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IE7 Bugs and Reviews
An anonymous reader wrote to mention a Register article in which the possibility is raised of the current build dumping Yahoo and Google toolbars. At the same time, GWBasic writes "I've posted a review on IE 7 Beta 1. It is very clear that, unlike when Microsoft targeted Netscape, they are using their classic method of producing superior software by catering to the needs of the user. This is not IE 6 with a few features borrowed from the competition, but rather a clear step in the evolution of user-centric design." Flexbeta and ZDNet have looks at the new browser as well.
I like it better than Opera and Firefox, only because the security features might actually work this time. I use Firefox most of the time, since my IE went crazy with infections and pop-ups.
Perhaps it doesn't copy other browsers. But its very existence is driven by the others. Who really thinks that if Firefox were not getting popular that MS would go back on their statement that there would be no major revisions after IE 6?
It does look like those screenshots could be from Firefox. Has this person actually seen IE7, or has he just taken Firefox and changed some icons?
I'm not sure whether this would help firefox or not. Firefoxe's addin system is more mature and has a lot of good addins, so that is still in its favour.
What's with the Hello World segment? Are rumours true that IE7 will break a lot of old IE6 sites?
Even with tabs, without mouse gesture support it is useless to me.
Firefox "copied" Opera. IE with XP Sp2 has had a pop up blocker in it for over a year now. Firefox has security issues the same as IE. The only difference is Firefox offers more customization options. Hop off the bandwagon and get your fingers out of your ass.
You claim it's a poor imitation... but could it be a good imitation? I am curios to what other /.ers think.
I don't like the evil empire as much as the next guy, but sometimes they do something not to shabby.
Evolution or ID?
They completely broke the UI.
First they violate their own guidelines by removing the menu from the top of the window. To boot, they made the UI a whacked around version of every other browser UI, with the back and forward buttons at the top next to the address and search bars, but the home button elsewhere and stop/reload mashed into one button at the other end of the address bar. They also don't have a dropdown menu on the back button, which is essential for getting away from sites that break that functionality.
Suffice it to say, this is what we've got for "progress" thanks to microsoft's browser dominance. No true significant advancements in the technology because microsoft's held it stagnant for so long. Thankfully they've got competition now, so maybe things can improve.
They've still got a long way to go.
Yes, and what's worse: MS' anti-phishing technique involves sending each link you click to Microsoft for verification against a blacklist. Scary, if you ask me.
'We advise you not to click on that link to cracks.am, which is a well known phishing site.' Oops, or is it?
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Definatly worth the time it took to read it. And good critism, but don't expect them to fix the Compatibility errors, from what I've heard MS is trying to steal another standard and make it their own.
I consider it rather strange that the renderings of the acid2 test pages IE7 produced in this guy's review differ somewhat from the results a colleague of mine got during his test with IE7 on Longhorn Beta 1.
Not that unreproducible behaviour of certain MS products is strikingly unfamiliar to me, though I still wonder what has happened there, and if this is going to be fixed (as well as the whole rest of the CSS-mess in IE) in the final version...
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
is that Microsoft is Rich. And therefore: 1. Could've afforded to invest in thinking up new concepts for the new browser, rather than having reading an article on why people like firefox, and putting that stuff in IE7. 2. Will now parade around with a colossal advertising campaign about how IE7 takes you to the Next Generation of the Internet, or Enables the Future of Web Interaction to Integrate You Ass Off, or whatever.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I'm not sure I was aware of this method.I seem to remember a few times Microsoft "met the needs of the user" by supplying a "good enough" solution for less cost than the competition, but if I had to pick ONE time when they may have provided a better solution to take a market it would have been IE 4 (after ealier IE versions sucked) versus an aging and slow to develop Netscape, even then they had to bundle it, make illegal deals, and include ActiveX to screw up any chance at security. Mind you the author of this review would seem to think that was not a case of superior software winning out.
I'm not saying MS has never made a good peice of software, but in the past to dominate the market, price and vendor pressure seem to have been the preferred weapons. After they GET the market they have sometimes made a product that is amoung the best of breed (Excel would be my example here)
Insert pithy comment here.
Not-yet-released-but-in-cvs Konqueror passes Acid2 according to this article.
/.!
Heck, it was even reported on
There was not a single revolutionary thing in that entire review
Not to mention that only in the most perverted of senses was it a "review". Fawning overview is more like it. We get a good sense of the so-called reviewer's credentials when he says the following:
"I stopped using non-Microsoft browsers over two years ago because I found them to be unpolished. "
Of course tastes vary, but even amongst the most fanatical Microsoft apologists (including myself) it is pretty much universal that Firefox, or even Opera, is the primary daily browser. No one needs to suck on the Microsoft choad and pretend that everything they make must be the best in the market, especially when their flagship browser is going on half a decade old.
Of course every now and then you come across the real dyed-in-the-wool Microsoft apologist, very seldomly a developer but more likely a "somewhat involved in the tech industry" kind of person (e.g. an @Home Computer virus removal technician) who'll swear that IE is the greatest thing now and forever. I suspect that's what we have here.
The only feature of IE 7 that strikes me as a nice piece of user interface is the clear and graphical method of creating a new tab. Everything else is just a minor polishing of IE 6.
You're absolutely right. In the absence of any real functional difference people will simply use the browser already installed (ie. IE).
The only real disadvantage IE 7 has is that it will only be available for XP SP2. And IE 7 is not a big enough carrot to get people to upgrade when they can get the same functionality with Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape for free.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
How are other web developers planning on dealing with the issue of testing for multiple browsers? In my office, we do our best to make sure our site and software is compatible with the most current browser on a user's platform, but most of our users have Windows 98 or Windows 2000, not XP (which we have in our office). I've never been able to have multiple versions of IE on one computer; does anyone know if that will change with IE7?
We already recommend Firefox to our customers as a superior alternative to IE. Our site is developed and tested primarily on Firefox, then IE for backwards compatibility. Even so, though, this issue has me concerned.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
...and, wake me when Firefox passes it, as well.
It's what I use now, but I thought it needed to be said.
What a sterling silver, perfect, museum-quality example of what bad UI does to a user. You learned to manually kill processes, constantly. If I designed a car and drivers trained themselves to kill the engine in drive every time, that would be some shoddy design on my part.
(MS can't possibly outdo the dialog boxes from Excel when you try to save to a different format, though. For teaching the user to ignore what's being said and impatiently click "Yes" -- dang it! -- those are without equal. Particularly in conjunction with the way they include a second "Save Changes" dialog if you try to close the document you've just saved to the other format. Every user trains herself to ignore those after the first time or two.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Granted that MSIEv7 only needs to catch up with contemporary browsers. However it fails to do that.
Since as I understand it MSIEv7 only works with WinXP, it is not a solution for enterprizes who are standardized on legacy Windows versions and cannot justify the costs of upgrading until the end of the service life of their present machines. This is a big market, and MSIEv7 as it is currently designed is only going to drive these IT departments toward Opera or Firefox.
On a personal level, I wouldn't even try to move Aunt Tilly and Uncle Ray from WinME to WinXP. MS isn't offering me anything I can recommend to them. Firefox is the obvious way to go.
I just tried Firefox 1.06 on The Second Acid Test and it looks like it fails as well. I guess that now means Firefox is just as half-baked as IE7 if you go with the standard ranking system on Slashdot. Not that anyone will actually acknowledge that, of course.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
iCab3 beta for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9(!) passes Acid2 test and is freely available for download.
Right now I have a ton of css hacks in place to handle MSIE 6 ... How will IE 7 affect those?
Will I ahve to remove them, so that IE7 renders properly? (But IE6 no longer does)
Will I have to keep using the same hacks to get my pages to work?
Will it ignore the IE6 Hacks, and render properly?
Option #3 is by far the best, ignore the hacks like Firefox and Safari (and opera and the rest), and just render the page as intended.
Please excuse my fixation on appearance and design as that is my line of work.
This looks like garbage. Total fucking garbage.
I realize it is a beta but I will assume Microsoft is using the standard def'n od 'beta' in that it is feature complete but with outstanding bugs.
The entire interface is a bug. God, I don't even know where to start. The tabs are brutal, completely nonsensical placement between a menubar and the toolbar. Tiny, tiny refresh/stop button, one of the most used buttons in any browser and its about 10 pixels across. Tiny, tiny throbber - which is nothing new from old versions but again, is a vital part of the browser's user feedback. That sucker should be a lot more obvious (how much time have you spent staring at the stupid globe?). Also a second tiny icon toolbar, mixed with the menu... god damn, if they didn't set out to break every rule of good UI design, they have failed miserably in the interface department. I really can't believe how bad that is.
And - where is the antialiased text? What year is it? My fuggin' PSP has antialiased browser text!
I know it seems like I am freaking out a bit, but honestly, for one of the world's biggest software companies with more money than Satan to inflict this on such a huge proportion of the computing public is just kind of sick. This one app will deeply affect most computer users. And it sucks worse than practically anything else.
Firefox devs, rejoice. You have handed the giant its own ass.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Actually, now that I read the Amaya docs, they don't claim CSS2 support, although it is a little odd that they would be further behind than other browsers.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
It SUCKS. I tried installing it the other day (yes, I know, daring huh) and at the end of the install it said I did not have access to install this. I'm not only an administrator on my machine, but the ONLY user. It now won't let me uninstall it because it says it was installed by another user. Now IE and half of the Control Panel forms are broken. Thank god for firefox...
Well, not Konqueror-3.4.1 on KDE-3.4.1. But, of Firefox 1.0.6, Konqueror, and IE7, IE7 is unquestionably the *worst*. I'm worried that as the others become more standards-compliant, rendering differences will increase, not decrease. I'll stay with the standards. Major sites will become less IE-centric as Firefox gains market share. Which it obviously is.
_ skus/.
M$--still ignoring standards whenever possible, despite all their talk about standards being important. They're obviously not doing this out of stupidity. It's more a rapacious greed sort of thing. Lock 'em in, and keep 'em in!
This reminds me of Ballmer wanting to quadruple Office revenue by the end of the decade. He will probably fail to get his wishes there, too, given that Office 2003 has only 15% uptake, and Office 12 is supposed to be released in 2006.
Reference for the above para is a good read: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/28/microsoft
Possibly, the best thing that I see in the reviews above is the anti-phishing measures. That could save casual users some grief. It could also fall prey to all the sorts of problems that spam black lists can be subject to regarding DHCP, etc.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
I think IE have a problem.
I think WE have a problem.
Virtually no web developer can afford to produce sites that aren't compatible with Internet Explorer 5, 6 and 7. As far as end-users are concerned, it doesn't matter how crappy Internet Explorer 7's rendering engine is, websites will "just work" because us web developers must hide the problems in Internet Explorer 7.
It's a vicious circle. They don't see problems because we hide them. We hide them because Internet Explorer is so popular. Internet Explorer is so popular because they don't see problems.
The only way to break the vicious circle is to start producing websites that don't work in Internet Explorer. Obviously, professional websites can't afford to do this. But hobby websites like weblogs can. Just don't bother working around Internet Explorer's problems, and use Javascript to put a notice at the top of the screen explaining the problem for Internet Explorer users (e.g. "If this website looks screwed up, it's because you are using a broken web browser. _Read more_ on how to fix it.").
Since when do phishers set up dedicated domains?
All URLs in the fake-bank-notices that are sent to me have the bare IP addresses of other site hosts, or even workstations, that have been compromised.
Within a week, those machines will probably have been cleaned, but will they stay on MS's phishing blacklist forever? How do you identify where the phishers are when they're constantly moving? Heisenberg had something to say about this...
Obviously, the Empty Folder didn't last long. Aside from the problems introduced with a hierachical file system (every folder and sub-folder would need its own Emtpy Folder?), the interface folks quickly realized that using a menu or keyboard combo was much more consistent with the rest of the OS. Conflating a "rename" or "select" action with a "create new" action was just confusing. I wonder how long until Microsoft re-learns the same lesson?