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Windows Longhorn and Internet Explorer 7

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the arrrr-ess-ess dept.

An anonymous reader writes "At Gnomedex this year, Microsoft is excited about the new RSS integration into Windows Longhorn and Internet Explorer 7. Screenshots of Internet Explorer 7 reveal how Microsoft has added a search tool to the top right of the browsing window similar to the one found in Safari/Firefox. Also, Microsoft revealed that RSS will be integrated into the heart of Longhorn."

16 of 554 comments (clear)

  1. Say no to Windows by bigwavejas · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I think I'll stick with Firefox and run http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs for my RSS feeds.

    Stop the machine.

    --
    "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
  2. What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a good move by MSFT, but their lack of respect for web developers is ridiculous.

    Markus Mielke, quite possibly the most braindead member of humanity ever to use a computer, seems to think that separating content from presentation is wrong. See here for details. Even worse, the article he links says the reason is that CSS3 is not ready. This is despite the fact that the IE team won't even support CSS 2.1 fully in IE7! Yes, they might have fixed Peekaboo and Guillotine, but how about :hover for all elements? Or any semblance of support for floating elements? And they simply seem incapable of giving a straight answer!

    Dave Massy, senior program manager and all round idiot, in comments to this article, says that support for MathML and SVG should be left to 'experts', never answering the very pertinent query about why Microsoft isn't an expert in web technologies.

    Why not go over to the IEBlog and let them have a piece of your mind?

    1. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by MrDomino · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're assuming, in calling these people idiots, that what they're doing is unintentional.

      If web coding were easily doable by hand with a text editor, would they get much in the way of sales for FrontPage? If web applications were ubiquitous thanks to a fully functional browser, do you think people would continue to fork over such obscene amounts of cash for MS Office?

      Is this crazy? Over-the-top? Probably. But for a company that has so many brilliant researchers among its ranks, isn't it odd that their web browser is so shoddy, yet they still continue to pour money and development time into it rather than let someone else take over?

    2. Re:What about WEB DEVELOPERS? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except that 5 years ago, Internet Explorer was a light-year ahead of the competition in client-side functionality. Despite Andreessen's hype, Microsoft did far more to legitimize web-based applications than Nutscrape ever did.

      Don't forget that Microsoft is (at heart) a development tool vendor, and I'm sure they're fully aware that web application development is where the coding market is. And they've finally seemed to re-understand that browser features are critical to that market. Things like XHTML and CSS2 allow Microsoft to sell much effective web development tools (Visual Studio/ASP.NET), and that's a real revenue stream for them.

      People romanticize the "Browser Wars", but it's really a big battle over nothing -- a bunch of almost zero-revenue eyeballs using a free product. The strategic value is what people build on top of the browser technologies.

      As great of a browser as Firefox is, I don't believe that Mozilla.org still got the lessons of the last war. They spent a lot of time and money to build an enormous amount of developer technology, but have never seriously packaged and marketed it. You have to assume that Microsoft is not just trying to build a browser, but looking at this "holistically" (client/tools/server); while Mozilla isn't.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
  3. its sad by ericdano · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's sad how Microsoft is so far behind the curve, yet they get excited cause THEY have figured something out. They are their own Hype machine.

    It's sad.

    --
    It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
    I moderate therefore I rule!
    --
  4. Say "NO" to Bloatware by reporter · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I am sitting here, pondering the future of Windows, as I watch the operating system slowly boot up and struggle along. I suspect that operating systems and web clients have now reached the point where they offer much more features than I need and actually use.

    Has anyone suggested that Microsoft create 2 parallel operating systems: slimware version and bloatware version? I want a slimmed down version of Windows that includes just a little more than a true pre-emptively multi-tasked kernel I also want a slimmed down web client that lacks support for ActiveX and anything else that is not strictly necessary for accessing the secure website run by my bank.

    I need little more. I suspect that this barebones configuration meets the need of most Americans, who are not tech savy.

    1. Re:Say "NO" to Bloatware by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Do you think Intel, AMD and the various memory makers aren't "very grateful" of the extra business they get from the dizzyingly high requirements of Windows nowadays?"

      Because, as we all know, GNOME runs *great* with 128MB of memory. And of course, Mac OS X is absolutely smooth on 128MB as well.

      With 256M of memory, Windows is as nippy as any other fully-featured desktop environment.

  5. What's sad about this is.... by WMD_88 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When IE 7 comes out and all the Joe Average people start using it (via auto updating, or the new computer they bought, or whatever), they're gonna see the finally-added features and think, "Wow, look at these new things Microsoft created! They're amazing!" because they've never used anything but IE. Microsoft thus gains mindshare for nothing.

  6. Can it get any bigger or uglier? by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft really needs to hire some real UI artists one of these days.

    Personally, i dont need the windows title bar, address bar, etc taking of a chunk of the screen like that. It must be a low res shot but still...

    MS likes to make these big screen eating UI's with things that most people never use.

  7. Re:TARGET=_TAB by rebug · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd much rather stick with not specifying a target and letting the user handle where to open the link

    --

    there's more than one way to do me.
  8. Staring at the embers by LS · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seeing this news item really awakened me to the lack of innovation with Internet software these days. Embedding RSS into IE is mundane to the extreme. This pales in comparison to the rate at which ideas were pouring out 5-7 years ago. I suppose the browser is a mature market, but is it really? Perhaps we need to go back and look at some of the older ideas that were ahead of their time now that the Internet infrastructure is more mature. It just feels like we are still staring at the embers of a long-dead bonfire.

    LS

    --
    There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
  9. Looks pretty good by melted · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Gotta admit, they have some smart people there. Yes, firefox is a superior browser, technologically. Yes, it's open source. Yes, it supports CSS2 a little better and yes, it supports alpha channel in PNGs. Does any of this matter as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned? Not a bit!

    What does matter then? The stuff they're emphasizing - tabbed browsing, design, and integration. You can spend hours explaining what's better to a layman, and in the end they'll use the browser that looks better and is more comfortable. Plus, if they approach security of IE7 with the same rigor we've seen in IIS6 (which I doubt highly, considering such a short product cycle), security will not be a problem.

    It is time for Firefox/Mozilla devs to pile on the goodies. Get us some SVG and CSS3, get web devs (at least some of them) to use these cool technologies, and make Microsoft play catch-up again.

    Ain't competition grand?

  10. Re:Looks like FireFox by XNormal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They have the menu bar below the tablist.

    It's not just below - it means that the menu bar is part of the tab and can change when you switch tabs. It's actually a pretty clever design. I think they will use it for plugins and web pages that add items to the menus (PDF, Office, etc.)

    --
    Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
  11. Re:Looks like FireFox by remahl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Menus that change isn't good design.

  12. How far have they fallen by codemachine · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Longhorn loses its next generation shell and filesystems, both of which are pretty core OS functionality.

    Now they make up for it by adding RSS to their browser? At this rate Longhorn isn't going to be much more than Windows XP plus IE 7 (and yet still delivered late?). And IE hardly counts as OS functionality.

    Maybe if they spent their time building an operating system, and let application developers build the applications for it, they'd be able to build an OS that has some really innovative technologies in it. Instead they spend all this time trying to "own the web", as well as compete with 3rd party software vendors like Adobe.

    From a technology perspective, I think this strategy sucks. Time will tell whether this is a good business strategy or not.

  13. Great news for Firefox! by salesgeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft didn't get it: the reason Firefox is so damn good is that it's a better browser than IE. I think MS marketing looked at the eyecandy (search box, tabs, Live Bookmarks) and thought that this FireFox was more like some of the customized versions of IE that are out there. They totally missed out the power that Gecko, XUL and the amazingly simple extension system bring.

    Firefox renders correctly, it's simple to use and extensions are just plain fun and useful. The user has more control and is literally safer than with IE. Sure there are exploits found, but they are generally fixed quickly and users are alerted to upgrade.

    Then there's that whole extensible user interface...

    --
    -- $G