Slashdot Mirror
MSIE 7 May Beat Longhorn Out The Gate
Quantum Jim writes "InternetNews.com reports that a major upgrade for Microsoft Internet Explorer may be imminent. Apparently in response to the recent mass migration away from MSIE, top Microsoft developers have been soliciting for improvements in the old browser at a web log and at Channel 9, an aggregate journal previously discussed by /.. InternetNews.com speculates that improvements could possibly include support for tabbed browsing, better security, more PNG and CSS compliance, and RSS integration (which Firefox and Opera Mail already support). Go competition!"
It will be based on the Mozilla source!
All i can say is its about damn time.
MSIE 7 May Beat Longhorn Out The Gate... But I use Mozilla and the bell rang a long time ago.
Well, firefox was able to grab my interest before IE. Even with the new features, I will stick with firefox because of the community that maintains it.
On the other hand it's depressing that MIcrosoft is a big enough monopolist to let the status and security of what they maintain is an integral part of the operating system, namely the browser, to go almost completely to shit before they bestir themselves to even think about fixing it.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Now this is what I call truely clueless. Typical MS thinking that is the cause of IE's sercurity vulnerabilities and lack of established standards.
AC comments get piped to
A new Internet Explorer with nice support and better features later...
or a Mozilla/Opera browser with nice support and better features [b]now[/b].....
Tough call.
Still, it's a move in the right direction, and it shows that even the developers know that IE has issues, and they [i]want[/i] to fix it.
It's somewhat ironic that the competitor Microsoft thought they had killed, Netscape, is now again, in the form of the now open source Mozilla and it's variants, the biggest threat to IE.
And, also, the re-rise of that competitor is bringing out the first major feature additions to IE in years...
one word, "standards" make them match, out the gate ...... and throw the extra on top
I thought IE and the Window OS were so tightly integrated that they were virtually the same thing? Do you mean IE was actually a separate program all along?
Who cares?
We have Mozilla, and unless Microsoft pulls a quantum leap out of their ass then everybody who has already switched will go on continueing to recommend Mozilla.
Having a browser that doesn't make up a large part of your OS is a GOOD thing.
Think about it:
It's a browser. It's ment to parse HTML and a couple other languages into a image on your desktop that you can interact with.
Having security exploits possible is enough to make me avoid using IE and probably any future incarnations.
Anyways beating Longhorn means any time between now and 3 years from now, so MS has a pretty big windows to release a new browser.
Who will win?It's up to YOU in BROWSER WARS OF LATE 04!
Now it will be almost as good as Firefox was a year ago (well Firebird or whatever it was named back then).
But I don't understand the point of "The Browser Wars".
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Microsoft is finally making some long over due improvements.
But........
If everyone stops using IE and moves to Mozilla/Opera/whatever, Microsoft's loss in revenue is exactly zero.
If everyone abandons other browsers and uses IE exclusively, Microsoft's increase in revenue is exactly zero.
So what's the point of all this?
When the building blocks of an entire O.S are made up of notoriously buggy software like IE6, it's high time Microsoft actually figured "hey, MAYBE we should fix up this old piece of junk" Add growing opposition from Mozilla Add countless worms taking advantage of IE6's holes and presto, you get a serious wake up call for MS. Hmmm, took them a few years to realize it...
The June Google Browser graph shows an interesting turn in IE's share. Now, is it like previous "bumps" where IE quickly rebounded, or is this the sign of an actual turn? I hope they release the July figures soon.
where if you search for some text that's not on a page and press F1 when the OK box appears, ie crashes.. not that anyone has probably ran into it (besides me)..
Windows sux. Am I cool now?
If microsoft do manage to get standard complience into this new IE browser, then at least the rest of the internet that was still catering to shity IE 5.5 type design will be practically forced away. It might be good news for people who don't even USE IE. *continues living in a fantasy*
Bundle this with SP3...
;)
On the other hand, based on how long it took SP2 to show up, maybe IE 7 WILL ship with Longhorn after all!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I don't understand why Microsoft cares about the browser wars anymore. IE development costs them money, and I don't see what the benefit is.
I mean, back in the day, I used to think that the scenario was, "IE will be so much better than Netscape that websites and web users will flock to it, thus furthering our Windows monopoly." But that scenario seems pretty far-fetched today; Netscape the company is gone, and nobody choses Windows because they like IE.
At some point, it looked like MS had just abandoned IE development, but what's the case for picking it back up?
Joe Consumer says, "Why should I upgrade now to the Firebird/Fox/Whatever thing, when Microsoft *promises* to release a new version of IE soon??"
providing MS/IE with "prior art" since 1995!!!!!111
It would seem MS is no longer interested in the browser business, they're updating it simply for protecting its general security "reputation".
However, more importantly, as IE is part of the OS, maybe IE will eventually becomes a more tightly integrated explorer for Windows?
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
This is the attitude throughout Microsoft. It's the same reason why the Windows API still sucks after 20 years. The vast majority of customers don't give a damn about any of this stuff because they don't care: no sites will use alpha-transparent PNG unless IE does, so why bother implementing it?
This is the problem with relying on commercial entities for "innovation": they'll only bother when it actually benefits them. Mozilla, on the other hand, implement things purely for the sake of completeness and interest.
Microsoft downloads Firefox 1.0, changes program and version number, compiles, and offers as Internet Explorer 7.0 - sure be a lot easier! ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
no popup-blockers? no flash-click-to-view? Other than the fact I'm on XP, is there any compelling reason to switch over?
C:\WINDOWS>dir internet*
Volume in drive C is SATA #1
Volume Serial Number is 14C1-3331
Directory of C:\WINDOWS
File Not Found
C:\WINDOWS>
Windows sux. Am I cool now?
As great as this sounds, I can't help but suspect that there will be a number of "improvements" that will make things even more hellish for anyone developing web apps and hoping to attain consistency across the browsers.
Are the _really_ going to fix the css box model?
Control.
-Laxitive
That, until now, each major IE upgrade has a new, non standard and non-supported-by-other feature, that was immediately and widely adopted by web designers (perhaps because it gets immediately added to Dreamweaver et al).
:(
So, here we go again, new pages that look like crap in non-IE...
The advantages of monopolys are endless.
--krahd
mod me up scottie!
Or unless you use MacOS, MacOS X, Solaris, HP/UX...
IE isn't as good as Mozilla/Linux is better than Windows
"c:\windows\internet logs"
You must be confusing Zone Alarm and Internet Explorer. Allow me to explain:
One is a firewall (Zone Alarm)
and one is an Internet Browser (Internet Explorer)
Cheers!
That would almost make it a good browser. Now, if they just made it as customizeable as Firefox, and got rid of all of the defaultly annoying 'user friendly' crap, implement a Linux version, and sell it to someone who isn't M$, I might actually consider liking it a little.
-- Napalm sticks to kids.
I would have to imagine that microsoft benefits in mindshare and monetarily by having IE as your default browser. Being that millions of users are still unaware that you can change your homepage (or just dont care to) MS gets to advertise their sites and services by default to many windows users. Also the search function (and the fact that if you incorrectly type and address you are presented with a 'search') links directly to the MS portal and advertisers on their engine.
Now I admit that it is not much, but to by default have a user in your sphere can be directly profitable or at elast usefull in a number of ways.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Yep. I figured that out. ...
I'm retarded.
Please flee in terror in an orderly manner.
I thought MS said they weren't going to release stand-alone versions of IE anymore?
About his concerns for people who are still using IE 5.5 (mostly all Windows 95 users, since they can't upgrade to IE 6, nor does MS support them anymore), they can be convinced to use IE 7.0 through convincing them to buy a new computer. There are still a lot of Windows 9x boxes out there, so Microsoft could use security as a incentive (among others) for people with older versions of Windows to switch to Windows XP with the new and improved Internet Explorer. (Likewise, Linux/BSD supporters could convince Windows 9x users to switch for the same reasons, too, and there is always Mozilla/Firefox, which runs on Windows 95, so there are other options)
Still, though, the developer's comment was stupid; everyone benefits from full CSS and PNG support; it would save developers a lot of time trying to get their pages to render properly under IE, and it would make IE more standards compliant.
To release IE7 is going to be bad for web developers. We are going to end up with another dud browser that we have to support that won't fully support web standards. .5 version... which will likely come out with longhorn.
I'm guessing IE7 will be like IE5 and be useless unless your running the
So event if the version that comes with longhorn is half decent, everyone will still need to support the IE7 version that was released before longhorn.
But I don't understand why everyone goes crazy over tabbed browsing. I rarely have more than 8 or so browser windows open at once, so it's not real hard to keep track of what I'm doing. Do other people have tons of browser windows open all the time? When I occasionally DO have tons of windows open, I browse them in chronological order (e.g. reading multiple Slashdot discussions). I never switch back and forth between them; I just close the current one when I'm done and move on to the next. But maybe that's just me.
I have used tabbed browsing in Mozilla, and one thing that annoyed me TREMENDOUSLY was that on the right-click menu for the tabs, there is a "Close tab" and "Close all tabs" and they are RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER (maybe this is changed now). I accidentally click the "all tabs" one too many times. Also, because I'm so used to using IE I will accidentally click the 'X' in the top right corner to close the browser, only to realize that there were a few more tabs I wanted to visit before exiting (I thought I had them in regular browser windows)! Maybe this is just me, too.
I welcome the upgrade -- it's really about time! But, I find MS' marketing/business strategy disrespectful at best, patently offensive otherwise. I've long been downloading and installing alternative browsers for people who were fed up with IE and its almost uncountable warts, security problems, etc. And people have absolutely fallen in love with the suite of other features in alternative browsers. A common lament from these mostly MS users was, "Why can't IE do this?", or "Why doesn't IE have this feature?". I pointed out that it was because MS didn't have to respond to the marketplace, because they owned it. This was when they had successfully squashed Netscape at modest cost, and reached more the 95% saturation of the markeplace.
NOW they're responding to slipping numbers once again. They only respond to this niche when they must... what a rude approach. They claim they've needed to continue business unfettered to allow their continued "creativity" and "innovation". Hockey puck! They're running scared with IE now not to satisfy pent up demand but to fend off horrible competitive consequences. It's their right to run the business that way, but I find it offensive they get to do it.
...is scheduled to be released soon. Does this mean MS is taking notice of the Open Soruce (and far superior) software out there, and they're rushing to beat FF1?
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Does anyone own tabbed browsing/built in customisable search engine bar/etc copyrights? I realise that firefox is open source and all, but can microsoft just steal the idea without so much as a thank-you? Is there prior art before firefox?
Just in case microsoft decides to put it in and go "ooh, look what we invented, lets patent it hey its ours"
Does the mozilla public license help at all? (had a quick look, but only seems to cover source code itself)
(Note: i havent used safari/opera, and theres more than likely non-browsers programs that do similar things, but just a thought....)
I didn't buy their request for user feedback. I'm sure they know exactly what is wrong with their browser. They're not stupid, just evil.
It doesn't matter whether they add tabbed browsing, RSS feed integration or any other interface improvements as long as they support XHTML1.1/CSS2 and the recommended modules of CSS3. If users want features they can easily switch to Opera but as a web developer I have no choice but to make my pages work in IE. So until IE fades out of common usage or it is updated to support current standards, the development of the web be halted and we'll be stuck with 1990s web technology.
Feel free to go here and tell them to get on the stick. I should bill them for all the unpaid hours I put in trying to make their buggy CSS work. I hates them hates them hates them
[ UNSIGNED NOT NULL ]
I can't imagine any other way this got modded funney.
omg dont u C its cuz it menshuns der FierFox browser.
5% to 95%..that sure is a big threat.
Obviously, it is. If Mozilla had a 60% market-share, people wouldn't say it was threatening I.E. any more. Just like the fact that threats happen _before_ bombings, not after.
Strike me down... ah fuck it, you all know the quote.
"Tell them it faster, makes new web sites look prettier, popup blocking and has tabbing features, all sexy reasons, then people have a motive to move."
So IE users are flocking to Firefox/Mozilla in droves then?
See the responses (above) to this post.
The future direction of the web is at stake... if Microsoft maintains their massive IE market share, then they can continue to dictate standards, rather than follow standards created by impartial third parties.
Why would they pass this up? They have 50+ billion dollars in the bank... I'm sure tossing a couple of million into IE development is no big deal. And if it allows them to maintain their stranglehold on the Internet, I'm sure they'd find it to be worthwhile.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
I mean, exactly what is it about marking a site that makes it "favorite"?!? Consider for example doing research on euthanasia (sp?)... would that someone sits down to use your browser and sees that you have five references to sites describing or providing "howto's" for euthansia. Are these really semantically "favorites"? I don't think so. It's really an example of how cute MS gets, but doesn't get the semantics. Netscape, Mozilla, and all of the other browsers got it right when they provided "bookmarks". The metaphor is apt, and not overreaching.
Just my $.02, and probably offtopic.
Except those 5% keep shifting from one browser to another, whereas IE's numbers have held steady. This 'threat' to IE exists in the mind of those on Slashdot.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
New security holes!
And no, IE7 won't be a Transformer.
Microsoft does not sell IE. They gain no direct profit from people's use of it, so you have to wonder what their motive is here. Let's assume that "good" and "evil" are subjective and emotive words that have no relevance to this discussion, ok?
If you read Joel Spolsky's API war article, some perspective may be gained. Microsoft wishes only to discourage Web developers from moving away from the IE platform. If developers move away, Microsoft no longer has control over web development, and can no longer keep new technologies on the fringe.
This is bad news for a company with plans to move to network applications. If a platform for network applications exists outside of Microsoft's control, it will be much harder to profit from. Thus, Microsoft's interest is served here by retaining that 90%+ browser market share, to prevent the adoption of new technologies not under MS control.
"Apparently in response to the recent mass migration away from MSIE..."
o se sshare_1.html
Like it or not, IE has only lost 1% of market share. See:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/12/HNiel
Hardly a mass migration!!!
The ease with which people extend Mozilla to do what they want, among other great reasons, ensures that I won't go back to some crappy IE.
Since they integrated it, upgrades to IE become upgrades to the OS. I'm sure marketing would much rather hold out till longhorn hits. It'd make thier job of selling a bloated, complex upgrade that much easier. I tell you, I wouldn't want to be the guy who had to come up with reasons why you should upgrade to Windows ME.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I remember Microsoft making the statement that IE6 would be the last standalone version..
Guess control of the market is more important then sticking with your promises...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We're going to be hacking HTML/CSS presentation/layout fixes for a long time to come.
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
Everyone should add a FireFox promotional button to their website. Support FireFox people!
t ml/
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/buttons.h
In a C|Net article from May 31, 2003, a Microsoft rep said, "Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS."
Cut to a year and change later, Longhorn is taking too long to arrive and people are getting sick/scared enough of all the security deficiencies in IE to actually look for a better browser. Because informed consumers are their worst enemy, Microsoft gets a little nervous that their lock on the browser market might be in jeopardy, and POW! Miracle of miracles, it is suddenly possible to further improve standalone versions of IE on non-Longhorn versions of Windows! Whoda thunk it?
Technically such an improved beast should be called IE 6.5. If they actually do call it 7, it's purely for marketing reasons-- they'll launch some flashy commercials to try to snow people into thinking this is some totally reworked wonder that fixes everything they didn't like about IE 6, when in reality it will just be IE 6 with some bugs fixed and some extra shit grafted on. Too bad their campaign will probably work on the uninformed.
Don't roll over and take this, people! Keep informing your friends/family/clients that there are better browsers out there, and install your alternative browser of choice wherever possible. Don't let them listen to whatever sunshine Microsoft will be blowing up their asses about the "new, improved" IE.
~Philly
Actually, it only mentions mozilla. People keep confusing firefox and mozilla. Firefox is not released yet (by that I mean has not reached 1.0) whereas mozilla is the mozilla projects last generation browser.
-kaplanfx
Visualize Whirled Peas
In this world, the same thing will happen to M$ that happened to Netscape. Once you get used to a browser there is no compelling reason to change back. If people shift to Mozilla or Firefox now they probably won't want IE in the future due to the bad reputation, no matter if they really fix it or not.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
we have only IE and Netscrap on all campus computers! So a better IE would be nice.
So there's a mass migration away from IE.
From the stats gathering we do on our site, I have yet to see that. Oh sure there's a slight rise but that's not enough to convince marketing etc. Mind you, the 3rd party we use is crap for browser analysis but we're stuck using it because everyone in the industry does.
Are there some reliable browser metrics out there? Your own site stats don't count...
And the guy was wrong and admitted it further down this thread. idiots.
Windows sux. Am I cool now?
Otherwise, as another poster stated, people will simply wait for MS to level the field with the rest of the browsers and keep using what they have.
Interesting questions, interesting challenges... Are there enough resources? Is there enough people/creativity/motivation/discipline (no bickering, forking and what not) to keep MS at bay? Can the F/OSS community focus on the users and develop widely accepted, non-controversial(*) extensions?
Exciting times - I can hardly wait to see what happens!!
(*) The reason I mention this is because FireFox has this ad blocker... Which is good and all, but at some point someone will point that out as something bad. Even if it still hits the advertiser's servers... Joe Consumer will be under the impression that this is not a "good" browser, developed by "good" people. Remember, chances are Joe Consumer does not care about adverts. And companies may find an excuse to indulge in more yummy FUD :( Fear the media, people...
The revolution will not be televised.
I'm a mozilla fanboy myself, but I'd have to say that this is a welcome update. It always felt a bit odd that MS didn't update their browser - almost as if they weren't allowed to do so by DoJ.
Incidentally, that little factoid about the mass migration away from IE? It's not true. At least not according to my website statistics.
Well, MSDN front page has an article with code to build your own custom web browser with tabs and an integrated link to a search engine.
You don't need to buy anything for this. Visual C# express is a free download
Notice there's not even a date mentioned in this article. It barely even suggests that ie7 will be released before longhorn (2008 last I heard).
Is it any wonder that people are switching away from a browser (and operating system) that can't even release system patches (XPSP2?) on time.
It's about damn time. But even if they finally manage to fix their box model rendering and implement native, non-filter:DirectWhatever(foo) PNG alpha support, how long until that's actually widespread? Given that so many people still use IE 5 or 5.5 (last I checked, anyway) long after IE 6's release and subsequent patches, it might be quite a while before IE-specific quirks don't need to be worried about. That is, unless MS forces everyone using Windows to upgrade, or Firefox becomes the dominant browser. /continues using the box model hack and that freakish DirectX alpha filter
Heck, maybe I could use one of IE's security holes to install a PNG fix when users visit my site.
This is slashdot, correcting misinformation against MS is a troll here.
So if we wait until Microsoft develops and releases these features in Internet Explorer, then we get to do everything that we .. uh .. already can do today in browsers like Firefox. Thanks, but no thanks, we can get now what they're offering next year.
Microsoft are truly amazing: Can any other IT company consistently generate excitement and buzz amongst their customer base by announcing that they are going to add features that everyone else has had for years already???
...somebody patent tabbed browsing, mouse gestures and standards compliant browsing...
If Microsoft's IE team comes up with a nifty new feature that makes surfing the net easier, I can see two possible scenarios: 1) Microsoft patents the feature making it exlcusive to IE 2) the feature is quickly copied into Firefox by either the MozDev team or an enthusiastic extenstion developer. Without patenting features, how can Microsoft keep Internet Explorer superior to its competitors feature-wise? I suppose plug-ins exist for IE to include mouse gestures and tabbing and such, but are these as much of a threat to Firefox and Opera?
Deprecated, not depreciated.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
"Its not ironic, its just a coincidence."
Ok, that may have been more of a paraphrase than an actual quote, but the point remains valid.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
As a web developer / designer, I've been using Mozilla and the like for a long time. But what interests me is what the majority of people use - I need to design stuff that works for everything. Since Explorer has ALWAYS been a pain when it comes to CSS compliance, myself and every designer out there have had to bend over backward to write code that has all these little IE fixes built in. I'm sick of having to play with code and then check both Netscape and Explorer for consistency. Please, oh please, give IE 7 some decent fricken CSS compliance!! That way, I will KNOW that it will all look the bloody same, just like it should for pete's sakes.
Just use HTML tables!!!!
*duck*
(No flames please, yes I'm kidding. Sort of.)
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
That's funny, seeing as it could very well be argued that the primary reason Mozilla has been gaining marketshare is because of it's increased security, while IE has clearly needed such security measures for some years and yet has not even had an established team to work on it for that duration of time.
Imagine you are a webdesigner... and you really NEED to use transparent PNGs. So you have this options:r (src='filename.png')"> where spacer.gif is 1x1 blank gif file.
Mozilla: <img src="filname.png">
IE: <img src="files/spacer.gif" border="0" style="filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoade
Make your choice...
Fucking a fat girl is like riding a scooter... it's fun 'til someone sees you.
"I think what Iliad is saying here is that consumers really don't care if their browser supports de facto fringe standards"
If that's the attitude, how the heck does he (and Microsoft) plan on selling consumers on the benefits of Longhorn?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
As a web developer, it is annoying beyond belief to have to test all of your design code in a growing number of different browsers and versions.
Hey, I think improvements are great, as long as Microsoft focuses on becoming more compliant with CSS standards, etc. rather than trying to reinvent the wheel for a competitive edge.
Because "new and different" doesn't always mean "better".
Computers are useless. They can only give answers. --Pablo Picasso
"Where Microsoft suceeds is giving the consumer what they WANT"
Yeah, I know people have been begging for DRM in Longhorn.
MS is already trying to subvert HTTP/HTML with their latest bastardization "Winforms". Completely unncessary, but they get to claim its a web application, but it only works on a Windows platform.
Same thing on my Win2K/SP4 (5.00.2195)
XP crash, Win2K not?
The cited article itself says that it's based on speculation. Channel 9 attracts developers, not "consumers"; so, the "consumers" the article mentions who "are demanding that IE be fitted with tabbed browsing", etc., are actually just developers. Indeed, the majority of IE's consumers couldn't give a damn about tabbed browsing, or CSS, or PNG.
Sadly, this whole article (i.e., Slashdot's article) has become a collection of threads promoting FireFox, Opera, etc., and generally IE-bashing instead of actually discussing the issue at hand. Sure, perhaps the majority of geeks don't use IE, but we're also the people who would use OpenOffice instead of MS Office, Linux instead of Windows, etc. I.e., we're not Microsoft's intended audience.
So, take a moment and think about the article's premise. Will there be a new version of IE before Longhorn? I'd venture to say no. Why? Mainly, a better IE would be a major selling point for Windows (as Safari has become for Mac OS X, e.g., Tiger's Safari RSS). Also, it's probably moved all new development of IE to Longhorn APIs, and doing double-development of new features is a nuisance (as it was for Apple).
In general, developing new features for IE 6 just doesn't make sense from a business, marketing, or technical perspective. Saying a new release of IE "may be imminent" just adds more vapor to the breeze, seemingly endorsing speculation, and creates even more opportunities for MS-bashing. Whereas MS-bashing can be justified, ripping apart products that exist only in your mind is ludicrous.
If microsoft can do all that and keep ie as fast as it is I may consider switching back, as long as they uncrapify outlook express...
It's forced on people.
If you buy any computer at the store, it's got Microsoft Windows, with Microsoft Internet Explorer installed (and not removable) and probably other Microsoft products like Works or Word/Excel.
At work, people get computers put on their desks with Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. They connect to Microsoft Exchange servers and connect to the internet using Microsoft ISA server.
If you want to use anything else, Microsoft has made it very difficult. It's very difficult to emulate the Win32 API, which is only available on Windows. Their documents are all in proprietary formats. Their web browser has special extensions that only Microsoft can put in their browser.
People don't CHOOSE Microsoft, at least not the consumer. They've locked the market down and it's extremely hard to break free from the Monopoly.
A fully pre-installed (like how Windows usually is) Linux system is just as usuable as a Windows system for the end-user, and in many cases, even more usuable. And a lot cheaper, since a full Linux distribution contains enough software that you won't have to buy more for awhile. But when someone says "Okay but can my Linux computer open all my word and excel documents?" you have to say "well, 90% of them." And it's all over.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
It will happen, but everything that the article implies won't be included.
IE7 will be the same caliber of upgrade as IE6, but with much more user value (who cares about the stupid image toolbar?). Little to no rendering engine improvments will happen, but most if not all of the UI features (tabs, popup blocker, etc) will. Remember that IE is essentially a very hacked up version of Mosaic, a codebase that is nearly a decade old. I've heard rumors of a Windows XP2 full release (in about a year)... likely any IE7 would accompany it.
But I do suspect that any possible IE upgrade will not be solely driven by user migration. MS has finally realized that they made a mistake in letting IE lag behind in the marketplace... the users are forcing them to admit it.
The people who run Channel9 post vehemently that they can't promise any improved support for anything. Remember that IE is still the sam bowl of spaghetti that it was 3 years ago (plus being stale and moldy). Do we really expect MS to make major rendering changes (so they claim) to IE and support it while developing the Longhorn UI (a rehash of Mozilla's display architecture)? I don't think so. I'm not sure how likely IE7 for Win98 will be.
And of course, don't hold your breath for IE including useful developer tools (DOM inspector, etc)... it never was for developers, and it never will be.
There's an analogy here to do with Xerox and the photocopier, which I think is quite relevant:
When the photocopier was first developed and Xerox began marketing it to businesses, it took a lot of effort because the bosses couldn't see the point. From a PHB's perspective, there's not a lot of point in having a machine to duplicate documents. After all, whenever a boss wanted a copy of a document they would hand it to the secretary who would re-type it, perhaps with a few sheets of carbon paper.
Xerox eventually sold it to businesses by proposing to simply install the photocopier for free, and only charge for the copies that were made using it. Many more PHB's then accepted it, and it immediately became a fantastic tool for the secretaries who no longer had to struggle through typing and re-typing entire documents just to make identical copies. It was only at this point that its usefulness really became apparent to a lot of bosses, who realised that the availability of a photocopier was letting their staff spend time on other things. Really the end customer (PHB) wasn't interested in the photocopier, but by providing it they made someone else's job much easier which resulted in a better service.
I guess if Microsoft wants to market standards compliant CSS and PNG support, they should be marketing it at the people to whom it'll mean the most. ie. The developers. Those are the people whom it's going to benefit most immediately, after all: not the end customer. If there are enough websites and web applications out there that require IE7 and assuming Microsoft makes it easy to get, it really shouldn't be much of a problem.
All the submitter did was link to a blog entry that listed a couple of public advisories and mentioned Mozilla. Apparently, when put through the Slashbot filter, that becomes "recent mass migration away from MSIE?"
According to Google Zeitgeist, IE 6 hasn't dropped at all and is still massively slaughtering the competition. In fact, Slashdot's own browser statistics show that IE is the majority browser for people accessing this website! Also note that every year is the year of "Linux on the desktop," yet Linux is still at 1% of usage on Zeitgeist.
I don't like IE either, but come on. There is no "recent mass migration."
Is that why the table of links on the left spills over into the story tables when viewing under Mozilla or Firefox?
Never had the problem under Opera.
At the library where I'm tech-support, I've installed Mozilla and it auto-launches to the library's homepage on reboot.
I've also posted an explanation on the desktop entitled Read Me.
I have left IE on the desktop for the diehards, mostly to keep the complaint level down.
What I've found: Some people love it (there are one or two who want Opera) . Others just use what's in front of them. Still others re-arrange and delete the Mozilla icon (which re-appears on reboot).
*Shrug*. We've got some people who do online banking and ebay and whatnot and insist on IE. It's not like the IE fans haven't been warned.
These computers also have OpenOffice. There have been *O* complaints, just questions whether it will open and save Word files. Yes...yes, you can!
Shameless plug: Deep Freeze. Let them screw with the computers to their hearts' content. Power-cycle or soft reboot and it goes back to normal.
--
BMO
The truth is that Microsoft has a habit of producing bad software - probably due to being closed sourced and the limited minds who are working on it can't produce anything else. It "looks" pretty on the outside, but, that's as far as the beauty goes.
Linux is a wonderful product, which is slowly winning the OS war, by the way, despite what you want to believe, because practically the entire world is working on it in some way - it's open source. The source code for Microsoft products, on the other hand, is kept secret and hidden, thus, severly limiting the amount of people who can work on it and, therefore, limiting its quality. My opinion (freedom of speech?) is that the source code for MS Windows is kept under tight security because it may contain GPL'd code and Microsoft can get into lots of trouble by selling a product containing such code. If this is not the case, then, I challenge Microsoft Corp. to prove it.
My suggestion is this: Open ALL the source code for Microsoft operating systems, thereby allowing more folks to improve it. Or keep it closed and continue to wane until such time as Microsoft products are no longer wanted by the public at all.
Microsoft Corp. is going to lose the revenue generated by it's Microsoft Windows OS's. Either by being forced to open the source code to the public, or by the public demand for the products dying out, as they are currently, due to the blatant lack of security and quality. Revenue generated by MS Windows OS's is going to be lost, one way or another.
Feel free to mod this comment down because I really don't care whether you find it interesting or not. Your opinion of my comments doesn't matter to me at all.
1. Printing. They've never fixed the problem of text overflowing the right margin and getting cut off, leaving a worthless print.
2. While it's a minor thing, how is it that IE can eventually forget every site icon? I mean, really...come on guys....
As the W3C says:
Cheers,
Jason
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
It says right there he's just a freelance developer participating in the feedback process. Stop being so anti-"M$" vitriolic. I see his very same comment posted in Slashdot all the time. People honestly want to know, how does MS plan to get people to upgrade to IE7 if it's going to just offer things like "better CSS support?" There are plenty of people still using IE5.5. Unfortunately, there is only so much hand-holding the company can do before people take responsibility for themselves and upgrade. We OSS people do it all the time for our apps...
Forget IE. Go to ANY other browser, see what the great and powerful MS does then. Maybe they'll take some time away from fixing critical flaws and bugs to address IE issues.
Does anyone else think MS developers/zealots sound really, really weird? I mean, Linux zealots are weird in their own right, but the MS ones are almost, well, creepy. They're like Bill Gates clones pretending really hard to be 'normal' people ... sort of like all of the fake G4 hosts on G4TechTV.
If you disable picture loading in Internet Explorer it seems to effect every program that relies on IE for HTML rendering eg. ads in ICQ, ads in Kazza. A quick way of block ads. Though might not always be desirable.
I suspect this goes for any setting multimedia related setting in IE.
Then happily use your favourite alternative browser.
I've downloaded the IE7 fix you referred to and it doesn't work or at least the version I got earlier this month, v0.6.1, didn't work (it is pre-V1.x, after all). There's supposed to be a fix out soon from what I've seen on the discussion site. I wound up trashing a good deal of work on a web site because IE5 and IE6 don't believe in properly rendering pages using standard features of CSS. Floats, for one, seem to be fatally broken in IE[5|6].
I'm waiting for the next IE7.css with bated breath. The best thing would be for Microsoft to get it's head out of, um, uh, I mean, into making software that's compliant with generally accepted web standards instead of foisting their internal "standards" on the world.
You know that Microsoft will never cough up any compensation to Edwards for the work he's done. If MS does release a new IE, he may just have to console himself with the thought that he was the guy who embarassed them into doing the early release.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Microsoft doesn't care all that much about Internet Explorer. They don't want to improve it, because then they can keep back web APIs. Face it, XUL isn't exactly going anywhere.
.NET, which is truly Internet-able. Even OSS has gotten into the trap with Mono. Longhorn will be entirely based on .NET, with mere Win32 compatibility DLLs thrown in for older apps.
Microsoft doesn't really care, as they have their sights set on
The Real way to get to a browser war is if developer's simply started coding web sites with only Mozilla/Opera/Safari Compliance in mind.
Just like in the old says, when we had the Netscape Now buttons.
But no one is going to hurt their ROI just because they want to hurt microsoft.
But i dunno if some major news sites, were like, you need Mozilla to view this site. Who Knows?
Problem is the people CSS is intended to save. Dial up users. How can they get their hands on Mozilla. AOL needs to use their CD distribution program for something good. i.e Mozilla!
Of course whenever i say mozilla i mean firefox.
So in IE7 slashdot will be screwed up and displaying over to the right hand side inside a black background with black text?
Speaking of which, does anyone know (a) why this happens, (b) why it only happens occasionally, and (c) whether anyone is working on fixing it? I would have guessed that Taco and Jamie and so forth use Firefox, but maybe not. [shrug]
May we never see th
I'm sorry to be so rude. But that's the most idiotic criticism I've ever seen. It's just a concept name. You're the only person I've ever seen have a complaint about it.
Websites are marked as "favorites" because they're favored websites to visit. It doesn't have to be positive or negative in connotation, and I'm betting there are less than 1% of people who even think about that, you being one of them.
A good thing about Favorites is that they're stored as an individual file each. Ironicially, this is more UNIX-like, and they can easily be e-mailed, moved around, traded, or organized using the filesystem browser or the browser itself.
Seriously, what a silly thing to criticize, especially when most people here use a browser that can't seem to decide what it's name actually IS, and their operating systems run "daemons!" Does that make Linux is negative and hellish?
here's a list of what gecko (the rendering engine of Mozilla) supports, and what not.
make a small line at the main page "if this page does not display correctly, you're browser (Internet Explorer) does not correctly support those standards. Alternatives can be found here:...
they will show you this, and many ohter pages, correctly."
so it would be a fact, not even propaganda.
damn. now i have to think of a new name...
shall they! who cares? you? I wouldn't.
If you recieve money for the page, you can say "sorry, its coded correctly, I cant do anything about".
Think he meant inefficient gas propelled engine.
Your right a stirling engine would be efficient but Gm tried it and it didn't produce enough horsepower.
Maybe coupled with fuel cell ? Now your cooking with gas.
I think that's a virus you got there.
/me wonders if the proprietary Wiki on MSDN's channel 9 has a "hole" lot of MS-Access "features."
So if your theory is true, wouldn't we see alot more sites using vbscript and activex? It may be true that if MS controls 90+% of the market share of web browsers, they can introduce whatever proprietary extensions they want, but web designers which is 90+% not Microsoft aren't adopting these extensions, so it doesn't matter.
...when "standards brokenness" is a better for business! For Microsoft, "new and different" *is* better. "New and totally incompatible" is even better still.
They know that IE still has 90% of the browser market. That means web developers can't ignore IE and tell their users to download Firefox. If IE 7 is totally incompatible with current standards, and only renders sites written in mshtml#.NET, the vast majority of web developers will work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to rewrite their entire site in mshtml#.NET. Mozilla, Opera, and Safari users would get screwed, web developers would get totally screwed, and IE would get it's 99% market share back.
0 1 - just my two bits
...and you know, gopher was replaced by www. Maybe it's time we came up with the replacement for www...? :)
They're an idealization, like absolute zero or a frictionless bearing. No heat engine can possibly do better than Carnot (or it would violate the second law of thermo), so they provide a useful mathematical abstraction, but that's it.
The highest possible efficiency for a Carnot engine is (t_hot - t_cold)/t_hot, which approaches 1 as t_cold approaches zero or t_hot approaches infinity.
What runs in your car is an Otto cycle engine, or possibly a Diesel cycle engine. Thermal efficiencies on the order of 30% at room temperature are not uncommon, which is not bad. Engines which do not use heat energy, such as fuel cells or the human body, can do better.
I think the poster is wrong in assuming the reason such engines were not developed had something to do with the ignorance of car buyers. Superior heat engines, such as gas turbines, were tested extensively in the 50's and 60's, but never proved economical (they're very expensive to make). Fuel cells have also proven difficult to manufacture at low enough cost. If either of these technologies were practical in cars, we'd have them. After all, even some fairly exotic engines (Wankel and such) have found their way into production cars.
" a major upgrade for Microsoft Internet Explorer may be imminent. Apparently in response to the recent mass migration away from MSIE..."
Yep, slap a coat of paint on that pig and resell it as new...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Already being worked on and used.
... the Claria corporation (AKA Gator) announced that they will be releasing new versions of their "software" in the very near future.
it had:
1. Tabbed browsing
2. Password manager
3. Pop-up blocking
4. Download Manager
I do have to say, it's quite odd how much RAM Firefox uses. I have Google's main search page loaded and it's using 48 megs! Before anyone suggest it's a botched install, this happens on several computers.
Anyone know of a way to make it not use so much?
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Zope does what you want.
I'm talking about things like rendering   as a nonbreakable space, instead of requiring the trailing semi-colon, like in the standard
Yeah, right.
"They have gone from TBL's origional HyperCard inspired idea for the WWW (which he admits didn't live up to his vision of an easy to edit & publish system) to promoting an overly complicated XML driven inteface which acts as a high barrier to entry."
Funny how we've gone from "code monkey" to "high barrier to entry". Anyway I hear the Indians aren't having as much trouble as some Americans.
"Certainly, in 1995 it was a lot easier to learn how create a web page. You can still use the same HTML of course, but few places teach that - they all want to try and teach new users about CSS, XHTML, DHTML, JavaScript and other buzzwords which only serve to overwhelm people."
In 1995 our computers were simpler. Our world was simpler. Anyway tools Like Dreamweaver, Frontpage and Hotmetal were what people used. Maybe the "notepad" people were "overwhelmed".
"While that's fine for some people (like me), gone is the notion of a simple to grasp mark up language and editing system. "
It is "You can still use the same HTML of course"?
"A very easy to use but powerful scripting language (something not unlike HyperTalk itself springs to mind), the ability to easily use other native interface widgets - like tabs and menus -, as well as some basic drawing tools (line, rectangle, circle and a basic fill tool spring to mind) together with an easy publishing system should have been the goals for HTML & HTTP IMO."
Are you sure your talking about "user friendly"? Sounds more like "bait and switch".
"If they had been even remotely competant and argued for this from day one (and hacked up a couple of functional implimentations) we could all have that functionality today."
Why? Do you even remember that far back?
"Instead we have an overcomplicated system focused squarely at technical users that is seeing little 'real world' use, because the vast majority of people just find using systems like Tables with a little CSS far easier and more practicle to manage."
That's because those are the one's building the sites. Those were the one who originally could afford to have an internet connect. The "consumer" Internet is a more recent invention.
Also you're confusing "familiarity" with "simplicity".
"And what really annoys me? CSS wasn't even that well designed. It's got huge gaping holes in functionality. You should be able to align anything by top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right of an object (such as a div) both as an absolute and a percentage."
Welcome to the "PDF" web.
I think if we do see an Internet Explorer 7.0 (which will probably come out the spring of 2005), you will likely see the following changes compare to IE 6.01 Service Pack 1:
1. An all-new, faster HTML rendering engine than the one currently being used.
2. Incorporate all the security default changes that is part of the IE 6.01 SP1 from Windows XP Service Pack 2.
3. Incorporate a number of changes to the toolbars. We will see a collapsible sidebar (which was on the beta versions of IE 6.0 but was dropped from the final release).
4. Tabbed browsing will be incorporated, but with an additional twist: you can configure the browser so when you click on a link that requires opening a new page, you open a new tabbed window instead of another full instance of the browser itself.
5. In addition to pop-up window blocking, it will incorporate the ability to block Macromedia Flash and Shockwave animations (or at least warn the user and give a choice on if they want to see that animation).
6. The minimum OS that IE 7.0 will run is Windows 2000 Professional.
I also think we may see an IE 6.5 for Windows 98/Me users that will incorporate some of the changes I mentioned above.
If it isn't separated from the shell, and doesn't have it's own filetype registry, for starters, then Microsoft hasn't learned a damn thing from their mistakes, and there'd be no reason to believe it would be any more secure that version 3, 4, 5, 5.5, or 6... As all of those releases were supposedly more secure than their predecessor. The extra features can wait, let's see some real solid core code in IE first.
If Microsoft can't even do this, then I hope version 8 is an IE uninstaller.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Most users who run IE use it because that's what came with their computer. Most don't even know how to do a Windows update. If it breaks they get a new computer. So what is going to make these people go get IE7? If they have not already switched to Mozilla they aren't going to get a new IE until it ships with a new computer. Micro$oft should be focusing on getting Longhorn out and put IE7 inside. If they make it secure enough Mozilla will start loosing market share again. Either way, I'll still use Mozilla thus insuring that M$ can never get 100% of the market.
It's a very dark ride.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Warning: also a long rant.
Um, the only thing that seems correct is that it used to be a lot easier to become a professional web page author (IMHO). In my experience, most (educational) places want to teach 1995 era web development ... things like massively nested frames, tables, and photoshopped images. Design is an afterthought.
Furthermore, those "buzzwords" aren't really that hard learn at all! XHTML is just a simpler HTML; CSS makes design so much easier; and a little JavaScript is easy as pie (a lot - like any programming language - takes skill). DHTML usually represents methods using JavaScript to change the existing CSS and markup; easy for little cutting-and-pasting. It just seems complicated many developers feel the need to use everything including the kitchen sink. Don't use CSS if you can use templates with PHP or ASP. Don't use JavaScript unless you really need it. HTML 4 still works. Moderation! Moderation! Moderation!
The hard parts about web development are design and consistency. Web browsers in 1995 were not more compliant than now; however, designs were so much simpler that it didn't matter. As I said before, developers nowadays want everything including the kitchen sink. Complex designs take more skill to develop and more testing to work around browser differences. Good design makes it easier to learn to code web sites, but learning to design well is really hard.
You're describing the design goals for Java or the X Window System. However, that's not for what hypertext was meant. The World Wide Web is about transferring documents - not programs. Writing documents with (X)HTML, and CSS is easy. On the other hand, writing complex programs with markup and scrips is hard.
TBL did have that functionality in mind while writing the original web browser: WorldWideWeb. The W3C's proof-of-concept web browser was designed with exactly that feature built-in. WikiWikiWeb is the popular server version of your vision. The W3C's founders envisioned your suggestion; however, most users simply didn't need or want that functionality. That's one reason why Mosaic and Netscape Navigator were successful despite not having automatic editing capabilities.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
I agree, I submitted a bad link. I was referring to the recent loss of MSIE's market share to Firefox and other alternatives.
Sorry!
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
Additionally, even in June, it should be noted that Mozilla has regained substantial marketshare, nearly reversing the losses that the Netscape codebase had suffered since 2002. Way to go.
Mozilla is doing well in all its forms. The Google figures if you look closely, indicate a general increase of Internet Explorer 6 is mostly at the expense of other versions of IE. Mozilla and "Other" are actually slowly gaining.
AND this was before the latest security advisories hit.
AND Netcraft has issued an advisory indicating that banner ads could be used to spread malware.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The events of the last 6 months have made me determined to get as many of my family members to switch to Linux as possible.
---southpaw
Who uses Lynx.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This is great, and just in time, because Expl... Ooooh, lookie! A flying pig!
"MS not adhering to standards makes sites cost more to write, more to maintain, more to test etc."
And unable to do things like this [You need either the ASVG plugin, or Mozilla enabled SVG]
The fact is, Firefox is giving the best features to both consumers and developers before they're asking for them, not after the fact. This, I think, is an important distinction. Microsoft is only picking up the ball because, after they announced they would no longer be playing the game, they've realized that the browser isn't going away after all and, oh by the way, Firefox is kicking ass all over IE on a number of fronts.
This is not only self-serving and a way of marginalizing mainstream consumer demands -- all while convincing them that they don't really want what they want after all, no, what they really want is what Microsoft happens to be pushing -- but it's cynical, pure and simple.
The great thing about Microsoft, though, is that they make it so easy for you to hate them. They don't apologize, and they never deliver without being asked, but they are constantly telling you what you really want, even though you didn't realize you needed it, whatever "it" happens to be, like their new touted shell that passes around .Net objects. I'm sure we'll all be "needing" that, too.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
Just wanted to stick this near the top: IE7 is already out.
In a contract job interview a Microsoft manager outright told me that since Netscape was dead they had no reason to do anything more with IE.
"Go competition" is right!
Do you REALLY think that Joe Dickhead the fratboy has even the ghost of a cluestain what CSS is? What HTML stands for? What Javascript is?
If you answered yes, you're the one that's clueless. Since the mid to late nineties, the average web user has been just that- a USER.
USERS DO NOT WANT TO LEARN. They want the thing to download porn and mp3s and movies and check email and camwhore and submit scans of their boobs to deviantart. Most of them get disk capacity and RAM confused.
Sort of explains the continued MS dominance, really.
if the browser was still known as Firefox ;)
OK, four people used Gopher (give or take an order of magnitude or three). How many people use WWW?
Can you say inertia? I knew you could.
I guess you've never heard of a smily or netiquette.
You might also find that studying Internet history as well as growing up can diminish your cluelessness.
"IEv6x is the Courtney Love browser in a world of Kirsten Dunst browsers"
:-)
Haha, this should go in my sig.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Dude, it's just a typo. It is more important to have skill recognizing context clues and the meaning of imprecise statements than to have perfect grammar. There are far worse things to get upset about!
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
With IE not working, the service patch 2 coming out that apparently breaks many things ( http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=17738 ) I think it's time to tell business and home users to think about switching to Linux.
;).
After each virus out break its time to tell your friends and family and bosses to think about using Linux.
By the time Longhorn runs around, they'll hopefully be tired about using Linux and switch over
I'm sure Microsoft are already working on it.
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
Microsoft is known to be profient in designing new toolbars, so how about adding a button into the IE7 default toolbar to "install Firefox now". Would save those ~40 keypresses and a couple of mouse clicks.
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
ahem... let's see where this url ends up
id Software lost $2.75 million to record-breaking piracy on the weekend before Doom 3's release. Thanks, guys!
...]
this statement is based on two false assumptions:
A) people would have bought it if they hadn't pirated it
B) people won't buy it because they pirated it
please stop spreading BSA-FUD. repetition doesn't beget truth.
[waiting for mac version
Talk to people in your office (especially if you're in IT), you'll soon find out how widespread Linux use is.
I run Gentoo at home, I've given Suse 9.1 CDs (personal edition) to two employees at work. So even in a tech savvy work place you're only looking at a handful of people running Linux. But given time the word will spread, might be a while before it becomes 50:50 and all the heated discussions start though.
There are bound be countries where Linux has a greater market share, simply down to price and Microsoft's crackdown on piracy.
You see if you examine your opera useragent string closely you will see that the word Opera definitly is there. I myself filter it out to get some really usable statistics (IE users vs IE pretenders) and I doubt I am a better coder then Google.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
So MS has a clear choice, profit on a crappy browser or loose money on creating a new one. Hmmmm. Though one.
It is like wondering why rich people are always such penny-pinchers. It is because they are penny-pinchers that they gotta be rich.
It doesn't matter how crap your product is as long as people continue to buy it. Just look at the history of the american car industry. They just kept pumping out the gas gussling 3 ton monsters because the buyers kept buying them. Then all of a sudden japan entered the market and boom. It all collapsed. Well at least that is what the books say. If you check you will notice that a lot of japanese car makers are in trouble or in fact now owned again by american car companies.
What is they saying again? Nobody ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the consumer. When it comes to windows user you just can't loose. Just get a focus group made up out of dead slugs.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Avant browser
thankyewverymuch
A) Zeitgeist only shows up to June
B) Notice that in June, IE for the first time in ages, actually dropped - or remained level.
Me - I'm VERY interested as to what July's stats will show.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Does this matter in real life? Well say that I override the whiter then white background color on all sites with my own slightly yellow color wich is less hard on the eyes. With gif or jpeg every an image like the slashdot logo doesn't blend. With png and alpha channels it would.
Not terribly important but it would make life a little easier for developers. If you want to change the color of a site a tiny bit for say christmas you don't need to change every image.
Other stuff like CSS2 and such are also on the backburner while we wait for MS to catch up.
So MS controls what can be done with the web, they don't need to make frontpage support the latest standards because IE doesn't support them anyway. In short MS is saving big bucks in development by holding the web back.
If IE had say only 50% of the market and someone came up with the next big thing that IE didn't support then IE would have to adapt real fast or users would switch. Since 50% of installed browsers would be up-to-date launching something new could be worth the risk. At the moment it isn't.
Why does MS want to control everything? Because that is how they got big. Not quality, not the latest tech, not being first, not being inovators. They are big because they are big and the way to stay big by being big is to keep everything under your control.
Also there is another smaller problem. Install Mozilla on windows and MSN is gone. You might even hear stories about linux that have not been through MS spin machine. You may learn about Mac's You may even get the idea that there are alternatives. Can't have that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Also exist a Mac version, and looks like a Unix version somewhere. and.. well.. you can be odd enough and run IE under wine or crossover or other emulagore software
-Woof woof woof!
SVG
It's axiomatic that the browser will be released first. This will be how they essentially force you along the upgrade path.
Typical open source nonsense.
This is America. No one "forces" anyone to buy anything.
You clowns can't have it both ways.
On the one hand, you scream that Linux is beating Microsoft, and then turn around and whine about there being "no choice" in the software market, because Microsoft is too powerful.
You can't have a company being both "beaten" and "on the ropes" and "too strong" at the same time.
Make up your minds will you?
Isn't the official w3 recommendation to serve content based on a browser sniff?
If PNG alpha-transparency and CSS make the site look prettier, use them, and keep a degraded version of the site around for IE users.
Once IE users realise that they're missing out on eye candy, they'll be more likely to upgrade.
Any "upgrade" that doesn't take about, I dunno, 45MB out of the app is no progress in my opinion. A 65MB web browser (IE6) is just wrong!
If Microsoft has no developers assigned to that project then it isn't relevant to this discussion, since we're talking about why Microsoft would want to improve IE. They obviously don't want to improve MacIE since they abandoned it.
I think that makes my original point quite well. Want the latest IE? You (essentially) need Windows. Some weird geeks have managed to run it under Wine, but I don't think Microsoft has anything to worry about from that point of view for some time yet.
What version? Just loading slashdot.org?
Obviously, you are unique in this, since most people can access this page in Firefox. Please file a bug report.
That microsoft would rewrite IE again using dotnet instead of com technologies.
1. That jscript dotnet would be used for scripting
2. That all of dotnet framework would be made available for building apps - I know - not compliant etc - neither is their msxml support framework today.
3. That the legacy browser be left behind supporting the OS shell but move on with the new IE 7 or call it Solid Browser 1.0.
Dotnet is an excellent step forward. If ie sticks with COM (read root cause of all evil), here comes Firefox on corporate desktops.
IE for intranet. Firefox for internet.
we wouldn't be using hideously inefficient Carnot Cycle engines to run our vehicles
Just a small correction, the thermal cycle for piston engines is the Otto cycle, not Carnot.
Isn't it possible those programmers would be in violation of the GPL if they incorporated any of that code (even from memory) into IE but kept IE closed source?
Let's hope the IE 7 source code gets stolen so we can do some comparisons!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I don't know about mozilla as I am stricly opera and lazy but this is the url for my opera google search bar thingy.
http://www.google.com/search?q=test&sourceid=ope ra&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Notice the sourceid thing? So I think google knows exactly how many searches are done via opera.
The way I do it is implement a counter in my php or perl code. It even checks unique visitors so that 1 Mozilla user who keeps hitting reload doesn't skew the results. As said I doubt I am better then google.
Using httpd logs for this is wastefull, storing useragent string for every hit? Ouch, what have my harddrives ever done to you? I don't even record hits on images, just main page hits. If I don't filter it like mad I get logs running into gigs in hours. I think google draws a bit more traffic then me.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What a waste of time. We (and they) already know what people want in a browser. See the development for Firefox and Opera for a start.
I remember using HyperCard on my old Macintosh. I can believe that it inspired HTML. I don't think it could have *been* HTML. Correct me if my rememberance of HyperCard is wrong, but HyperCard stacks were big, too big to transfer at a reasonable speed over a modem. And they didn't run very quickly. And it was tied to specific platforms both for viewing and development, and tied to graphical rendering, whereas reasonably-written HTML can be human-read and written raw on any system that can convey text to the user.
Before I knew what the WWW was, and before I had learned any real programming concepts, I heard of the Internet and one of the things I first thought of was developing web applications using HyperCard (at about 11 years of age, when my family got a modem). I conceived in my mind HyperCard-based messaging system for my friends, for one thing, and started to build it (none of 'em had Macs, and I didn't know how to share stuff on the web, and it was a total mess because I didn't know how to do it properly, so I abandoned it). But looking back, I don't think that would have flown on the kind of computers we were using at that point.
MSIE 7 May Beat Longhorn Out The Gate
And Linux may beat shit out of Gates.
Whether this is good or not for the web depends very much on how serious these "improvements" are. Microsoft doesn't like web standards anymore, because it knows that standards are good for the underdog.
When I sell people on Firefox, features like tabbed browsing are big selling points. No one ever comes back to me and says, "Gosh, Chris, those obscure demos at meyerweb.com work great now, thanks!" because if they cared about standards, they'd already be using Firefox.
It's the tabs and the popup blocker that have managed to push IE usage on my site down to 12.6% (!), with the very pleasant side effect of me not having to mangle my markup. If IE gets those interface features before it gets real standards compliance, it may wind up being worse for developers, because people can get tabs in the browser that works with their online banking.
IE currently sucks with the following:
- CSS Support.
- GZip Support for js/css/xml resources.
- Debuggging model (no stack property/method of error)
- Unstable application model (way too optimized to be of any good)
- Total lack of JSConnect support
- Plug-in support (active-x bites).
I've been developing using Mozilla for my IE using employer for years now and will continue to do so.
I honestly don't think that MS will do any attempts to make DHTML work better. They just want another chance to obfuscate the world so they can invent a new way of doing things.
(stolen from a comic whos name I can't remember)...
What the people want? Fuck what the people want.
The people are stupid.
The people don't want tax cuts, they want NO TAXES.
The people want nickle drive-through beer stands!
Yeah, let's just base everything on WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT! Yeah, that will be a real good world to live in.
His excellent work fixes a _lot_ of shortcomings of IE before 7 to make it more standards compliant. Including all kinds of CSS selectors etc. and even PNG Alpha support. dean.edwards.name/IE7
During the IRC interviews, someone asked about it, and they revealed that the vast majority of browser hits come from IE. The stats used to be a public page but were removed.
WARNING LEVEL BROWN: OFFTOPIC! OFFTOPIC! OFFTOPIC! ;-)
Nothing is bug free for 100% of the time. As an engineer, you should understand that! My personal experiences with news journalists suggests that errors, personal biasses, and misunderstandings are common. In addition, sometimes the facts about an issue are hard to agree on (like the mini-debate in my article's comments about the relevance of 1%). Accurate and timely news is quite rare.
The only way to get extremely accurate news is to compare multiple sources, from multiple points of view, over a length of time. I think that cliche, "trust, but verify", usually applies.
Besides, your going a little overboard. Typos happen even in scholarly journals! This particular error didn't obfuscate the meaning of the article too much. Cut them some slack!
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
Dear Microsoft:
Check my Internet Explorer math:
2 little + 2 late = 2 bad = 4 u
Cordially,
Another Lost Customer
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Don't be fooled: IE6 will remain a pestulance for many years after IE7 debuts. There will be many people, influential people, who won't downloand IE7 because it's too big. Even if IE7 pulls some miracle and implements good CSS compliance, you're going to have to sense IE6 and below, and comensate for the damned thing.
Those lines are from a song, Nirvana's Lithium. The first song I learned to play on guitar, actually.
Sigh. "Of couse, some things could be done any other way." should be "Of course, some things couldn't be done any other way." Sometimes I amaze even myself....
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
Don't strut and fret upon the stage...
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
The "make your own browser" article linked in the parent describes how to put a new front end on the MSHTML engine... in other words, it tells you how to put your own skin on IE. Big deal.
Sean
I agree with most of what you say, but I disagree with this.
Microsoft's products may fail to display content to standards, but this isn't a usability disaster because the authors of the content go to great lengths to adjust it to "fit" Microsoft's products. The consequence is that the end user experience isn't hugely affected, at least in a direct way, as they still get the content that they wanted.
There's still a huge problem, though. Microsoft is a blatant beneficiary of the free rider problem: at the moment it doesn't have to be considerate because everyone else will make up for it's negligence anyway.
If you want to compel someone to use your upgrade you have to make a compelling case to do so. One plausible way is to create a browser that 'exploits' all sorts of new widgets that you can't fully use until you get the rest of the upgrade. Or plausibly another way would be to make all the security fixes inherent in the new browser more functional and more useful if and only if the rest of the upgrade is installed.
BTW I could care less about open source. I don't use it.
The problem with adding features willy-nilly to a product whose installed base make those features a de facto standard, is that you end up with shite and anticompetitive practices.
You haven't been following the Embrace-And-Extend issue, have you? Netscape was guilty of it, too. E&E criminals use what degree of monopoly they have to standardize shit like the blink tag, and try to make the competitors look bad because their products don't work with it.
The crap injected into the de facto standard is caused by scrambling to shut out the competition -- NOT FOR ACTUAL USEFULNESS. And the objective is to DENY COMPATIBILITY. You're a fool (this is a sincere maligning in the true sense of the word) if you think "little non-supported-by-other" features are added as nicities to delight the end users.
This scrambling to pollute widely-used protocols creates a confounding hodgepodge of incompatibility even between versions of the same product. If you start to do any real web development (which needs to work in multiple browsers), you'll understand better. But there are effects for even the most ignorant end users.
The idea behind standards bodies is to come to some kind of consensus on protocols and technologies that will coherently and well solve real problems. Then everyone can go out and build products that work together.
How about this instead? How about Microsoft simply contribute to the definition of standards and then adhere to them? What the fuck is wrong with that! I'll tell you, it's because Microsoft is interested instead in co-opting and polluting the standards as a means of anticompetitive attack. In the end it supports the monopoly, fucks the standards (which were developed to be beneficial to everyone), burdens the developers, and creates compatibility problems even for the end users. Who do you see winning in this scenario? NOT YOU. And not *reasonable* competition.
While I've been harsh, perhaps you are clearer and why it's a bad idea.
For more reading on E&E crime:
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.ph
How can bill sleep at night and all that IE revenue lost.
We'd better go and patent tabbed browsing....
Acutally this isn't funny they (Micrsoft) probably will!!!!!!!
No that's not what Zope is, it does not function in the manner I described at all.
I am amazed at the number of people who think it's likely I haven't heard of Zope or Wiki's and that they have the solution to this problem that provides someting thats actually equipvolent to the alternative paradigm I've put forth.
The current 'Content Management' systems are merely kludges in response to the glaring limiations in the current implimentation of web technology. It doesn't mean they are a bad thing, it's just that it's a bad thing that we even need to rely on them and to spend so much of our time developing them.
The entire point is the technology should be vastly better in the first place, rendering them irrelevent.
PS: My aplogies for sounding hostile, grumpy or ungreatful. I'm honestly not and do appreciate people are being helpful.
I already posted an admission (P.S. why was that moderated funny?) that my original link for "recent mass migration away from MSIE" should have referenced a different article (although that one has a typo). I goofed; I'm sorry!
And by "mass", I wasn't implying "majority". I agree that the market share decrease was small; however, the absolute number of switchers was very large compared with Mozilla.org's historical conversion rate. Hence, the adjective, "mass".
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
An standard is a common agreement (either by mutual negotiation or impossed by force) which allows all the relevant players in the same field to provide a certain service without reinventing the wheel.
When you don't have standards you end with things like competing systems doing exactly the same thing without adding any value to the people that use the different products.
Power plugs around the world are a wonderful example of this.
If MS was interested at all in helping web developers they will go to the recognized standards body and will propose the standard which surely would be approved immediately given the track record of MS innovating in the IT industry. Disk compression and web brosers come to mind.
But no, that is not MS style, they like to impose things, shoulder competition out of contention using their monopoly,
And in spite of those unethical tactics, they still get fanboys like you applauding their efforts to obliterate any hope of a sane IT industry.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
are they going to fix that dam bug where select boxes always have the highest z-index!!!
I am no developer so I dont know about the CSS compliance etc etc But IE is an extremely fast and good browser. But yeah it doesn't support tabbed browsing etc. Mozilla doesn't appeal me I just want a fast simple browser that works well on Windows. So I use a browser such as http://www.myie2.com/MYIE2 . Looking at all features in it, it seems to me that MSIE7 would nearly be the same as MYIE2
...bonch, er, Overly Critical Guy, uh, whatever it is you decide to call yourself this week.
Don't you ever learn your lesson? Nobody gives a flying fuck what you think about anything. It's clear that you're a Microsoft fanboi and a hater of all things Open Source. You also have a serious problem with telling the truth--so why don't you go crawl back into your troll hidey hole you stupid fucking moron?
I forgot. You enjoy lowering the signal-to-noise ratio around here. My bad.