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New IE7 Information Announced
Brandon writes "Looks like the IE team is trying to catch up to some of the major OS browsers. They have finally added proper PNG support and have fixed numerous CSS bugs. The full post is on The Official IEBlog." From the post: "We're doing a lot more than this in IE7, of course, and we're really excited that the beta release is almost here - we're looking forward to the feedback when we release the first beta of IE7 this summer. Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to beta."
My pet peeves with IE that make my life harder when I write web pages:
Sounds like they are fixing the .pngs for sure. I hope the two css tweaks that I want make it in.
Welcome to the twenty-first century Microsoft. I guess someone will have to update this page. Will IE7 have a central repository for extentions/plugins?
The only reason I use Firefox and not IE is due to middle-clicking for tabbed browsing. Once MS adds that into IE, I'm going back. All of my video plug-ins work instantly with IE, but not without some tweaking for Firefox. I already switched from Thunderbird to Outlook 2003, so I'm excited to see what bells & whistles MS can put in IE7.
So shall weall complain active X is still included when they ask for feed back? We could slashdot them with "feedback".
I like muppets.
IIRC, the *original* release of IE was based heavily on Mosaic. This always struck me as kind of funny, since even Netscape 0.9 was faster and had more features than any version of Mosaic 2.x.
At any rate, Microsoft should put their resources into making one killer browser. Make it as lightweight as Netscape 2.0 was, yet support the latest CSS kung-fu. Implement all of the latest widgets and hoohaws as plugins so I can remove ActiveX support if I want. And above all, make it cross platform. Use a library like FLTK so it can be used just about anywhere.
Doesn't Microsoft realize they could easily make the end-all browser that'll end up running on almost every palmtop, cell phone, set-top-box, automobile, and personal computer?
Seeing as how i develope on a Mac all my sites seem to render perfectly in Safari - Firefox - Mozilla - and Opera. It usually takes me about a day to crank out a page. Then i have to leave myself 2 days to make that page compatable with IE 5 - 5.5 - and 6 with assorted javascript hacks and what not - even though IE 7 sounds like it might be a nice fix to many of my CSS issues, it's still gonna take years before everyone is running IE 7. I've actually opted into giving my clients a price cut if they just let me throw in a sniffer that excludes IE. + i can sell them on the fact that they are actually helping their clients by making them drop support for an awful product :)
No... Microsoft burned quite a few bridges with alot of people and unless they can turn that PR machine around 180 degrees, people will continue to see them as bullies who are looking out for nobody but themselves.
They got caught with their pants down in 1993-4 with the internet and TCPIP revolution, too. "It's good enough" certainly does sound framiliar. This was a multibillion dollar company that somehow MISSED THE WHOLE INTERNET THING. They pulled that one off and came out of it smelling like roses.
They got caught with their pants down AGAIN in 1997 with the widespread acceptance of Java and the beginnings of true cross-platform computing. They pulled turning that event into a stillbirth and came out of it smelling like roses.
So, here we are in 2005, and they've been caught again with a stagnant product in IE. Not just caught, but being actively made to look stupid by comparison by the third party browsers, and on top of all this, they have OSX and Apple breathing down their necks. I think the wake-up call has been heard.
I'm not a betting man, but I know where I'd be putting my dollars.
..don't panic
If they were actually going to support the proposed standard, surely anything other than naming it in the standard way is embrace-and-extend (or, in this case, embrace-and-rename)!
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Microsoft have proven - repeatedly - that they're going to ignore open standards and are unable to approach a technology without their classic "embrace and extend" asshole tactics. There's a reason for this - if they fully support open standards, competitors will be able to perfectly replace their products. And they will lose.
Their only hope is to keep making deliberately flawed products - and keep their consumers hooked. The consumer knows their products are bad, but nobody else (at least, nobody with a sense of self-worth and pride) is willing to produce a broken product.
For example, if IE 7 and Firefox supported the exact same standards, people would use Firefox because it does the things that Microsoft dare not do - free source code, cross platform (they're still stuck on IE 5 for the Mac), platform neutral plugin support and far faster turnaround for bugfixes since the community has so many eyes on the code. Small wins for Firefox, but they are wins nevertheless.
The only good version of IE was version 3. It was going up against the well-established Netscape. They manged by making it leaner, faster and better. They had no legacy customers hooked on their product - and had to prove that they were worthy. Today they are lazy and their main goal is to maintain their supremacy and suppress the peons - not to wow them back into the fold.
The worst example of this would be, as far as I'm concerned: ActiveX. The tech might have sounded cool on paper - but in practice it was a disaster. It introduced a new type of executable to uninformed and uneducated users who were simply unable to comprehend how dangerous it was, and a raft of thieves and liars who were trying to take advantage of it. As far as security goes: Worst. Feature. Ever.
Putting ActiveX in a browser capable of accessing the internet is like storing apples in a bucket of medical waste: you'll be infected with something nasty and be completely fucked within a very short space of time. But Microsoft didn't care, so long as they had more corporate buzzwords to achieve platform lock-in with clueless customers.
And this corporate character oozes out their products. If Microsoft was a person, he would be a compusive liar, thief, bully and control freak. He would be unable to hold a conversation without trying to take something, and would be instantly hatable.
I use Microsoft Windows XP because I am forced to and am held hostage by the platform - but I am a bitter, angry hostage with brutal vengeance on my mind. Unless Microsoft makes a radical change to it's corporate attitudes, I will never willingly use IE again.
"most of the reason I junked IE was security issues"
What did you switch to? Mozilla?
I don't think that Mozilla is exactly a model for security. At my company, we've had to deploy three complete updates since the release of Firefox 1.0.
It's clearly not "perfect".
Of course, IE is far from a model citizen, but IE6-SP2 is much better, and *security* is the focus of IE7 according to the developers.
I think that Microsoft can build a competitive browser. They just need an incentive to do so.
Now they have that incentive. Firefox has given it to them.
I, for one, welcome the new browser wars.
The short answer is that no browser currently passes the Acid2 test. I'm pretty sure the Firefox team is working on it. I know the Safari team is working on it as their progress is being talked about on David Hyatt's blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/
I think Microsoft is worried about the way Firefox is being extended and turning into a true thin client. Just look at what Google has done with maps, GMail, etc. With AJAX (or whatever they are calling it), FireFox becomes a serious long-term threat to Microsoft. And the folks there aren't stupid. As Bill Gates said in The Simpsons, "Homer, I didn't get to be the richest man in the world writing checks" (or words to that effect). Microsoft has a bunch of nerds on the payroll too, toiling away. They see the looming threat and are responding now instead of waiting (like IBM did when it failed to recognize a similar looming threat from Redmond ;-) ).
I would like to hear points/counterpoints, if any.
It's the only thing in the whole world I want. Why IE doesn't support it, I don't understand. IE generally does pretty well with a lot of things.
I guess there are two things in the whole world I want. The second is for IE to show me a big nasty error instead of my web page if it is not compliant with the DTD. If browsers worked that way the whole web would be in better shape.
Now that companies like SAP have started putting out support notes advicing their customers to use Firefox instead of IE, Microsoft may start to take things seriously. For example take a look at the following support not from SAP (note 828595 for those with access to OSS):
Symptom
When you are using the SAP GUI for HTML in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, the "progress bar", which describes the load progress for the page, may in some cases continue to display activities although the page is fully loaded, and it never confirms that a page has been completely loaded.
Other terms
Microsoft Internet Explorer; IE; HTMLGUI; load; webgui; login page; status bar; status bar; loading progress; blue horizontal bar;
Reason and Prerequisites
This is caused by a visual error in the Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Solution
SAP has consulted closely with Microsoft, to eliminate this error. Unfortunately, Microsoft is not prepared to implement a correction and suggests workarounds that can be implemented in SAP software (SAP ITS). All workarounds proposed by Microsoft are not acceptable due to the considerable quality-related risks posed for all SAP customers using the ITS. There is therefore no solution for this error, other than changing Browsers (the problem described above does not occur with Mozilla / Firefox).