IE7 Details Emerge

Varg Vikernes writes "Microsoft Watch has a story about new features we can expect in IE7 (code named 'Rincon') which they gathered through Microsoft's key partners. Apparently we can expect 32 bit PNG support, native IDN support, new functionality that will simplify printing from inside IE and, of course, tabbed browsing. The new browser also will likely include a built-in news aggregator. Apparently an important factor is security."

Comments

security

[Eric Smith]

Apparently an important factor is security.

Though for real security, you'll have to wait for IE10, code named "Urysses".

Re:security

[stfvon007]

There concerned with security because other more secure browsers like firefox are becoming more populer. They want a more secure position for their market share. Microsoft can be innovative, but they only do so when outside factors that threaten their market share force them to be.

Re:security

[Pandora's Vox]

my concern here lies with the implementation of IDN support... a solution has not been found for the browsers that already implement it (other than turning it off - not a reasonable trade-off for those who want to use IDN sites).

the original idn exploit:
http://www.shmoo.com/idn/

unicode draft technical report on security and UTF8:
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr36/tr36-2. html

Re:security

[LiquidCoooled]

Actually, a fairly reasonable visual tradeoff could be to display all extended characters in a different color.

For instance, if the extended characters were displayed in purple, but the normal characters remained black, then you could continue using it, and KNOW that its a mixed domain.

Infact, just typing that gives another solution, have mixed domains (std and extended) come up in a totally different size/style.

That way, all normal domains look normal, and all extended domains also look normal, but those using a combination are glagged as such.

just a thought.

Re:Security

[welshbyte]

blocked ActiveX & Java by default was a good move

For the sake of accuracy, its ActiveX and Javascript, not Java, that were blocked by default. Any removal of Java from IE is going to come years in the future and is due to a court decision and a very relaxed attitude to the timescale by Sun. Getting back on topic, i don't think a simple browser should even have to worry about a thing like permissions. This should be done at a higher level closer to the OS. If security is an issue with IE they need to strip any security handling from IE and put it where its most effective.

Re:security

[Pandora's Vox]

that's a very reasonable way of doing it, but i wonder if maybe making the location bar a different colour as FireFox does for secure sites might be a better - in the sense of more obvious - solution.

it's kind of funny, though, how it is essentially our (as in the mostly-north-american-and-western-european readership of slashdot)'s lack of familiarity with the writing systems of the rest of the world that are getting us into this particular pickle.

add that to bad eyes from gazing into a CRT for too many hours, and designers with predelictions for ever-smaller fonts, and you have quite the character set predicament.

Re:security

[Grishnakh]

Microsoft can be innovative, but they only do so when outside factors that threaten their market share force them to be.

No, they can't; they've never shown this before.

What you're seeing now isn't innovation, unless you're using some alternate definition of the word. They're simply implementing features that already exist in other browsers. That's "copying".

They may be "performing well", but don't confuse that with "innovating". You can do a marvelous job at implementing someone else's ideas, but that doesn't make you an innovator.

Re:security

[LiquidCoooled]

I actually think it needs to be extended a little further. We could be on the right track with this, but certainly cannot be solved instantly (hence the delays in fixing within FF etc)

Its not just unicode wildly extended characters that need catering for, it is all characters which can be alternatives to standard characters.

We used to use full ascii, and unicode to allow us to have "normal" looking nicknames in the chatroom where I used to hang out, but still kept unique short names - for instance "liquid" can be entered as "líquíd".
To the passing eye, they are identical, but they have been modified.

At what point would you cut it off, and how would you determine the domain characteristics.

The original paypal.com example can be modified numerous times to similar effect.
paypál.com or paypa1.com.

If the bar changes too often, then the user will ignore it.
If it doesn't display often enough, then things will be missed.
Hence my original show the various types of characters in various colours (extended further)

Black = Normal flat 7bit text.
Blue = Numerics.
Red = 8 bit ascii.
Purple = extended Unicode.

You could even put a throbber on for mixed type domain words.
We cannot rule out colorblindness, so would have to come up with some alternative to cater.

Re:security

[ockegheim]

Don't knock "Urysses". He returned after after twenty years and almost single handedly killed all his wife's suitors. So if IE went to the wilderness a couple of years ago, say, the competing browsers will have a lot to worry about in ummm... 2023.

Re:security

[AlphaSys]

Pay attention. He said they *could* be innovative, not they *are* here. You're conflating the two. They have shown innovation (not all of it good, but nonetheless...).

Re:security

[snorklewacker]

So basically you want numerics to show up as the link color, unicode to show up as the visited link color, and you want people to just differentiate this stuff at a glance? Fabulous.

Maybe banks and other sites need to implement real goddam security instead of the rest of the net having to do it for them. Passmark, securid fobs, validators compiled into the client, something other than a bloody username and password.

Right now, these sites want us to authenticate to them, well how about them authenticating to us? Then I don't care how similar a domain name looks.

Re:security

[BitwizeGHC]

Fact: Microsoft has lots of money.

How many Alan Kays or Tim Berners-Lees could be hired with the immense pile of wealth they've reaped off the Windows/Office juggernaut? A lot. Lots of money means the potential to be hella innovative by hiring the right people.

In fact, Microsoft already has some top-notch researchers working for them (the inventor of Haskell, I believe, is among them) and they *could* turn that stuff into product; they choose not to for profitability and empire-maintenance reasons. Should their empire crumble they would by necessity go into shark mode: move forward (innovate) or die.

Re:security

[LiquidCoooled]

I agree wholeheartedly that secure sites should be secure, but I am attempting to put a voice to a simple idea.
Making changes to firefox or the browsers will surely be easier to impliment than going to each and every website out there and telling them to change all the code they have up there at the moment to something that hasn't been confirmed as globally viable to the customers.

Miss one site, and the spammers will hit that one.

The address bar is the only place in your browser that IS static, that IS a flat color. I'm not talking about coloring the links as they are displayed on the page, but in the address bar at the top.

I want to be proactive and give myself a fighting chance at not being a victim.
I don't personally do much financial stuff online, and certainly not without checking the company out first, my idea just allows ME to instantly identify a possible problem at a glance.

Re:security

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't the people. Microsoft hires smart people, from the creator of the Delphi programming language or an ACM graphics genius. (The C# has nothing on Java or Delphi *cough*.) The problem is the work environment. It is not a suitable research ground for these bright new hires. Somehow, these brilliant people don't continue the research they love and are instead guided by the opinions of marketroids and other less-talented idiots. Instead of researching and developing ideas that could eventually revolutionize the industry, these people end up forced to develop lack-luster gimmicy software that will end up as fads. These products may turn a short-term profit but will not withstand the test of time.

Re:security

[superyooser]

That is a not a good solution.

Re:security

[Pandora's Vox]

right on topic: bruce shneier, my favourite security wonk, just wrote a great piece about the failure of two-factor identification, especially when it comes to fishing. a very worthwhile read, as is all his stuff that i've read :-)

Re:security

[Pandora's Vox]

as in "backed into a corner", one might suppose :-)

Re:security

[garroo]

IE? Security? Does this mean they are ripping ActiveX from the browser/engine?

How long before a Mozilla-based browser gives me the ability to rip out MSHTML from the OS!?!?

That's what I'm talking about! Security through OS modification!

Now, if we can only get the Mozilla folks to abandon the idiotic name "SeaMonkey" and call it something cool, like OpenMozilla.org.

Hell, while they're at it, why not make composer into a fully fledged Word Processor. We need another of those, right? no?

I digress. I seriously don't see how MSIE v.whatever can ever be considered secure, so long as they retain ActiveX and non-standard rendering.

Re:security

[gad_zuki!]

> empire-maintenance

As a side note, I wouldnt use the word "empire" when not referring to government. The MS situation isn't pretty, but its hardly geopolitics regardless of how strongly geeks identify with the issue.

On a more related note, yes, MS isn't so much a software company as a monopoly maintaning machine. Certain changes and innovations that could potentially hurt its monopoly status get tossed out the window and fast. This is also why so many talented people dont work as MS. MS's R&D department isn't comparable to other companies that court talent like this and the talent knows their work will be for nothing unless it actively helps lock customers into the MS-only path. At least in general.

As far as the "empire crumbling," well, I personally doubt they'll become more innovative. I would think they would become more restrictive. Less interoperability, more proprietary stuff, etc to keep their customers to keep from hemorraging more.

Case in point: IE7

First off, it wasnt supposed to happen. Now its happening.

Secondly, its still IE. We're not seeing MS, say, announce that activeX wont be supported in x amount of years. Even though it would be in everyone's interest if the activeX system was dropped in a planned fashion because of abuse and because its pretty much not needed when you consider what Java and web services can do. But its not going away. In fact its tied into the uber-critical windows update page. This is typical MS monopolistic control.

MS can and will only go further down the proprietary spectrum. More activation stuff, more big discounts if your organization goes all MS, more big discounts if you dont sell competing OS's, more embrace/extend/extinguish, etc.

Re:security

[AhBeeDoi]

Money != Innovation

If the next version of IE comes out with tabbed browsing, pop up blocking and support for cascading style sheets, would you call that innovation? I would call it a monopolist trying to play catch up after being caught flat footed and unprepared for real competition after leveling Netscape.

If history repeats itself, MS's contribution to "innovation" will be in the form of MS only extensions designed to lock out all other competing products. There are still a number of IE only sites on the web. And don't be surprised if MS files with the US Patent Office to protect their "innovative" IP.

Re:security

[sp5]

The question is will they take any steps to separate IE from the OS?

They would have gains in the security by doing so, but at the expense of possibly losing their strangle hold on what 95% of users use to browse the web. (I wonder which is more important to Microsoft?)

From a sys admin perspective tying the browser to the OS scares me. I'll patch it up completely (critical, important patches) but I'm always wary of IE updates because it a partial OS update too... what system files does IE want to poke around with? And what will break?

Lastly, why are they turning their backs on Windows 2000? Surely they can make IE 7 available to that OS too... if Win5.2 (Win2003 Server) and 5.1 (WinXP) can get it, surely Win5.0 (Win2000) should be able to.

-sp-

Re:security

[Lew Pitcher]

FWIW, I'm of the opinion that this "IDN exploit" that shmoo.com publisized has been overblown. While I agree that the "exploit" is certainly serious, I do not concur that it is isolated to IDN. Instead, the "exploit" is common to all DNSname processing.

With the right (or wrong) font, http://slashdot.org/ and http://s1ashdot.org/ look like the same URL. But they are not. And neither of these two URLs are expressed in IDN.

The key is that the two URLs look alike, and this is an exposure with all URLs.

So, is IDN at fault for the shmoo.com "exposure"? No, since the "exposure" exists without the use of internationalized URLs.

Re:security

[aichpvee]

They've definitely got innovative ideas about getting market share and holding on to it. Put out a crappy product and still own the market? Who else can innovate like that?

Re:security

[wheany]

How about this: http://koti.mbnet.fi/wheany/phish/

Hover over the colored letters. Works in Opera and Firefox. You could add some kind of "Do not warn about this domain ever again" to the UI.

Re:security

[golgotha007]

Why do you think MS is waiting so long before releasing a product to compete with Firefox? It's all about business tactics.

You see, MS knows that if their browser contains all of the same features as a third part browser, they will regain market share, and fast. Their browser is already included in the operating system. Why should someone like my father go out of his way to download and install a peice of software when it's already included in his OS?

MS wants to be the underdog in this deal. They don't care about losing web browser market share. They are confident that when they finally release a browser that contains similar features to the leading third party browser that they will win over the market again (like with Netscape).

Right now, they are slowly becoming the underdog in the web browser market. Just think of the headlines they will make as their new IE7 begins to redominate the web browser market. Think of the happy investors that see MS gaining ground again.

MS is making a bold move; they just might pull this off. If they do, it's win/win for them.

Re:security

[orasio]

As a side note, I wouldnt use the word "empire" when not referring to government. The MS situation isn't pretty, but its hardly geopolitics regardless of how strongly geeks identify with the issue.


Bill Gates tried to talk Brazil president Lula into changing his government decisions.
Of course, he didn't even agree to a meeting, but that has some resemblance of someone seeking world domination.

Re:security

[stonecypher]

Why not? It's common.

You really should look a word up before criticizing someone else's use thereof. The word empire has nothing to do with government. The word empire, from emperor, from old french empéror, from latin imperatorium's nominative imperiator, is not a governmental title at all. The word means "commander," and was adopted only after conferred by a vote of the Roman military onto a successful general. There could be more than one imperator at once, until Julius and then Augustus adopted the title as a show of solidarity with the military, presumably to secure loyalties. Note that Tiberius and Claudius rejected the title after Julius and Augustus had taken it on; as military they felt it needed to be earned.

The title "emperor" was applied to Asian monarchs by the West during the middle ages specifically because it was not a royal title, but rather a military one; the issue was to suggest that the Asian monarchs did not have the royal blood which at the time was seen as a semi-holy thing in Europe (qv. divine right, etc;) it was in essence a way to exclude Asian monarchs from "royalty" by word use.

With respect, the word "empire" does not apply to most countries. An empire is not a large country, but something acquired and held by conquest. The United States is arguably an empire thanks to the Spanish American war, but the term is typically applied to territory acuired mostly through conquest instead of in small part, such as was the case with Russia (the original nation) and the USSR, with Britain and Portugal and the European colonial powers, with ancient Egypt and Rome and Macedon, with feudal Japan and ancient China and Mongolia, the Aztec empire, and so forth. By contrast, you would not apply these terms to Canada, to the Inca, to non-WW2 Germany, etc.

With that observation, it becomes quite clear that the word "empire" does in fact apply quite well to some financial institutions - particularly those characterized by hostile takeover, marginalizations, and so forth.

So, basically...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Firefox... from last year?

Re:So, basically...

[rpozz]

It doesn't need to be any better than Firefox - it just needs to be sufficiently good enough for 'normal' people not to want to bother with using another browser.

This, is why a monopoly shouldn't be allowed to bundle software.

Re:So, basically...

[Tim C]

id rather use netscape navigator from 5 years ago

I actually used NN 5 years ago. It was a buggy, slow, crash-prone piece of shit that couldn't handle even moderately complex nested tables without slowing to an absolute crawl and needed to reload the entire page to resize it(!), and I speak as a former ardent Netscape user (I have *never* used IE as my primary browser).

I'd rather user IE6 than NN 3/4 if I had to choose; it's simply not worth that much pain.

Re:So, basically...

[mzieg]

It's Firefox... from last year?

Minus Linux support...minus Mac support...minus AdBlock...

When you add it all up, it does cast rather a negative light on things.

Re:So, basically...

[naylor83]

Yes, I believe NetCaptor was first with tabs.

Re:So, basically...

[dextr0us]

So... i'm against MS as much as every other *nix lover out there, but how do you reasonably define a monopoly?

Verichat, a well known app for palmos and blackberry handhelds, might be getting undercut by t-mobile when t=mo releases updates for the blackberry. Essentially, they'd be doing a similar thing to bundling software. That is anti-competitive... isn't it? So how is a company able to bundle software? Are there a set of "ethical" bundling practices established?

I'm not trolling, or even being sarcastic, but as I was thinking about this, I didn't understand how anyone can logically bundle software without running into these anti-competitve issues.

Re:So, basically...

[rpozz]

It's not that making a product that's good enough is a monopoly, its that as long as a bundled product is reasonably acceptable, the laziness of the normal user means that other companies don't get much of a chance to compete, even by producing a better product.

Re:So, basically...

[rpozz]

Well, you're right, it's a difficult question. But I think it's quite clear that Microsoft is a monopoly, and that when they bundle products, it stops other companies competing with similar products. Let's face it, what they did to Netscape was not right, by any stretch of the imagination.

Re:So, basically...

[TrappedByMyself]

Brilliant isn't it?
Firefox becomes a research and development team for Microsoft. And since the open source community won't patent their stuff, MS is free to steal the ideas that worked.

When it arrives, IE7 will be praised by the press as a step into the future.

Re:So, basically...

[Moofie]

No, when they're a monopoly, they shouldn't be allowed to bundle anything.

Re:So, basically...

[Moofie]

Umm, Slashdot is not a person. It doesn't have an opinion. There's no "you".

There is no hive mind.

I happen to be opposed to software patents. Other people might have a different opinion. That doesn't make Slashdot hypocritical.

Re:So, basically...

[op12]

Even if that is true, that means Firefox will always be a step ahead of Microsoft in the browser game.

Re:So, basically...

[noidentity]

And since the open source community won't patent their stuff, MS is free to steal the ideas that worked.

*cough*OpenOffice*cough

You mean Firefox is going to have these features removed??

Re:So, basically...

[keytoe]

Dammit, people - can't you see that it's working?! Microsoft is having to compete! Even if that competition is just bringing their browser up to par, they're still competing. Mozilla does it's job simply by existing and is now to the point where it has forced Microsoft to play catch up.

Saying that the whole Mozilla effort hasn't been given a chance to compete is simply bogus. They have succeeded in creating a growing market of converts and forced a convicted monopolist to get up and respond. That sounds like competition to me.

It doesn't have to be 50-50 to be competitive.

Re:So, basically...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Opera could have chosen to go down the route of clobbering the competition (including Firefox) by patenting everything it developed and then enforcing those patents vigourously. It could have ensured that its product was superior than the rest by this method, but it chose not to because it favours competing in its market on merit rather than on points of law.

Now, I don't know about you but I think this is commendable, especially as Opera has to make a profit from its browser whereas the majority of its competitors (MSIE, Firefox, Safari, etc) do not and are either subsidised or supported by donations.

I agree with you that software patents are a bad idea but I'm afraid that they're the reality of the world that we live in. Most companies wouldn't (and don't) hesitate to use software patents to their advantage. Opera choses not to go down that route and, in this day and age, I find that highly commendable.

Re:So, basically...

[returnoftheyeti]

I cant belive this didn't get modded down.

How to downlad a web browser without a webbrowser.
1) start/run/cmd
2) ftp
3) open ftp.mozilla.org
4) anonymous/getaclue@slashdot.org
5) cd pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.0.1/win32/en-US
6) get firefoxsetup.exe

Wow! No I just got a web browser, without using a web browser.

Re:So, basically...

[gad_zuki!]

>And since the open source community won't patent their stuff, MS is free to steal the ideas that worked.

Oh, like tabs? Predates firefox.

Oh perhaps pop-up blocking. Predates firefox.

Maybe that little info bar in FF 1.0. Whoops, that was shamelessly copied ffrom IE SP2.

First off, Firefox isnt all that original, its just a good implementation. Secondly, its the LACK of patents that keep Mozilla going. Imagine if Netcaptor (or whoever it was) got a patent on tabbed browsing. Whoops. You think they'd politely share? Yeah right. Not to mention, if the OSS did patent stuff, then it would kinda defeat the purpose of going open source. No OSS developer has the ideological spirit to turn down a million dollar check from MS, not to mention most OSS developers arent going to drop 5 grand down for a patent and defend it (more legal fees!) because they felt like making and sharing some software. Goes against the whole DIY and share approach.

Re:So, basically...

[snilloc]

Not in the true sense of competition. On the economic front, they crushed their main opposition (Netscape) and relegated Opera (and any others that I can't think of) to a very minor role.

Their "competition" from Moz is a charity case from AOL, the Moz people, and maybe a few general-population contributors, with most outsiders contributing no more than bug reports. Opera is minor in the desktop market, being forced into embedded/portable stuff, and STILL has to give away an ad-supported version for free.

The long and the short of it is that nobody can make money on browsers, and MS can ensure that ninety-whatever percent of desktops have IE installed.

Interesting Codename...

[Megaslow]

rincon is Spanish for "corner"... Perhaps a not-so-Freudian-slip on what they want to do to the browser market?

It will be interesting to see what else (other than tabbed browsing & RSS aggregation) will be "inspired" by Firefox and other browers, say perhaps, easy plugins and themes?

Re:Interesting Codename...

[papercrane]

Or it could be that they're trying to *turn* a corner and do things right.

Of course, we all know that will never happen.

Re:Interesting Codename...

[Rude Turnip]

Microsoft likes to use codenames based upon the names of mountains. XP was Whistler for instance. There is a "Rincon" mountain range in Arizona.

Re:Interesting Codename...

[mzieg]

"Cornering" can connotate "fast and nimble handling," as well as "exceptional stability," when used in the context of cars.

Not that I anticipate that in this case...

Re:Interesting Codename...

[zumajim]

I hope they change the codename so I don't end up associating IE with my favorite surf spot in Santa Barbara. I'd prefer another oil spill to that.

Re:Interesting Codename...

[ackthpt]

Microsoft likes to use codenames based upon the names of mountains. XP was Whistler for instance. There is a "Rincon" mountain range in Arizona.

Hmm..

St. Helens, Vesuvius, Etna, Krakatoa...

'hey, this security really blows!'

Re:Interesting Codename...

[marcansoft]

Actually, it does. Corner proper is "esquina", but "rincon" is the word you would use for a small place near a corner (on an interior) or so. "Turn a corner" would be "doblar una esquina" (although "doblar" is closer to "fold" than "turn", but that's just the way the phrase is). "To corner" does exist as "arrinconar" (verb form of "rincon")

Re:Interesting Codename...

[Tumbleweed]

I'd vote for St Helens...cuz it's gonna look like ash.

Re:Interesting Codename...

[eturro]

I think you'll find Megaslow was referring to "cornering" the market, not "turn a corner".

Re:Interesting Codename...

[rebelcool]

a ski slope in canada.

hmmm

[eobanb]

an important factor is security

well, that's never stopped them before...

Re:hmmm

[buswolley]

Perhaps if slashdot just ignored Microsoft for awhile Microsoft would go away.

Secure

[ackthpt]

Apparently we can expect 32 bit PNG support, native IDN support, new functionality that will simplify printing from inside IE and, of course, tabbed browsing. The new browser also will likely include a built-in news aggregator. Apparently an important factor is security."

Yes, it will feature the reintroduction of Clippy, who will be wearing a policeman's hat, of appropriate costume for your region (e.g. uk get a bobbies hat) Clippy will also take certain cues from the current political climate...

It looks like you wanted to visit some heathen site unassociated with Microsoft, you would like to do the following:

Return to MSN

Remove all related items from cache

Submit your bookmarks for review

Block all futher access to [www.google.com]

[YES] [OK]

"and don't let me catch you installing any other browser or it's the clink for you!"

Re:Secure

[sTalking_Goat]

and don't let me catch you installing any other browser or it's the clink for you!

Can I go to the Hoosegow? I hear they have better facilities.

Security?

[A beautiful mind]

"Apparently an important factor is security."

We've heard this many times. Let's just wait for it and then make claims.

Re:Security?

[ackthpt]

"Apparently an important factor is security." We've heard this many times. Let's just wait for it and then make claims.

Security is claimed as a top priority for many things, by many people for varying reasons.

ActiveX (nuff said)

Personal information in the hands of CALPERS, ChoicePoint, Nevada DMV, Nexis Lexis, et al.

T-mobile Sidekick

Unguarded ammo dumps hundreds of miles from oil fields

In all cases security has had problems and some spokesperson states the obvious, that "security is very important to us", but leaving out, "before the sh!t hits the fan."

In short, it pays to be vague. Who'd trust you or give your their money if you came out up front and said, "Nope, no better than a hen house built over a foxes den."

Microsoft has finally been forced to innovate

[msully4321]

Since they crushed Netscape, Microsoft has not had to improve their browser any significant amount. It seems the threat from Firefox is forcing them to innovate and improve in a market they once took for granted.

Re:Microsoft has finally been forced to innovate

[fm6]

Firefox is not so much a threat (its market share is still tiny) as an embarassment. It's evidence that Microsoft is way behind in figuring out what kind of software people need and getting it out the door. That's always been an issue (remember how many versions of MS-DOS shipped without a decent text editor?) but when they screw up with something as conspicuous as a web browser, people notice.

Re:Microsoft has finally been forced to innovate

[RoadWarriorX]

It seems the threat from Firefox is forcing them to innovate and improve in a market they once took for granted.

Have you RTFA? Tabbed browsing, IDN support, RSS news aggregator all available in Firefox in some form. So, where exactly is the innovation? Possibly anti-spyware integration??? That's like a mouse setting a mouse trap for itself.

Additionally, Microsoft's "improvement" is really their way of saying that they are now in "catch up" mode.

I don't mean to flame you, but customers should not look forward to the next version of IE in six months or so, when they can get virtually the same features today with Firefox.

All I need to say is "Why Even Bother".

Re:Microsoft has finally been forced to innovate

[dankow]

remember how many versions of MS-DOS shipped without a decent text editor?

Yeah, and I also remember when Windows ME shipped without a decent operating system.

Apparently an important factor is security?

[Bnonn]

No kidding eh...

Are they basing it on the IE6 code? If so, why? If they're completely rebuilding the Windows code for Longhorn, wouldn't it be smart to do the same with IE?

printing

[Phil246]

"new functionality that will simplify printing from inside IE"
in other words, theyve fixed it so printing from IE isnt as retarded?
how hard can it be to print a page without chopping parts off

Re:printing

[Rude Turnip]

A print preview mode like Firefox has would be nice. That way, if you need to print only certain pages of a large document (like a Form 10-K) you can specify with ease which pages you'd like to print.

Lets not forget..

[Renraku]

Lets not forget about the OS-crippling bugs and security holes big enough to drive a DVD-full of arbitary code through.

many useful features...

[nick-less]

but nearly one will ever install it unless MS forces them via autoupdate...
I bet I IE5 and IE6 will still annoy us for many many years...

Re:many useful features...

[Patrick Mannion]

many many many years. It's really annoying when IE5 popups and forces you to sign up for MSN when I format my HD reinstalling the annoying Windows Me. Then, I set it up and I have to download Firefox, then sometimes I have to switch over to IE for some websites that don't work well with Firefox and then the crappy Windows Update comes up and rubs IE 6 in your face, and you have to seperately download the damn thing. I'm just glad this is only XP-wise, I don't want to be force-fed another IE.

from the article...

[jotux]

"The first beta of IE 7.0 isn't expected for a few more months."

Does it really take than long to download firefox, change the spinning icon in the top right corner, and relabel it IE 7?

Re:from the article...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

It's not really that easy. They have to backport all the security holes form IE6 until it passes a regression test :)

Name change for IE7

[Matt Perry]

I guess that IE7 will have to change its name.

And about MS's product: I just hope they fix all their CSS issues and add support for CSS 3.

Security

[Swamii]

Apparently an important factor is security.

Good for them, it's about time. SP2 was a step in the right direction: blocked ActiveX & Java by default was a good move. I'll be interested in seeing how they deal with .NET applets that want to elevate permissions. I know that .NET code is sandboxed over the web, but from what I've read, it seems they plan on allowing permission elevations via a single click from the user. Let's hope they really focus on security and really lock down all non-verifiable 3rd party code being run through the browser.

I thought...

[kryogen1x]

I think I remember someone from MS saying that their users don't want tabbed browsing, therefore IE will not get tabbed browsing.

I guess he's wrong.

Re:I thought...

[kryogen1x]

Hate to reply to myself, but here's the article

From the Article:

"English reiterated that features such as tabbed browsing are not important to IE users."

Not too keen on Standards

[PineHall]

Partner sources say Microsoft is wavering on the extent to which it plans to support CSS2 with IE 7.0.

Microsoft still wants to be the one to set the standards

Built-in news aggregator

[SlashThat]

Built-in news aggregator = Advertising platform?

Great News!!!

[NerdConspiracy]

Mmmmm, can't wait... tabbed browsing...png support...and printing too! And they are even considering supporting CSS!

How come nobody else could think of those features until now? Well done Microsoft!

This sounds great but...

[bmw]

Is anyone else screaming WHAT ABOUT CSS?! IE is the single largest reason I don't enjoy doing web development. If they could somehow manage to actually support some accepted standards (other than their own) it would make life oh so much better for all of us.

Re:This sounds great but...

[Khomar]

Is anyone else screaming WHAT ABOUT CSS?!

This was mentioned in the article, and it is not exactly great news:

Partner sources say Microsoft is wavering on the extent to which it plans to support CSS2 with IE 7.0. Developers have been clamoring for Microsoft to update its CSS support to support the latest W3C standards for years. But Microsoft is leaning toward adding some additional CSS2 support to IE 7.0, but not embracing the standard in its entirety, partners say.

Which features are they not going to support? Given my experience with them, it will probably be the very ones that I would actually like to use. :-) Why is it that they are so loathe to adopt standards? Is their code that flaky, or is it truly their monopolistic tendencies?

Re:This sounds great but...

[LichP]

Actually, IE6 in strict mode, although still heinous, is reasonably good in terms of CSS. The box model is largely OK, although not entirely without faults. The floats model is still a bit buggered though, with various spurious margin bugs and soforth. Overall, IE6 in strict mode is sufficiently functional that cross-browser development is for the most part fairly straightforward, unlike IE6 in quirks mode, where the broken box model makes life hideously dificult.

If they can get strict mode cleaned up for IE7, sort out the doctype switching to allow for XML declarations, recognise the XHTML MIME type, and generally get the CSS implementation properly in line with CSS2.1, then things will be good.

I find it a little ironic that much of the CSS work has already been done within the Microsoft camp in the form of IE5 for the Mac, which in my experience has the most CSS2 compliant rendering engine of all the major browsers (excluding Opera, which I have practically no experience with). It's certainly the case that Gecko and KHTML lean much more towards the more practical CSS2.1, and sometimes oddities in CSS2 can actually spring the odd surprise in their manifestation within IE5 Mac.

Re:This sounds great but...

[dwoolridge]

In the mean time, Dean Edwards gives us the gift.

Re:This sounds great but...

[mpcooke3]

Perhaps some of CSS2 requires updating the windows widgets to support more styling effects - I could see that being a bit of a pain.

Anyway realistically they only need to improve IE enough to supress firefox growth. I'm sure they don't really care that much about CSS support. For advanced web-applications they'd much rather people use the proprietary Avalon stuff soon to be released in 2009*.

(* Give or take a few years)

Factor this...

[dallask]

When MS says that "an important factor is security" what their really saying is "We know the linux community will rigorusly test our product and find our bugs for us... when they do, we'll fix those bugs immidiately... or at least in a few months."

xp/2003 only?

[nurb432]

So is this when they finally cut off ( and piss off ) all the *millions* of users that still have 98/NT/2000?

Users that cant upgrade unless they get newer hardware. Users that know what they have now does the job and have resisted the 'upgrade scam'.

Re:xp/2003 only?

[optimus2861]

So is this when they finally cut off ( and piss off ) all the *millions* of users that still have 98/NT/2000?

To be fair to MS, 98 and NT are already past their mainstream support phases if you look at their support site Linky. However, in the case of 2000, you're dead-on; it's really taken the shaft compared to XP, even though it's still in its mainstream support phase until the end of June. No back-port of any of the XP security changes made for SP2, and of course no back-port for this either. Puts the lie to that "mainstream support" claim, doesn't it?

I'll be the first to Admit

[Deliveranc3]

Firefox is done.

We had 5 years of Microsoft laziness to inovate and take over and we blew it. We suck.

I will still use Opera, and I guess we can wait for security holes again... but they stole our tabbed browsing. It's all over people.

Re:I'll be the first to Admit

[camcorder]

Untill IE7 will have support for FireFox extensions, firefox won't be done.
For me, tabbed browsing is not a major goodie for firefox, but it's adblock, spurl.net extension, foxytunes, dictionary search and alot more. And three of them does not have any equivalent for IE and not even opera.
What makes firefox strong is the extensibility and the open source, which made it browser of all time.

Re:I'll be the first to Admit

[mbier]

but they stole our tabbed browsing. It's all over people.

Now, now. Throwing around "theft" so carelessly diminishes the charge when it is really warranted. Opera had tabs before Firefox--did that mean that Opera was done when Firefox came out? Should browser vendors ignore such innovations? IE7 doesn't mention lots of good things including skins, extensions, and lean code. Many doubt the security as well--but nobody can know anything about that for a fact since the code doesn't exist. Firefox is only "over" if the developers working on it give up.

Re:I'll be the first to Admit

[womby]

Opera. I cannot tell you if Opera had tabbed browsing before we had tabbed text editors and tabbed terminals in KDE but it was long before Mozilla.

Re:I'll be the first to Admit

[mbier]

Opera. http://tinyurl.com/6x9mm

"The browser [Netscape 7 Preview Release 1] also includes two features first seen in Opera: tabbed windows and a one-click search."

Correction

[springbox]

IE6 (and 5) already support 32-bit PNGs, but they don't render them correctly. The browser draws them over the background color saved in the file instead of the page for some reason, although they got it right with the transparent color in GIFs!

The article says PNG "transparency" but it's actually opacity or translucency. Sorry.

In related news

[NoGuffCheck]

MS to register the trademark "I337" Internet Explorer Edition Seven.

They better not!

[the_skywise]

" it seems they plan on allowing permission elevations via a single click from the user"

How many security violations have there been already by the simple "A script is accessing some software (an ActiveX control) on this page which has been marked safe for scripting. Do you want to allow this?"

[YES]

SPYWARE INSTALLED YOU HAVE B33N 0WNED LUZ0R!!!

In other news...

[jotux]

Though the beta of IE 7 will not be released for several months, there are already 3 secutiry patches for the browser which microsoft strongly recommends you install.

Entire damn thread is Redundant.

[winterdrake]

If they want me to care about IE7, they're going to need to give me something that Firefox doesn't already give me more of. They could start with Adblock...that much at least is required before they're even under consideration.

Microsoft seems to be having trouble lately with new products actually doing something new. Longhorn for example - what exactly is supposed to be new in that again? They had three things they were hyping, none of which was terribly revolutionary to start with, and all of which have since been dropped or will be available (eventually) as an upgrade to existing OSes.

Innovate???

[Horrortaxi]

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say they'll innovate. Innovate means they will break new ground and offer something you haven't seen before. They'll offer what all the other browsers have had for 2 years and that's it. No innovation, just keeping up with the Jonses. Now maybe they'll have some innovative marketing plan or some innovative predatory practices that will allow them to rincon the browser market again. That's where Microsoft really innovates.

Rincon?

[game kid]

That's where my dad was born! Sweet (bitterly of course with IE's reputation).

What one should be scared of is the "IE 7.0 will feature international domain name (IDN) support" part -- can an IE user disable it like Firefox has (should he desire to use IE of course) before someone *ahem*rincóns them with a bad IDN?

This is all they need to do to maintain dominance

[winkydink]

Implement many new browser features that have caught on in Opera, Mozilla & Firefox. Secure it up a little. As long as its bundled with the operating system, and they pay a little lip service in the press to improved security, Joe User will continue taking the path of least resistance, i.e., IE (pun intended)

Re:Not being an IE User

[kryogen1x]

Let me get this straight. You're asking Slashdot if IE is good?

Re:nice code name

[Anonymous Coward]

What? that's spanish for "corner".

And it's "Lincoln" in Korean.

Getting rid of the surprize factor

[ad0gg]

"Sources say that IE 7.0 - which is code-named "Rincon," they hear - will be a tabbed browser."

Wonder if Microsoft will pull an Apple and sue Microsoft Watch. Seriously think about it, information on MS products are leaked on to the web everyday.

Re:Getting rid of the surprize factor

[Locke2005]

Seriously think about it, information on MS products are leaked on to the web everyday.Heck, occasionally even MS source code is leaked on to the web...

However, since Microsoft's modus operandi is to pre-announce products themselves many years in advance to discourage competitors from coming up with competing products, I doubt if they would get upset about anybody pre-announcing features. Bear in mind that feature set can and will change in the final release...

Re:Getting rid of the surprize factor

[Absentminded-Artist]

As far as I understood it, Apple isn't suing the sites for what they printed. Apple is suing those three sites for access to the names/emails of the people who broke their NDAs because those sites refused to turn over the names on their own volition. The issue is centered around trade secrets and Apple's right to keep them secret in order to stay competitive vs. the rumor sites right to free speech.

what about the real important stuff....

[MoFoQ]

what about the real important stuff....like real RFC and W3C compliance and not "pseudo"?
Examples: digest authentication is not implemented correctly in IE hence most webservers use a work-around to make it work, which also happens to make it not be truly digest authentication...or the fact that if u gzip-encode all files and you have zip files, IE will convienently forget that the zip file was gzipped, leaving a file that most zip programs like Windows own built-in Zip Folders can't handle (WinRAR will correctly ungzip it before processing the zip file).

Of course, alpha-blending support for PNG would be nice...as well as CSS2 support (for those dynamic pulldown menus that can be done purely in CSS).

FF killer.

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Well, they are looking for (and will likely succeed in building) a FF killer. Doesn't look good...

Re:FF killer.

[bmw]

If Microsoft can manage to put together a browser that is even half as good as anything Mozilla based then I will be happy. Nothing is going to completely kill Firefox anyway but nothing is going to dethrone IE as the world's main browser either until Windows is not the defacto standard for a desktop computer. So I personally would prefer MS did put out a quality browser regardless of how it hurts Firefox's market share. Oh and for the record I absolutely despise Microsoft.

Re:FF killer.

[A beautiful mind]

It's ff killer only if it runs on linux and bsd (seriously).

Linux is slowly, but certainly gaining ground, so will alternative browsers.

CSS2 or Fight!

[fm6]

Partner sources say Microsoft is wavering on the extent to which it plans to support CSS2 with IE 7.0. Developers have been clamoring for Microsoft to update its CSS support to support the latest W3C standards for years. But Microsoft is leaning toward adding some additional CSS2 support to IE 7.0, but not embracing the standard in its entirety, partners say.

We have got to find a way to make MS fully support CSS2. Hold Bill and Melinda's cat hostage or something. It's a trivial amount of effort on their part, that would make life a lot easier for web developers.

Re:CSS2 or Fight!

[sootman]

"We have got to find a way to make MS fully support CSS2."

Make'em support CSS 1 first.

All I want is standards compliance.

[stephenisu]

No more, no less.. OK, and tabs. And maybe some decent plugins.. and maybe.. Nah, screw it. I'll just keep messing with Firefox.

Re:Help me understand

[Lehk228]

So, I'm confused. Does this mean that they add features that people don't want?

MS has been including features people didn't want for a long time now.

Like death and taxes

[b_w_duncan]

How long before they have patent on tabbed browsing?

Re:Not Totally

[bmw]

My ignorant boss is still going to want me to support all the way back to Netscape 4.

Ya know... such a decision may not be entirely based in ignorance although I don't doubt that your boss is in fact ignorant (most are). There will always be people using old systems and software and those of us that want our stuff to be available to a wide audience will always be stuck supporting it. Hell, even Microsoft has a huge problem with this. A lot of the broken stuff in their products remains broken not because they don't know about it or don't want to fix it. It remains broken because people come to depend on this behavior because they've already encountered it and have had to work around it. This is just the nature of software development I'm afraid.

Um...WTFN?

[bonch]

No so fast. IE7 still won't be standards-compliant. That won't matter to most end-users, of course, but it matters to me as a web developer.

From article:

Partner sources say Microsoft is wavering on the extent to which it plans to support CSS2 with IE 7.0. Developers have been clamoring for Microsoft to update its CSS support to support the latest W3C standards for years. But Microsoft is leaning toward adding some additional CSS2 support to IE 7.0, but not embracing the standard in its entirety, partners say.

My only question is...um, why the fuck not? Even Apple's Safari is already plunging ahead with preliminary CSS3 support.

I predict IE7's "additional support for CSS2" will really just mean fixing the major box model and table width bugs and not changing anything else.

Re:Um...WTFN?

[rainman_bc]

Browsers like KTHML, Galleon, Safari, Opera and Firefox can try as they might to implement new standards. If 90% of the market doesn't support them, web developers can't use them.

Not only that, but even today, some companies still force Nutscrape 4 support - a six year old browser IIRC.

I've been absolutely pining for improved css2 support so we can use css selectors. It'd make a lot of tasks much simpler if we were able to use all the css selectors available in the spec.

Re:Um...WTFN?

[wootest]

Actually, IE's box model will *currently* - in IE6 - change when put into standards mode, meaning you have one of a few (hardcoded?) doctypes at the top of your page (omitting any xml prologues). It doesn't even have to validate, just carry the correct doctype. Sadly, I agree with the rest of your comment, including the * html bug, which I hope they leave in. That or invent conditional comments for CSS.

Re:Um...WTFN?

[ff1324]

Like it'll make a difference...

Why not fill out the Microsoft Suggestion Box Form at http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.as p?from=cu&fu=/isapi/gomscom.asp?target=/mswish/tha nks.htm

What do ya have to lose? Ask for everything.

Re:Um...WTFN?

[hswerdfe]

not to troll or not but since when did Saffari (KHTML) have good CSS2 support?

Re:Um...WTFN?

[jejones]

My only question is...um, why the fuck not? Even Apple's Safari is already plunging ahead with preliminary CSS3 support.

Because standard conformance is a loss for MS. The more lazy and incompetent web page creators they can keep making non-standard conforming, IE-only web sites, the better for MS.

Re:Um...WTFN?

[tmasky]

Simple answer: Avalon. DHTML tech is pretty bloody good at the moment. If Microsoft allowed it to get better then it really doesn't matter which OS you use. Same tactics with OpenGL/DirectX, Exchange, etc. You have to keep in mind that they are not innovators. Their competitors have superior technology most/all of the time. Locking people in is the only way they can sustain profit.

Re:Um...WTFN?

[AstroDrabb]

I would have expected a big push for compliance with the whole .NET campaign they are pushing, a lot of it revolves around web app creation

MS's .Net sends down different HTML depending on whether you are making the request with an IE browser or a non-IE browser. It is one of the things I really _hate_ about .Net. I actually like C# a lot and use it every day, I just can't stand how MS tries to lock out everyone.

For example, in a .Net web app, you can add validators. So if you have a text input, you can validate that it is not empty when a form is submitted. This is _very_ simple JavaScript. However, with .Net, if you are using an IE browser, you will get an error message without going to the server. If it is a non-IE browser, it requires a round-trip to the server. How crappy is that? Like the people at MS could not write some simple standards compliant JavaScript to check if a freaking field is empty or not before a form post.

That is just one example. There are tons of others with the "built-in" web controls with the .Net framework that have all been made to work well in IE and have limited functionality in non-IE browser.

Because of crap like MS does with .Net, it has made me use Java/JSP for web apps. At least then I can control how well my applications can work with different clients and not be subjected to MS trying to make the world MS-only.

I really don't know what is wrong with MS. I mean, not all of their products are bad, and I really like some of MS's products. If they would just _compete_ and stop listening to their marketing/business @ssholes MS probably would not be too bad. All MS needs to do is compete and allow others to try to compete. MS needs to stop _all_ of their lock-in crap.

Seriously, look at the amount of dedication that OSS programmers show. MS could have that same loyalty if they just gave a _little_ back to the community. I am not talking about their crap "shared" source license or the wimpy XML setup wizard they released. I am talking a few major contributions of their code that they let a _community_ improve could make a world of difference to MS and their reputation.

Re:Um...WTFN?

[mrchaotica]

I really don't know what is wrong with MS. I mean, not all of their products are bad, and I really like some of MS's products. If they would just _compete_ and stop listening to their marketing/business @ssholes MS probably would not be too bad. All MS needs to do is compete and allow others to try to compete. MS needs to stop _all_ of their lock-in crap.

You really don't get it, do you? Being "marketing/business assholes" is the very foundation of their company! That's all they have ever done, going all the way back to the legendary screwing over of the QDOS guy. Here's a hint: their chief business/marketing asshole is Bill Gates himself! Gates's talents have never been programming talents; what he's good at is marketing -- convincing everyone from IBM to Joe Six-pack that his products are better when they really aren't.

If you took all the "business/marketing assholes" out of Microsoft, there'd be nobody left.

CSS Support

[33degrees]

Partner sources say Microsoft is wavering on the extent to which it plans to support CSS2 with IE 7.0. Developers have been clamoring for Microsoft to update its CSS support to support the latest W3C standards for years. But Microsoft is leaning toward adding some additional CSS2 support to IE 7.0, but not embracing the standard in its entirety, partners say.

With their self-proclaimed focus on developers, why aren't they taking CSS support more seriously? Do they realise the amount of ill0will they've generated towards themselves from web developpers who are fed-up with having to produce hack-filled css files so that their sites will display correctly on IE?

pretty hard, apparently

[SweetAndSourJesus]

How hard is supporting png transparency?

When you work for Microsoft, that shit is tough.

Redmond, start your photocopiers!

[idsofmarch]

Or the same features coming in Safari when Tiger is released in April.

The RSS news aggregator was announced at WWDC nine months ago.

Re:Redmond, start your photocopiers!

[generic-man]

Why in the hell do you need an RSS aggregator in your web browser? That's almost as preposterous as needing a mail client or an HTML editor bundled in. A web browser is great at viewing documents; let an RSS reader wrap around the browser, not the other way around.

It's not surprising that Safari 2.0 (in the developer builds) crashes even more than Safari 1.2 does. I'd like to see them fix the horrible reliability of Safari before bolting on useless features.

RINCON Anagram?

[Evil W1zard]

RINCON = Really Its Not Changed Or New

not even

[Tumbleweed]

Without a full commitment to CSS2, this in no way comes even _close_ to FF, even the FF from last year. Pathetic.

And when you take into account the vast amount of tab control you have in FF when you have 'Tabbrowser Extensions' installed, no way is IE going to approach that level of functionality.

Looks like there may still be a place for the 'real' IE7 . *sigh*

Re:not even

[KarmaMB84]

CSS2 isn't really the reason people are switching to Firefox. Security is. MS could probably just release IE 7 tomorrow, claim they fixed the security issues and be set. Added features would just be an extra nicety.

SHHHHHHHH Don't tell my Grandma

[Skraut]

I told her Firefox was IE 7 and she's been happily been using it for months, and thanking me for upgrading.

And the engine is....

[Ray Alloc]

Gecko ?

no way they'd do that

[r00t]

"additional support for CSS2" will mean everything except fixing the major box model and table width bugs.

In the Microsoft view, IE must remain compatible with IE. Even "better", stubborn Open Source developers will continue to be incompatible instead of changing or ignoring the standard. This means that many web sites will remain IE-only.

Adding support for extra features is fine though. You can count on Microsoft to do so.

Firefox R&D for Microsoft?

[hkmwbz]

Pray tell... What R&D has Firefox done "on behalf of Microsoft"? What fresh Firefox ideas are MS about to "steal"? Please be specific.

Re:Firefox R&D for Microsoft?

[Shippy]

Tabbed browsing is a concept that was first put into implementation by NetCaptor. Even Firefox copied it. *gasp!*

looks like I'll have reinstall all that spyware.

[Quadfreak0]

"Apparently an important factor is security."
I recall they said that the last couple times they upgraded IE.

I'm willing to bet all that spyware will be conviniently imported from a previous install if not reinstalled by default, and firefox will be broken as a bonus feature.

Can Windows ever be secure?

[dtjohnson]

Improving the security of Windows will require a lot more than an IE update. Microsoft starts with basically insecure processes and then trys to plug all of the unintended uses (aka security holes) that they can think of.

For example, look at the standard Windows update procedure for Windows XP. First, you have to go to a website to download software that you then allow to run on your system looking for updates. Then, you have to let the software download a sometimes long list of self-installing 'updates' from some location that the Microsoft software selects for you. The download procedure gives the user very little supervisory control over the process and doesn't even do very simple things such as display checksum data to let the user verify the integrity of the downloads. There is also little, if any, indication of what the downloads will do or replace. Yet Microsoft considers this inherently insecure process to be their standard procedure for updating their flagship operating system.

Microsoft needs to change their entire philosophy wherein they think that they should be able to anything they want with your computer at any time while the bad guys are not supposed to use the same mechanisms to steal your data and your cycles.

Fascinating

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, am fascinated by the dance MS dances with IE. It's hard to write a suspense novel like this.

IE exists because some loud-mouthed goofs at a startup called Netscape were making a lot of noise about the Web being the new Operating Environment. They said that as long as an application ran "on the web" it didn't matter what OS it ran on.

Microsoft adeptly applied their tried and true tactics to kill the loud-mouthed poster boys, and become the overwhelmingly dominant player in the web client arena. They made a better web browser than anybody else.

For a short time, they continued to develop and improve their web browser until it was better even than Netscape. Then somebody figured out that, although they had crushed Netscape, they were actually fulfilling the vision set forth by Netscape. Any solid standards-compliant web app had a very solid client waiting on the dominant OS of the day.

MS froze the development of IE, fearing that any more improvements would only make web development even more attractive to developers. They began earnestly searching for ways to extend web technologies in proprietary ways that would make the most clever web apps only work on Windows platforms.

They quickly found that they couldn't just build tricks into the browser and set out on an ambitious plan to rebuild an OS to be a platform for proprietary extansions to web technology. The new OS would make it possible to build incredible web applications, as long as everybody involved was running an MS OS.

This was a monumental undertaking, and has experienced its share of setbacks. But MS continues to work on the dream, and it is nearing completion. It should fulfill the original Netscape vision--except for the part about minimizing the importance of any particular OS.

Meanwhile, the web has become ubiquitous. It is more used than cell-phones, automobiles, or any electronic gadget except televisions. Soon, televisions will receive their content over the internet.

And IE, with as minimal improvements as MS can get away with, is proving inadequate to the demands of web users. Speed, features, and security of IE have become unacceptable, and users are wandering away.

So MS is in a race on a tightrope. They need to keep the loyalty of IE users by improving security, features, and performance of IE. At the same time they cannot risk luring more developers into the web arena until they have a proprietary "web platform" that can lock developers in while providing users the features they demand.

This is amazing drama for spectators. Will MS complete their proprietary "web platform" in time? Will they be able to maintain IE loyalty until the new platform can gain traction? Will the rebel Mozilla Foundation be able to gain enough ground to matter? Does anyone have an answer to the proprietary web killer once it has been completed? Will the police finally believe that there is a pattern and catch the culprit before he can kill the most important figure in the movie? Will I have enough popcorn to make it to the end? Wow! This is intense!

Re:Not Totally

[merreborn]

I always loved how microsoft.com is inaccessible from a fresh install of windows NT4 via the bundled version of IE. If anyone was going to write their pages to support legacy versions of IE, you'd think it'd be microsoft.

it's about time

[noamsml]

if Firefox wouldn't have any competition, it would not innovate as quickly.

He means PNG

[cgenman]

In case you don't know, the above poster is refering to PNG. PNG was supposed to take over for GIF when it was discovered that GIFs were patent encumbered. PNG also blows GIF out of the water in that it extended this to support an alpha channel in all images, allowing you to "fade" things with the background.

Think about it this way... You know those icons with drop shadows at the top of Slashdot? If they were PNG's, you could swap them across any background and the icon would look great, the shadow would fall correctly. You could anti-alias edges without worrying about what the background image is. You can layer multiple images on top of eachother so that the front page of websites don't have to be chopped up into millions of individual images. And it all just works.

And Microsoft promised full PNG support in I.E. 4. Let me repeat that, I.E. 4. They bragged that they were going to be the first to implement full PNG support. They're actually the last. By about 7 frick'in years.

As a rough guess I'd say their lack of PNG support has cost over a million hours of web designer headaches. But they couldn't afford to put one lousy intern on the task of adding alpha channel support to PNG support. Which they promised in I.E. 4. Let me repeat that, which they promised in I.E. 4.

They even have a perfectly suitable though terribly hacky series of workaround, using javascript. If they just fed their PNG's into their own functions which you can call through javascript, you're golden. But no, they've had to have broken PNG support for the last 7 years. Since I.E. 4. Let me repeat that, frick'in I.E. 4.

If there is any reason why webdevelopers hate Microsoft, this is it. PNG support. I would guess on a big project it would shave an hour off everybody's day, for everybody who works with images. Hell, people were shouting that they would pay Microsoft to do this. People volunteered to do this for them. But no, they "couldn't figure out how to do it," for 7 frick'in years.

Push it out to everyone. I don't care if they're on XP, ME, or OS9, proper Alpha Channel PNG support would save a ton of time. It's about bloody time.

Opera supports it. Mozilla supports it. Firefox, Konq, Netscape, Safari, iCab, and Omniweb support it. The Dreamcast and Web TV browsers support it. Everyone but Lynx supports it. Oh, that is everyone but Lynx and frick'in I.E.

[/Rant]

Re:He means PNG

[eddy the lip]

Preach it, brother! If they fixed they're goddamned PNG handling, my life would be simpler, and our sites would look better. It's inexcusable that the only way to get PNGs to almost work right in IE is with a bleeding javascript hack.

The one thing I want even more, though, is a proper box model. CSS hacks (which only work because of other bugs in IE) remind me of the bad old days of v4 browsers and table layouts. Of course, it will still be two or three years before we can safely ignore IE6, but at least I'd have something to look forward to. (And if they fix the box model without fixing things like * html { } I'll be ranting for days...)

Neither of these things are really a big deal. I have no idea why they're so resistant to fixing them, except that it might confuse their FrontPage users.

Fix those two things, and suddenly almost all of the crappy hacks we currently have to use go away. Sure, I'll find something else to bitch about, like missing selectors or something, but I'll deal. PNGs and a box model. Tiny requests, and they seem to be the things that piss off the web development community the most. I wish they'd get over it and just commit to the damned things.

Embrace & Extinguish

[mpapet]

I seem to remember a time when Microsoft made a product announcement when they figured out that there was either a viable alternative to their product, or some computer hardware platform without a M$ OS.

Then when they released, there was huge press coverage with fanboy-like praise for a mediocre product and gigantic marketing campaigns (connection?) that left the underfunded competitor in the dust despite the competitor's superior product.

Like it or not, I see that happening again with IE7.

I'm also thinking someone at M$ has probably recommended IE7 to be a huge memory/bandwidth/CPU sucking hog with DRM hooks into the system as far as they can get them.

Then, Microsoft gets to say they are protecting their users because they delivered a more secure browser. And...

(Cue gameshow announcer voice now!)

The best way to enjoy more security is to buy a new Dell/Intel PC!!! Ohhh... Ahhh... (cue applause) Your new computer will have all these great Media Conglomerate entertainment "features" you couldn't get on your old PC because your old PC was just too old... wash, rinse, repeat.

Mod me flamebait/off-topic/whatever now.

Re:security -- Not just anglaphones

[darkonc]

it's kind of funny, though, how it is essentially our (...)'s lack of familiarity with the writing systems of the rest of the world that are getting us into this particular pickle.

Actually no. The problem is really just that UTF-8 is too powerful. There are half a dozen ways to encode something that looks like an 'a'. It can actually get worse for people who are multilingual -- A Frenchman who expects a site encoded with an accented A (ä) might then be sent a URL where a similar looking character (ä) is encoded out of some other page. In this case, both ä's will be marked as extended UTF characters, so there may be no easy way for a user to distinguish between the 'legitimate' site and the phish monger. You tell me which one is legitimate! (and, yes, they are different encodings in this posting).

Petition to Stop IE7's Lack of Standards

[wezzul]

Stop Microsoft's Arrogance

But what if?

[SteveXE]

What if Microsoft delivers a better browser and a more secure browser then their opensource counterparts? What then? Will you switch to IE as you did Mozilla and Firefox, or will you cry wolf and use the old standby "Microsoft is evil!" comment?

The concern is with the *appearance* of security

[leonbrooks]

Actual security is entirely optional, as long as the nice customers trust Microsoft's software enough to keep shelling out for it... or for the other Microsoft software entailed by it. Heed this Douglas Adams quote:

The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all his customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who by peddling second-hand, second-rate technology, led them all into it in the first place.

Re:Er? yeah amazingly innovative features there

[KarmaMB84]

It'll be like Opera. You didn't think Firefox was being innovative, did you?

Ahhh...G....where have we seen this before??

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Apparently we can expect 32 bit PNG support,

Firefox Already Has this...

native IDN support

Yep it has it, but it's turned off by default because of Phishing....do we really want/need this??

new functionality that will simplify printing from inside IE

Um....ok..does it matter? No.

and, of course, tabbed browsing.

Big deal...have had this for what...almost 2 years now??

The new browser also will likely include a built-in news aggregator.

Firefox has it and it looks like Safari will to way before IE 7 sees the light of day.

Apparently an important factor is security

With integrated IDN? Well, I hope it's not on by default. Will it still do Active X? Of course it will and until this part is GONE or TOTALLY REWORKED and REWROTE security isn't going to be a true concern.

I hope they do make IE 7 better....by the time it's out, it wil be even further behind Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Safari.

Standards support improvements? Half-assed

[Dracos]

MS is doing as little as it can for its users. XP+SP2 and 2k3 only? Come on, they're just creating another excuse to keep the upgrade carousel turning.

It surprises me that they're going to improve PNG and CSS support at all. But being MS, we know there's going to be a catch.

• PNG: Something sinister, I dunno what (perhaps like positioning a 32 bit image over another one will result in trans levels showing up as colors), with alpha transparency will be done just wrong enough to make it a hassle.
• CSS: I would be surprised again (floored, even) if they fixed the box model. I think what they are calling "improved CSS support" can more accurately be called "improved DOM and event model support", like supporting :hover on elements other than links. They can't fix too much, because MS is famously afraid of breaking backwards compatibility. Any CSS support they fix will be little things that amount to a big list.

Call me a pessimist, but look at their track record. I don't see anyone at MS advocating putting a time warp in IE to bring its users (victims) from the 2001 web to the 2005 web in one fell swoop.

They're called homographs with good reason

[Kaseijin]

that's a very reasonable way of doing it, but i wonder if maybe making the location bar a different colour as FireFox does for secure sites might be a better - in the sense of more obvious - solution.

Some people think it's important that Yandex be able to register xn--ndex-k8d without being spoofed at xn--ndx-sdd1k (with Cyrillic Ye in place of the Latin E).

it's kind of funny, though, how it is essentially our (as in the mostly-north-american-and-western-european readership of slashdot)'s lack of familiarity with the writing systems of the rest of the world that are getting us into this particular pickle.

One need not know hanzi from Hebrew to identify both as Not Latin, but even a native Greek can't be sure whether a given circle is Greek Omicron, Latin O, Cyrillic O, or something else entirely.

But they've been rich for a decade...

[Ars-Fartsica]

...and still the crap comes out. By the way, what makes you think rich companies can produce quality better than poor ones? Google was poor when it changed the search landscape. Kia was (relatively) poor when it started producing better quality (lower defect rate) cares than Mercedes...

IDN solution

[cryptoluddite]

The solution is pretty obvious IMO: when looking up the domain name get some other records such as the company name, contact address, etc and display them in the URL bar, window title, status, or some other place. Perhaps a firefox-style extra panel that appears and gives that info.

Who cares if the site says it is www.bank.com if you can easily see it is registered to Boris at his mom's basement in Russia?

Re:Transparent PNG support

[Zarf]

How about the: "Wow, our browser is so amazingly complex that even with all our full-time programmers we can't reasonably support every possible platform in the universe" excuse? Lame, I know, but remember they aren't open sourced. That means if it's going to happen they have to put staff onto it officially.

Stinkin' open source and it's willy-nilly practices.

Nothing but Vanity on Microsoft's part.

[WebHostingGuy]

Updating to include all this new stuff (new to Microsoft, not everyone else) is nothing but a vanity move. Why should Microsoft care if Firefox takes 100% of the market. It's not like they are making money on IE. Who cares if their market share is 2%? Microsoft really should let Firefox take the market and then concentrate on what brings in $$$ and let someone else do the work for them by maintaining the browser.

Re:Nothing but Vanity on Microsoft's part.

[Bisqwit]

Hooking. When people design pages for IE because "everyone uses IE", they're making it more difficult for people to start using other browsers, and in the end, other operating systems. And Microsoft sits on they moneypile and laughs.

Tiny fact

[Safety Cap]

I would guess that they no longer hold a monopoly.

Except for the fact that Microsoft is a convicted Monopolist. All the spin in the world won't erase the fact that they broke the law and were convicted.

Of course, thanks to the current big-business-iz-good administration, their punishment was abysmally lenient.

Re:SHHHHHHHH Don't tell my Grandma either...

[cot]

She's pretty senile, so instead of trying to teach her to use a computer, I put her in front of the TV with a keyboard and mouse and she thinks she's playing a Matlock videogame.

Re:security -- Not just anglaphones

[Anonymous Coward]

You're misplacing the problem. The true problem is that people are supposed to trust entities known as web sites by identifying them in a text bar on their browser by name only. In the physical world, physical location plays a key role in securing commerce. People remember where they shop by the location more than by name, because spoofing a physical location is hard. Spoofing DNS is very easy, and most people will fall for typo websites just as easily as true DNS spoofing or UTF-8 hacks. Web site owners have to buy up hundreds of domain names within a certain hamming distance of their true site and redirect them to the main site. It's a bad situation, and it's because there is very little in the way of tangible relationships between the different web sites on the Internet. If there was a clear(er) higherarchy of getting to places, people wouldn't be fooled as easily. Portal web sites hoped to make a killing off of providing such a service, and Google does a relatively good job of it as well. In a sense, Google provides some relavent relationship between web sites. If you search for a given keyword in Google, it's likely to return a list that is highly predictable from time to time. Of course, marketers are now exploiting that as well.

On the other hand, occasionaly people have no idea where they want to go, and simply click on the first site they can find that seems relavent. This is a prime opportunity for fraud, since the user is unlikely to be familiar with the set of websites that they are trying to access. If the Internet is to continue to make such random connection between vendors and customers possible, there needs to be a better infrastructure to prevent fraud outright, instead of relying on silliness like SSL certificates tied to an arbitrary (for the user) domain name. Who cares which character encoding a site uses, even if it's similar to another site? If the user didn't know which site they wanted in the first place, applying browser based restriction on IDN characters is silly, and it limits users to a subset of the Internet. It would be much better to establish a higher order level of trust, possibly with a web of trust design. Generally, people will shop where their neighbors and associates shop, because they will have more information about possible trouble or incentives for shopping there. A web of trust for online vendors is exactly the model the Internet needs to increase security and reduce fraud. Make user feedback an integral part of search engines and trust rankings. Abstract an interface for conducting online transactions so that they can be cryptologically verified and anonymized and made available for inspection by users. To buy a widget, search for vendors who sell widgets and have a high number of incoming edges in the web of trust as well as a high percentage of appropriately completed transactions. Make the system voluntary, and it will generally work out. The majority of people won't care and won't leave feedback, so a higher ratio of negative feedback to positive will result, but it can be offset by the company releasing lots of successful transactions. The negative transactions will all be listed, and the company will only have to release as many as needed to keep a favorable image (if possible) without subjecting themselves to too much data mining.

Now the browser market leader is following ...

[geo_2677]

the market. Strange indeed. A far cry from what used to happen earlier.
The competition from better alternatives like Firefox and Opera is showing its effect.
First they ignore you.
Then they ridicule you
Then they laugh at you
Then they copy you
Maybe now Mozilla guys can move on to adding more new features to the browser now that tabbed browsing is going to be the norm. Heck, how else can I say to the guy sitting next to me whats cool abt mozilla ;)

Re:security -- Not just anglaphones

[MarkRose]

Well no Frenchman will have to worry about that, as ä isn't in the French alphabet. *shhh*

But you have a valid point.

That's spin, too.

[rjh]

All the spin in the world won't erase the fact that they broke the law and were convicted.

Fact: Microsoft was never convicted of anything.

Fact: Microsoft could never be convicted of anything. No criminal charges were filed, after all.

Microsoft has been found by a court of law to be an abusive monopolist, that's true. They are not convicted monopolists.

Using the word "convicted" is, itself, a kind of spin. It makes Microsoft out to sound even more slimy and unpleasant than they are. If you want to be spin-free, then avoid using the word "convicted" in connection with the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit.

Re:Aren't you rather missing the point?

[NutscrapeSucks]

every feature FF has really came for elsewhere... But that elsewhere is, by and large, not Microsoft

There was a time when Nutscrape was busy inventing proprietary extentions, and Microsoft was the one implementing W3C standards like CSS and DOM1. (Not to mention the XML stuff.) In most cases, MS shipped their version years before the Open Source world got around to it.

Yea, Microsoft dropped the ball later on, but without their support for W3C specs, the idea of non-proprietary web standards might have just faded away. So, I think Mozilla/FireFox actually owes a lot to IE.

Giving birth

[bananahead]

It will be amazing to me if they can actually deliver a new release. Microsoft has a tougher and tougher time with every release of their existing software due to the bloat of features, the test matrix which grows exponentially with every line of code, and the overall mess that the internal development organizations find themselves in. They will, of course, finally give birth, but it's gonna be sloppy and wet with lots of crying and fainting, followed by a faint cry from the newborn IE7. And, my prediction... it will be HUGE! The mighty beast no long has the ability to deliver slim efficient code. Mark my words.

Re:Internet Explorer already supports crazy graphi

[Bert64]

But most of the things ie can do in this nonstandard way can also be achieved in a standard way using css on mozilla, safari, konqueror and opera.
The difference is, the standard way will not work with ie.

Tortise and Hare

[beforewisdom]

This will be the second round in the new browser wars. It will be very interesting to see what happens.

In a way it is like the tortoise and hare.

The hare( firefox ), has the advantages of being able to get new end user desired features to market very fast and not being tied to the operating system ( albeit, that is not something non IT end users seem to care about much ).

The tortoise, IE, lately, seems to have wait for the next release of Windoze to "catch up". However IE has the tremendous advantages of coming with Windoze which comes with most end user PCs. As all regular slashdotters know, most people will just use what is on their computer instead of downloading something else.

IE also has the advantage of a huge amount of programming muscle on the payroll at Microsoft( not mention managers to manage hissy fits among the development staff ) and they can just sit back and let firefox do their market research for them. They can see which features work for firefox in terms of popularity and copy them into IE for the next release cycle

It will be interesting to see if IE 7 puts IE back up past 90% market share.

Debatable solution to a different problem

[Kaseijin]

The problem is that UTF-8 isn't powerful enough. It's able to render all our letters, but it can't carry localizable intent, and it's that inability to report intent which is leading us to the multilingual scams which are now occurring on the 'net.

IDN homograph attacks involve multiple scripts, not multiple languages. Restricting each IDN to a single script (Latin, Cyrillic, etc.) or a commonly used set of scripts (e.g., kanji + hiragana + katakana + romaji) would be simple and effective, and it looks like the Unicode Consortium is going to recommend that at least for the short term. Your Multicode would add complexity (How do you distinguish the German 'Kindergarten' from the English?) without actually solving the homograph problem (Is Azeri 'a' Latin or Cyrillic?).