Interview with Microsoft Exec on IE7 and RSS

AvianFlugelhorn writes "BetaNews has posted an interview with Gary Schare, Director of IE Product Management, which touches on the changes coming in IE7, Firefox's growth, and how Microsoft will bring RSS to the mainstream. It's interesting to see Schare become more humble since a November 2004 interview, when he questioned whether Firefox could attract more than just early adopters. Now, Microsoft says: 'we respect the work that the Firefox guys have done.' Schare also admits problems with ActiveX and explains why Microsoft will revolutionize RSS." Couple of days old, but still interesting.

Comments

Re:Obviously no questions from the web team

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the AJAX complaint is unfair. It was, afterall, MS that made the object in the first place.

Re:Obviously no questions from the web team

[nick_urbanik]

The parent has been modded as flamebait. However, more than one web developer may consider IE itself to be flamebait. Just look at the CSS-discuss mailing list and count all the efforts made to work around the refusal of Microsoft to support CSS standards that almost every other web browser supports so much better.

The parent may be overly passionate, but, well, there could be some real motivation for the passion.

Re:Woo hoo

[Bogtha]

MS Guy: We added tabbed browsing and upped our CSS support to what was published in 2000.

There'd be hell to pay if the MS guy actually claimed that - they are still missing whole sections of CSS 2, published in May 1998. Granted, Internet Explorer 7.0 has improved support, but it's still missing, e.g. generated content and tables.

You'll be pleased to know, however, that Internet Explorer 7.0 finally has complete support for CSS 1, published in 1996. So let's all welcome Microsoft to ten years ago!

It's more than just the tabs

[edmicman]

When telling friends about Firefox, and why to use it, I've always mentioned the tabbed browsing first, and then noted that it's more secure than IE. Sure, there's a ton of other stuff that FF "does", but those were the two things, the selling points if you will, that I wanted to show them. "Tabbed browsing, man! You'll never surf the same way again!"

But after trying IE7, I've realized there's so much more to the experience. Tabs are a given, but FF seems to do them so much better. It's faster, snappier, cleaner. I come to accept the security as a given. Even in IE7, I wouldn't go to half the sites I do in FF. IE still doesn't seem to handle popups as well as FF, I've come to rely on the the Adblock extension which makes the browsing experience so much better. Pages load faster in FF. Little things like Find-As-You-Type (why in the hell does IE still have the ctrl-F dialog box that pops up, and doesn't wrap around the page? Up or Down??). I think I'm realizing that the EXTENSIONS in FF are what makes it great. Just the handful of ones I have installed make my browsing experience that much better, and I take for granted what I can do, and I don't notice this until trying to do the same in IE7. Why can't I rearrange tabs in IE? Ctrl-tab doesn't cycle how I would like it, but what can I do? In FF, I just find an extension. Plus, IE7 is ugly. I can change the theme in FF.

I think the only thing IE7 is really going to do is get an installed base of "secure" IE out there - all the Joe Schmoes that don't care, power up their Dell nekkid to the cable modem, and check their email. Maybe this will help curb some of the stupid things that have resulted from the old IE versions. But in no way is IE7 even remotely close to the browser that Firefox is.

Re:My recommendation: Take out ActiveX!

[Phroggy]

Secondly, what do you propose to replace common ActiveX tools that require OS interaction (like Windows Update or TrendMicro's online virus scanner)?

How about downloading an application and executing it yourself? Why does it have to be on a web page? If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft has already said Windows Update in Vista won't be web-based.