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!"

Comments

Re:A quote:

[six11]

(MS guy) "The truth is that consumers aren't going to worry about things like CSS and PNG support," said Robert Iliad, a developer who is participating in the feedback process. "There are still millions of consumers using IE 5.5, so how are you going to get them to use IE 7.0 just because of some obscure thing called CSS?"

(Sebby) 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.

I think what Iliad is saying here is that consumers really don't care if their browser supports de facto fringe standards. I wish CSS and PNG support (as well as some stable ECMAScript, etc.) were supported, but that's not the name of the game. As long as MSN and Google and ESPN and Craigslist and Slashdot (insert longer list of highly traffiked web sites here) work in IE as-is, there is no reason for IE to change. And there is no reason for those sites to change unless IE changes. (Here I open myself up to charges that increased usage of other browsers like FireFox and Safari could force those sites to change... that's another discussion)

Until recently, security really wasn't an issue for typical web users. I've had people send me credit card information and passwords over standard email. I've pointed out to other people that the web form with which they're submitting their personal or financial information is not secure. I've always tried to get my friends and family to use other browsers because using IE just isn't safe. In all these cases, I generally get a vacant stare, because unless their credit card number is stolen, or somebody assumes their identity, they don't care. Those millions of users Iliad mentions are part of that vacant-stare category. Sure, if Microsoft had a corporate culture more like Google's, they would have internal pressure to fix these problems and be standards-compliant. But MS only feels the pressure when there are financial reasons for doing so.

Web developers would prefer to code web pages in one cross-platform, cross-browser syntax, but thanks to Microsoft's indifference in the matter, web developers have to endlessly tweak things so it looks OK in IE as well as whatever browsers their target audience may be using. Given that the target audience for most web sites are IE users, and given that proprietors of those commercial web sites are more interested in making money than some philosophical desire to be standards compliant, whatever MSIE supports becomes the standard.

Slashdotters know that universal support for CSS would be good. We also know that PNG is a legally pure image format. But in the world of PHB-controlled e-commerce sites and the typical demographic that visit their sites, PNG and universal CSS come second (or third, or forth, ...) to a host of other concerns. Those concerns are what Iliad are talking about.

In any event, it seems that the reason Microsoft is going to release 7.0 before Longhorn is because of security concerns. CSS and PNG aren't necessarily related to that.

Make your own browser

[$exyNerdie]

.....support for tabbed browsing.....

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

Re:Slashdot in Firefox

[BZ]

> (a) why this happens

It's an error in some min-width computation code in Gecko.

> (b) why it only happens occasionally

Because it's only an error in the incremental reflow code; if the initial layout happens early enough, the problem is not hit.

> (c) whether anyone is working on fixing it?

It's been fixed in trunk Gecko since April. It's not fixed on the stable Firefox branch yet, and probably won't be because the fix leads to problems of its own on some sites.

Re:Yeah

[chregu]

Do you mean something like the Mozilla ActiveX control?

And it works in IE like any other ActiveX (the webpage is not that clear as you can use the control in any Windows application), we did some tests for a project some months ago.

Mod Parent Up

[einhverfr]

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.