAML" aka SwiXML, Ibex, Luxor, Thinlet, Beryl and many more

So quit coming in your pants for .NET technology that will be available 2006/7 and just do it TODAY with java. If you say that the GUI it's fast jdk 1.4.2 fixed that. Or use SWT. The memory footprint of java and .NET is too close to see any differences

Microsoft is copying JAVA to make .NET. and the copy won't be complete until 2006/7.

paradigm shift.... My arse

learn something new everyday!

[zogger]

Have to admit I am astonished. I had NO idea they WEREN'T working on IE!

I guess I gotta read beyond the headlines here. usually I do before I post, I'm pretty good about RTFA, but... I was just floored when I saw that.

What happens next...

[cpuenvy]

1. Copy Mozilla code into IE.
2. Get caught.
3. Deny everything.
4. Buy out Mozilla Foundation.
5. Distribute "new" IE.
6. Have press conference, insisting Microsoft "invented" tabbed browsing.
7. Deny everything.

I do.

[Arivia]

I took a try at OOo after a particularly hair-rending night spent with Office. I never looked back. Anything I had trouble with in Office is fixed or greatly improved in OOo-to say nothing of the new features it brings. There have been plenty of times when other students have been unable to open files in Office-I pull a LiveCD out of my pocket, and it simply works. OOo is not simply Good Enough-it is Better.

the web and the desktop

[Fortun L'Escrot]

IMO the reason mozilla and firefox are successful right now is because they have a tendency towards speed, usability and easy of use. they cater towards standards compliance which relieves content developers to work on their content. if everyone in the web browser business did this, we would see an even greater content explosion than we did during the first few years of the web.

MS and IE are trying for this ideal, but they have their propietary needs to take care of. while IE is sorta fast and usable it simply doesnt reach the level of opera or firefox. those browsers are simply too good at what they do. and they usually link to other common services such as google who only cares about providing the best searching experience.

the point i am trying to make is that firefox works at being the best web browser. google works at being the best search engine. google could not exist without a good web platform, but bundle the two together and you have a really good "web experience". two very specialized projects combined in the right way is much better than the alternative which is IE with MSN.

there is still a lot of work to do in respect of creating the ideal web platform for example the integration of messenger and hotmail and outlook. its a really nice combination and simplifies a lot of work for the user. here to, desktop developers can cater to standards for contacts, bookmarks, etc. the idea is to standardize common protocols and file formats. we already have this with the protocols, but we dont have as much of this in terms of file formats. even if there is no standard, the ability to convert one format into another becomes just as important. the projects that specialize in these fields especially if they are open source will be able to combine with services provided by firefox and google, to create an even better "computing experience".

somehow tho, i dont believe any of this will happen. less work is done to get towards this ideal, and more work is done dicking around. honestly how long would it take to achieve this kind of integration, or format conversion or file format standards? the open source movement need only pick the best formats for a particular job and work on those. create converters for other formats but work with just those.

the converters could be part of the desktop environment making them invisible. an important by-product here is that a user could migrate their preferences and settings to any desktop environment and be able to work immediately. no more need for worrying about compatibility issues between apps. a web page in firefox should open the same way in IE. email should open either in evolution or outlook or what ever other alternative exists out there. the main differences are in personalization, and other things such as speed, usability, and ease of use. i mean, it makes more sense to use the fastest tool.

more people will use firefox because of this until IE can move towards this ideal. and from a business point of view, you get to focus on the real money maker and that is content whether in the form of online music, or online movies, or online games, or online books or whatever. i mean do corporations like MS really believe that a standards compliant DRM that was maintained by a neutral third party would not become accepted? when users worry less about the desktop environment and their web platforms, they will only care about their access to their content. somepeople will always be loyal to Apple, others to MS and other still to Linux. in an ideal world, if MS was a content publisher they wouldnt have to worry as much where or how the user is accessing the content, and worry more about making sure that the user has the proper access rights for the content.

there has never been much money in the desktop or the web platform unless you cornered the entire market. the only way to make money in the long term would be to lock the computer, the desktop, and the web. MS doesnt have a lock on the computer, a partial lock on the desktop, and a p

Re:Yes there is

[yerfatma]

There's already an ActiveX Project for Moz.

Standards and STANDARDS.

[hkmwbz]

No one is asking Microsoft to implement everything the W3C throws at them. Well, I'm not anyway. That would be ridiculous.

What people want is that Microsoft would fix what's already there. Why have they left their CSS implementation broken for so long?

Sure, no browser is 100% bug free, but they could at least get the basics right, such as the CSS box model.

They could at least *try*.

[hkmwbz]

"Oh yeah, those are real specfic, that's why none of the browsers out there could agree on how exactly to interpret them."

Oh come on. People have been pointing out specifics for bloody ages. They have even started emulating a more standards compliant browser using the IE engine.

Obviously it will never be perfect. Though, with the developer resources available to Microsoft, MSIE should actually be the most standards compliant browser ever. But they simply don't care. People want them to care and at least get the basics right. Why do they leave their CSS box model completely broken when it's obvious what needs fixing?

Just because no browser is bug free and there are tiny problems here and there with their standards support doesn't mean that Microsoft can at least try to be on the same level as the competition. We're not exactly talking about a tiny group of hackers coding away in their parents' garage here. It's Microsoft, with developer resources coming out of their ears.

So Microsoft should stop being asses and asking people to be "specific", because people have been very specific about what's broken for years now. They should start fixing it.

Dave Massy is either ignorant, incompetent and/or lazy, or he is completely evil and throws lies straight in our face. When he says that "the Internet Explorer team does exist and does care", does the fact that he hasn't even seen the many specific complaints about IE's standards support out there show that he is an incompetent fool, or is he a liar and just trying to blow off criticism with lame dodging attempts?

I don't know which is worse, but this guy is in a management position, and he's either a liar or incompetent. Sure gives me a lot of confidence is IE's further development! Oh yeah...

Re:Uh-uh

[3Daemon]

If you have problems selling your solution, sit down and make some calculations on the monetary effects of reduced bandwidth and server hardware costs :)

Explorer 7.0

[gwoodrow]

"Um, honey? You know that browser update you just downloaded? Some pop-up box is asking if we want to install the Gator update... should we? Oh nevermind, it just started automatically on its own... oh cool! There's a brand new version of that adsearch bar on the bottom too!"

Re:Uh-uh

[cyfer2000]

IMHO, many or most of the web developers available today don't know how to develop web page with good compatibility and accessibility is because of their arrogance and ignorance, and partially, lack of good guidance of web developing.

However, we are all arrogant and ignorant, nobody can change this. So a good guide of web developing is the solution to the problem.

But the web was constructed in such a quick manner that most of the developers are not well trained. I bet, third of the web developers around the world don't know what or where is W3C. I also bet, fifth of the web developers around the world don't know ssh and scp, or even ftp. I can even bet tenth of the web developers of the world don't know the difference between Internet Explorer and Internet. And those well payed web developers are so well payed and pround of themselves that, I believe, half or two third of the web developers around the world don't show any respect to people with disabilities, like blindness and deafness.

Nonetheless, the bubble of web was broken so quickly that though some wise people saw the problem here, and provided the solutions like xhtml and css, nobody in the avalanch will care about it anymore. As the web has broken, who cares about the flaw of the web anymore.

Now everything has calmed down, and dawn of light arrived again. But these can not be a solution to the arrogant people. The solutions to that people could be a law that enforce them to show respect to the people with disability and improve the accessiblity of their products and fierce competetion.

As the new Internet Explorer, it may improve the CSS and XHTML support, but I am wondering what kind of trick they will play to keep web developers stupid and arrogant and happy and dreaming...

I smell...

[neoguri]

... too little too late. I switch my whole family and all my friends to mozilla varients. I can't be bothered to switch them back:-)

The "Looks best without IE" Badge

[Voline]

Glad to hear that IE will be improved before Longhorn is released. Some of us may not live that long.

I agree with the posts that council against throwing every new feature and the kitchen sink into IE. I think the priorities should be:

1) Security - Every Windows user who also uses IE that I know has a hard drive littered with spyware. Fix it.

2) Standards - for CSS2.1, full support for PNG, XHTML.

I just finished building a site this week. I wrote it to the standards for XHTML and CSS, checked it in Safari, Mozilla, Opera, and did *not* check it in IE for Windows. If it looks good in those browsers but not in IE - too bad. I will spend no more of my time cleaning up after you.

On the site's "About" page I included the following text along with badges for XHTML and CSS validity and a link to the Mozilla Firefox page:

"This site was built with XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that fully comply with the specifications of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Without such open and widely recognized standards the Web would degenerate into a Tower of Babel as corporations sought to carve it into mutually unintelligible, captive markets.

"If any part of this site does not display properly it is because you are using a Web browser that does not fully support the XHTML and CSS specifications - probably Internet Explorer. I urge you to try a browser that closely supports W3C standards, like the open source Mozilla Firefox. Less idealistically, Firefox can block pop-up windows."

The above will be included in all web sites that I design in the future until such time as IE's standards support is satisfactory.

Does Anyone Remember??

[Bruha]

In IE 1.0 back in the day there was a Linux Client. Anyone remember or have a copy of it anymore for shits and grins?

Re:Does Anyone Remember??

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember running the Solaris version. It even created ... ack ... registry files!

my 10 wishes for IE

[jonwil]

1.a 100% standards-complient implementation of PNG
2.a 100% standards-complient implementation of W3C CSS
3.a 100% standards-complient implementation of W3C XHTML 1.0/HTML 4.01
4.sending of HTML email off by default in Outlook with the way to turn it on difficult to find
5.changes to scripting and ActiveX so that by default, only controls signed by someone trustworthy will download, install and be used (and even then have a clear "are you sure you want to let this control have complete access to your system" warning in language and UI that even the most cluless of users can understand) and so that scripting and ActiveX controls are turned off completly in Outlook with no way (not even a registry hack) to turn it back on.
6.changes to Outlook Express so that it wont run executable attachments dierctly (and so that you have to save them to the disk before you can run them)
7.changes to how Internet Explorer handles MIME types to ignore the extention and content of the file and to treat what the server or email message says the MIME type is as gosepel. If there is none, fallback on file extentions and stuff. Also, enhance windows handling so that mime types can be associated with different handlers. (this eliminates any need to use the file extention to determine what handler to use for it)
8.Clear warnings that even the most cluless user can understand when something has changed the search settings, home page or other IE-related settings out from underneath them (e.g. spyware)
9.completly dropping the broken Microsoft Java VM so that when stuff installs (like a new version of IE or a new windows SP), the MS VM is completly removed for good and the SUN VM is installed instead.
and 10.make these chages as widely available as possible.

Yes I use Mozilla (1.7 in fact) but for those who are forced to used Intercrap Explorer, this would make the world a better place. It would also make the world a better place for those not using IE as a side effect of he changes to Outlook.

Re:Thoughts about Mozilla, Firefox, Internet Explo

[drsmithy]

I think IE 4 was a much better browser than Netscape 4. IE 3 was the last version that Netscape could win against, I think. IE 3 was horrible.

You are (I hope) thinking of IE2. IE3 compared quite favourably to Navigator 3.0, the latters only major advantages being incumbency and an integrated HTML editor in the Gold Edition.

Re:Uh-uh

[fwarren]

A lot of it, is a lack of depth and understanding.

My first web page (not site) was done in Netscape 1.x.

I remember bitching when there were more things to learn when Netscape 2 came out.

Most developers do not have a firm grasp on how the www works.

1. Was designed to render in ANY browser
2. That browser may be text based
3. That browser my not support any font attributes.
4. Your text will be rendered in a text area of arbritrary size, the end users browser, not the author of the page has control over how the page renders.
5. Firmly grasp the concept of open tags and closed tags
6. Then understand what is possible with the html 1 spec
7. Then learn how to add html 2 attributes to your page, and do so, in a manner that they fail gracefully on a browser that only supports html 1
8. Then learn to add html 3 attributes and css level 1 attributes and how to have them gracefully fail on browsers that only support html 2 or html 1 spec.
9. Learn how to make your fonts cross-browser compatible. I.E. so they render at a viewable size under default settings on IE Windows/Mac, as well as with geco based browers.
10. Now, keeping in mind that some people are on dial up, or are using text only browers, start to do all your page layout with css 1.

Most "web developers" have never coded for the html 1.0 spec. The do not understand that a web browser was originally designed to render content, not deliver adverising and pixpel perfect rendered graphical pages.

If you understand what is in each html spec and how these features were added, it is not to bad creating comaptible pages.

------------

After so long of using Mozilla...

[Aranwe Haldaloke]

What's this... "Internet Explorer" you speak of?

Oh, you mean the frontend I use for Windows Update?

Development urgently needed

[corian]

Maybe they'll start fixing some of the hideous bugs that have been around for versions and versions.

For instance, there's the dreaded "jumping cursor" bug. Sporadically from time to time, when you are typing an URL in the address bar, the cursor jumps on you to the beginning ofthe line and ends up leaving you with a broken URL, forcing you to type the damn thing over again.

E.g., if you are typing "slashdot.org", and the cursor jumps, you end up with something such as "t.orgslashdo".

Have only seen this in IE, so it's not a standard behavior of the input box control.

They just need to use MSN MAC

[xsecrets]

As sad as it is to say the most standards compliant browser, with the most CSS support anywhere is MSN for MAC. Just have that team port it over to windows, and strip out all the MSN garbage.

Signed Applets?

[SuperKendall]

Yeah. Except that with .Net Code Access Security, you could say that only binaries signed with a certain key could run. And that the binary could only access a certain file on the drive. Or just about any permission you can think of. "aka applet" cannot do this. This is critical to application deployment on the internet.

You know what I find funny about that? Is that Java 1.1 could also do all that! It's called Signed Applets, and the Java Security Manager controls access to specific resources just as you stated.

Except that "aka webstart" does not have side by side execution, versioning and rollback.

You need to Read Up on Webstart. It does versioning. You could if you wished run different versions side by side (though probaby only a developer would ever make use of that feature). If you think about what the words "Web" and "Start" mean together, you will wonder why the word "rollback" has any meaning. Since when do you "rollback" a read-cache? You re-read the data.

Comparing Avalon and XAML with "aka SwiXML" is funny.

Ha-Ha funny, or "that's strange" funny?
How about XUL, or (dramatic pause...) FLASH!!!!! ha Ha Ha Ha Ho! Now that's funny. Flash does everything you want to do with XAML later on, across a million platforms, TODAY!

I'm sure the virus writers will love XAML though. Should be a tremendous boon for them when they start playing around with buffer exploits from 100% translucent video playing in the background of the cool XAML form app using some obscure and poorly-written codec.

The point is, maybe you could do a lot with java on the client. But doesn't that fact that not many people are using Java on the client suggest something else?

Actually a lot of people are, just in intranets. Shouldn't the fact that Flash has taken over all rich interactive browser UI like you wna to do with XAML scare you just a little? I don't know if you've been browsing recently but there are a lot of sites using Flash to pretty good effect.

I guess the first step of Longhorn is to not ship IE with Flash installed anymore...

Re:FavIcon Support

[flying_mushroom]

More interesting is the fact that it was IE that first introduced the favicon idea...

Re:Uh-uh

[Seahawk]

AH yes - and you have reduced the bandwidth by 68GB...

Bandwidth actually costs money - If I were to pay for international traffic at my current hosting center, 68GB would cost me dkk 2040 - or roughly $330.

$330 for two days of work is not too bad for a student imho.

AND - you assume everyone is using a 10Mb line - on a 56Kb modem the load time would be reduce from 24 seconds to 7 seconds - and with those numbers only 3389 pageloads would be needed to get a net time "profit"