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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?
Real competition. Good.
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.
Instead of implementing a vendor-specific tag, why not support the proposed CSS3 border-radius property?
there's more than one way to do me.
This is why MS's brand of 'innovation' is bad and real competition is good. Remember when they halted development on IE6 because all the other browsers were 'finally dead'? Now that Firefox is pissing in their hard-won territory, they're actively hunting again. This isn't just good for Microsoft, but it's good for Firefox and good for us too.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
are people still using that old browser?
Fixing those bugs will not show customers that their product is good. People now have the name Microsoft associated with insecurity. It took them only 8 years to update their browser and since then people have been screaming for support, better features, etc.
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.
Even if IE7 turns out to be the best product ever created by mortal man, people will immediately assume it sux (minus MS zealots of course).
They need to reinvent themselves in the eyes of the consumer, the business and world.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The biggest problem with IE in my eyes, if that your install of IE goes bad, you have to reinstall the whole operating system, as opposed to Firefox, where you can uninstall, remove the Firefox directory and start over.
Without software like Firefox, their would be no reason for Microsoft to ever make a better product, just look at how long IE's been in version 6! Now that Microsoft's starting to feel their browser dominance threatened they're playing for attention to their own product. Clearly competition benefits the end-user.
So shall weall complain active X is still included when they ask for feed back? We could slashdot them with "feedback".
I like muppets.
I guess it's kind of a niche product, eh?
there's more than one way to do me.
I find it hard to believe that many people will switch back to IE from FireFox (or others) after IE7 comes out. It'll probably get picked up by current IE6 users or corporate IT depts. But it would take some pretty spectacular changes to get me to switch.
"Supporting exciting new standards in which life improving spyware bring you more features than ever before!" *sulks* I tried.
Download Opera 9 (in the BETA forum)
Internet explorer actually treats width and height as min-width and min-height. Very annoying if you don't want it, but you can use it like this:
select {
min-height: 100px;
_height: 100px;
}
IE will (mysteriously) ignore the underscore prefix and parse the second style, while compliant browsers only recognize the min-height style.
This shows that the important question is in fact not "how many CSS bugs will IE7 fix?" but "how many CSS bugs will IE7 keep?". These bugs are currently needed to make IE6 behave properly. If IE7 fixes the rendering bugs but keeps the parsing bugs, we'll have to figure out new bugs to update the IE6-only hacks with.
All of my mozilla plugins required some fiddling to get them working. But you know what? I did the tweaking once, about 10 months ago, and it's still working fine.
Even if IE implements everything that the basic Firefox installation has and then some, they still won't have the strong community of extension developers that Mozilla does. Will the next IE have anything like AdBlock, the web developer toolbar, or any of the countless little tweak extensions I like? Will I be able to easily change detailed settings like I can with about:config? I doubt it.
They have finally added proper PNG support
I am so happy to hear this. In this IE6 world a webdesigner cannot use transparent pngs, because roughly 90% of your viewership's browser would not render them correctly. One was then forced to either use transparent gifs (which only support 2 level of transparency, i.e., on or off) or else try to fake it (which is difficult because IE and Gecko don't always render colors the same.) Hopefully they'll finally implement some more CSS2, like allowing the hover pseudo class to be used with any object, rather than just links. Oh, and perhaps they could finally fix the box model.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
Not trying to flame M$ but ... most of the reason I junked IE was security issues. Once I made the jump, the other improvements like graphics-handling were nice, but not critical.
Would putting better graphics on the Titanic's deckchairs have kept anyone on board?
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
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
Well, since almost 90% is still using IE, it is logical to assume that most of the exploits, etc etc are targeted towards it. I personally know of many people that use alternative browsers just because of that. Being part of the minority in that case makes you a somewhat more difficult target (not invincible though). So even if IE7 becomes better than firefox or opera, it won't matter. If it is going to be used be the average user, many people will avoid it because of that .
I believe this might greatly slow down or even reverse the switching of browsers for a lot of people.
IE7 might just be "good enough" for people to warrant not switching to Firefox. For people who are new, and perhaps not computer savvy, getting plugins to work with Firefox on Windows is non trivial. This isn't Firefox's fault because development focus for most plugins is still on IE.
But then again, it might be good news for us. Competition is good, this might ramp up Firefox development and bring more innovations for the rest of us.
They may have solved the consistency problems, but the standards supports is in great part unimplemented. IE is still far behind its biggest competitors as can be seen easily by doing a quick comparison. The user might not care, but the developer does.
First quit stuffing this proprietary crap down my throat, at least have the decency to put it under the GPL.
... excuse me!!!!
.... no I mean the real java from Sun. And the same with the "real" javascript too now that I'm thinking about it.
... eg ... overwrite the blocks on the hard drive with random data. Get it!
... and the same with crapromedia now that I'm thinking of it.
Second, please don't default load to the msn page, WTF, google.com would be much nicer.
Third, could you actually put something in there to block ads and popups, and any other crap that I don't want on my screen. Al least temporairly. Eg NO AD.DOUBBLECLICK.NET !!!!!
Fourth, last time I looked default IE has over ONE GIG of cache in the settings
Fifth, could you actually make it work with java?????
Sixth, don't renember all my crap - I want privacy and security - and when I close the browser I want the option to not only take out the cache, cookies, and history of web sites visited, but also want it to TRUELY ERASE IT
Seventh, oh and this really pisses me off, PLEASE PLEASE when I hit the reload button - I want it to actually reload the data from the URL over the internet not reload a bunch of cache!!!
Eigth, can't you natively render PDF's. Why do I half to deal with all this over bloated adobe crap????
Ninth, please put something in there that makes it easy for me to "steal" (GASP!!!) someone's "intellectual property". Yeah I know that's hideous to you, but that's what I want so get with it or get over it and get lost.
Actually, forget this, mozilla's not perfict, but at least it's going in the right directions.
IE will catch up to Firefox 2 years after Firefox already had all these features. By the time IE7 is done, FireFox will have many more features, not to mention tons of extensions, that are the real key to it's power. By the time IE gets to where FF is today, FF will have advanced way beyond what IE can hope to achieve from typical corporate development.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Gecko polls servers for changed content when moving through history. As far as I know, Opera is the only major browser that gets that part of HTTP/1.1 right.
http/1.1 specificationthere's more than one way to do me.
Anyone know more details about this test and what browsers do pass it (I'm guessing IE6 doesn't, I don't have it so can't test it)? I'm surprised Firefox didn't, not because I'm a fan boy or anything, but because I presumed Firefox was in accordance with most of the standards.
This is the test and this is what it should look like. Here's some info about how it works.
They forgot to mention that the new IE will render the letter "K" as the letter "O", and vice versa.
This feature should be easy to deal with, so long as pages are designed with it in mind. Unfortunately this will cause some confusion when trying to use the expression "O.K." or the boxing term "K.O.".
The new feature that causes the letter "e" to appear as a tiny version of the explorer logo is now slated for version 7.1, it had to be delayed due to technical problems. Consumer research shows that people think that the explorer logo is cuter than the letter "e".
Obama is a twitter sock puppet
"In this case, I take it "Anonymous Coward" is a corollary to "Microsoft PR Rep"?"
There should be an ammendment to Godwin's Law for people who resort to accusing others of working for the bad guy.
Though I don't believe it's "Goodbye FireFox", you cannot honestly say to me that IE7 doesn't have the potential to disrupt FF's market share.
"Derp de derp."
IE lay dead for several years before they decided to do anything with it. Competition is the order of the day. Firefox starts taking marketshare and now they add tabs and popup blocking. I believe it was only late last Fall they said their customers weren't asking for those things. I guess a lot has changed since last Fall. Anyway, I hope Firefox keeps stealing 'share.
a world in progress...
I am so happy to hear this.
Let's not jump the gun here. There's been no beta released yet and honestly how long is it going to take for everyone who is using IE6 to adopt IE7? To illustrate my point, let us step back a few years...
Do you remember the rendering bugs in IE4? What about IE5? Then came IE5.1, 5.5, and 6. The only reason IE6 is now a majority market share browser is because most average computer users are using Windows XP. I dare say, but it really wouldn't surprise me if there are still a number of 5.x installs in use by those who are using Windows 2000. IE7 adoption won't hit a majority of the market until Longhorn is released and even then, how many people are going to be purchasing new computers right away? I remember when XP came out--the number of people still using IE5 two years after the fact was pretty incredible.
So before anyone gets incredible excited over this, take a moment to realize that the adoption of IE7 (assuming it actually does fix the bugs that have plagued IE before) is at least a year or two away. This isn't going to be an overnight thing--people have to buy new computers if they're not technically inclined and even then a very small minority of the almost-but-not-quite technically inclined will bother to upgrade. So, unless the upgrades are enforced by ISPs (through hand out discs, pre-configured packages, etc.), I encourage web developers to sit this one out.
The upshot? Don't plan on using PNGs with an alpha channel until 2007 or later. (Unless Longhorn is pushed back again, which means we could be waiting another FIVE years. Ah, and if you didn't detect it, yes that was mild sarcasm.) Remember, even CMSs like Plone still have CSS work arounds for Netscape 4.x--and how old is that?
Keep the stone tablets, my friends, this new "paper" thing is still buggy.
He who has no
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.
I wonder...perhaps it's better for use to keep IE as dominant browser. After all crackers and advertisers come with popularity...currently I'm using Firefox (well, right now on Opera because of lack of ram on this machine), and I'd hate to abandon it because the browsing experience changed to worse (and I'd miss few extensions...)
One that hath name thou can not otter
"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.
"Improving CSS support consistency" means that CSS in IE is going to be consistently broken.
"more consistent", well, it depends on what they're trying to be consistent with. Consistent with other browsers, that means they're working towards standards compliance. Consisten with past versions of IE, well, that's not so good...
I'm about as disaster prone as anyone when it comes to X thing not working, but I've never had to mess with any of my browser plugins in Firefox.
Quicktime, Real (well, Real Alternative), and amazingly, even WMP work perfectly with Firefox for me.
My pet peeves with Firefox have to do with its memory footprint and how it doesn't render some IE-designed websites correctly. The latter isn't even Firefox's fault really, since it's more standards compliant than IE.
I only touch IE when I use Windows Update.
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.
I won't deny that they have the capability to add those kinds of features, but I do think that there isn't any way to get the same potential feature set Firefox has without bloat/constant updates specific to what a given user wants without an extension system. I don't think MS will add one, and if they do it won't get the support that Firefox's has, for the same reason there isn't the abundance of skins for WMP that exists for Winamp.
In any case, there's a lot of features that I think Microsoft won't implement rather than can't. I'd be surprised to see them add anything like AdBlocker, since they run websites like hotmail that make their money from ads. And can you really see them integrating BugMeNot into their browser? Seems pretty unlikely to me.
that they'll make IE7 nice and standards compliant but break all the hacks we use to accomodate IE6 like the Holly Hack et al.
This would make it impossible to support IE6, IE7 and other standards-compliant browsers while still allowing them to (rightly) claim that they're compliant. Would they do this ? Hopefully not.
I know you're joking, but there is a version of IE for Solaris.
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
There is only one update they need to do to IE, and they will never do it.
They need to abandon zones, put the application in charge of the security of a window, and NEVER let a window open, launch, link to, or reference a "more trusted" object than the one the link, embedded object, what have you is referenced from.
That means IE would be a hard sandbox. If you want to use ActiveX components that aren't sandboxed, you need to run a separate program.
Yes, that means that Windows Update would need to be a separate application shell around the HTML control. That's a teeny tiny problem compared to these sneaky damn zones.
Hell, IE7 isn't even supported on Windows 2000.
That sounds like a trivial subset of a certain thesis project I did In a nutshell... if you are running Windows I have bad news: malware downloaded via Firefox is still malware. And if you want real security for shit you download, the OS has to have some form of MAC system (Yes, most mean this as SELinux, but it usually means nastier policies than come with most distros)
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Good lord, when has *that* ever stopped them from embracing and extending - heck, they're doing it RIGHT NOW when it comes to implementing protocols on .NET.
Now, don't get me wrong, some cases, the standards are *VERY* thin on detail and could lack features that could be deemed important - hypothetically, a wireless protocol that doesn't have a secure enough encryption algorith as one example of this.
With that being said, the lack of improvements, and a sudden surge of interest in developing IE further has NOTHING to do with all altruistic stance by Microsoft, but more of a reply to the threat from Firefox.
Firefox by itself isn't a threat, but when you take into account Microsofts long term view of their long term view of .NET, XAML, their application server technology, remotely hosted applications, delivered to the webbrowser, using IE specific technologies (as apposed to the current thin client/dumb terminal model) - you can see how Firefox could turn out to be a royal pain in the ass if they don't box it in, and reserve it to the alternative platforms.
Of course IE7 has potential to disrupt Firefox's share. However I doubt it will affect share much at all.
In order for Microsoft to steal share from FireFox it needs to improve and innovate to a point that surpasses Firefox. Right now, I believe that IE7 is playing catch-up to FireFox and Microsoft will not introduce anything innovative enough to bring share back to IE7. Microsoft will only be able to slow the tide of people leaving IE.
Remember, people are using FireFox fo the following reasons:
In the first two cases, IE will not win back any share. The feature crowd will only return if Microsoft truly innovates(doubtful in my mind.) The last group of people will only return to IE if they can trust Microsoft to fix all of the problems. Considering Microsoft's record since they made "security their number one priority" over a year ago (or has it been 2?) I also doubt this happening.
And remember, the reason IE has the most share is because it was on the computer when the user got it. People resist change. That same fact will keep some user from changing from Firefox back to IE. So, no, Firefox will probably not lose much share unless development stops on it over the next 4 years. (Ooops, who did that before?...)
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
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).
There used to be yes. Haven't seen it since way back in 1996/7 though. Used to run it on an Ultra 10 - found it on one of the sun support CD's if memory serves.
No idea if it's still being maintained, though I suspect not.
IE blends PNG images with an alpha channel against their default background color. When there is no default, it uses one of the system colors that happens to be the default for GDI surfaces.
You can give IE a better (but still solid) color to blend against by having pngcrush write in a bKGD chunk with the desired color. This doesn't help you if you are trying to blend against a texture, but it's handy if, as in your case, the image is blended against a solid background color anyway.
Now, tell me, what difference will this actually make? Except for all the website developers being happy to get yet another browser on their compatibility list, who is going to download and use it?
Somehow I can't believe that the 80something percent (yeah, sure, depending on the site we're talking about) are going to miraculously switch to IE7 so that all our problems as webdesigners suddenly go away.
IE7 may be a good product, it may really be a very good product (and with all the competition that MS is facing right now I'd be really surprised if they didn't produce something fairly good) but it won't make up for all the crap MS has thrown at us with the last versions of their browser.
charon
Who cares ?
Anyone who doesn't understand that a web browser should NOT be integrated into the guts of an operating system deserves all the problems that IE will give them.
Have they changed this major flaw in this release ? No. So only use it if you're an idiot.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
that they invented tabbed browsing. They'll probably give it a fancy buzzword name too, something like "XPTab" or whatnot.
No offense to the IE7 development team, but as usual this just seems like the standard Microsoft ploy.
They stopped all IE development and let the browser utterly stagnate because they had no real competition; there were many complaints about the insecurity of ActiveX, the refusal to follow the w3c standards, the refusal to provide proper PNG alpha support, and the amount of work involved in trying to get sites rendering the same in IE as they did in pretty much any other browser around.
Microsoft have had *years* to address these issues, and selectively chose to do absolutely nothing about them, because they couldn't care less about the customer, just about stifling competition and making money. (Granted at engineer level you may well have people taking offense at the suggestion that they don't want to make a better product for their customers, but that clearly isn't the corporate policy.)
Now all of a sudden along comes Firefox, which provides an amazing base, and doesn't have any of the IE issues. Microsoft have some competition in the first time in a while, and suddenly they're back to how trumpeting about how wonderful they are, and how they're implementing all these brilliant new features, like popup blocking, better (but still not perfect) CSS compliance, proper PNG alpha support, and all the other things that people have been complaining about for years, and the things that other browsers have had since day one.
Sorry Microsoft, but I find your claims insincere. You had years to implement this stuff, but you didn't bother your ass to help your customers out until you had a whiff of competition come your way. I'll stick with FireFox.