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Internet Explorer Not Dead Yet
turnitover writes "The future's not all Firefox, Deer Park and Camino, insists Microsoft. At its Mix '06 conference in Las Vegas, reports Microsoft Watch, company execs insisted that there's a bright future for IE. They not only distributed a 'layout-complete' build of IE 7.0, but offered hints about what the new version of the browser geeks love to disdain (yes, it will include ActiveX) will include. Also shown: tools to test IE compatibility. But with what? Standards or IE 6?"
Translation: We're working on ways of tying this thing even further into our operating system than before.
This guy's the limit!
I can't WAIT to watch the objective analysis that this thread will surely contain.
"Its a trick. Get an axe."
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
But it's certainly beginning to smell like it is!
I'm sure FreeBSD is saying the same thing...
Honda claims next year's Hondas will be the best cars ever, Magnavox claims to produce the greatest ever stereo system, and Goya state that their upcoming batch of red kidney beans are going to be the absolute mind-blowingly best batch of red kidney beans ever set upon by human sensory organs.
Why is it news when a company advertises its own products?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The decision was cheered as "guaranteed work for the next decade" by computer security experts worldwide.
My sig is too lon
I have not heard it reported anywhere, but note that Microsoft will be hosting an "IE7 Compat Lab" at Mix '06, where developers can test their applications for compatibility with the latest IE test builds. As Microsoft itself has acknowledged, there could be app-compatibility hiccups with IE 7.0.
I have read that Microsoft acknowleding on the Mix '06 Web site, "reduced need to hack around quirks in older browsers, however, means that existing pages written specifically for older browsers may render differently in IE7. In addition, IE7 includes a number of new security features which may have impact on binary extensions such as toolbars, browser helper objects, and ActiveX controls."
I don't know about a bright future, but it's not going away any time soon. I'm not sure how massive a screw-up it would take for IE to lose its largest customer base - the people who can't be bothered to look for anything else or don't know anything else exists.
As long as the Gecko crowd and Opera manage to hold on to enough marketshare to force web developers to use REAL standards instead of Microsoft's so that my browser of choice works, I'll be content.
.. Or is it pinin' for the fjords? /obvious
...has Netcraft confirmed this?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Neglecting Firefox's inability to pass Acid 2.0. this might be better for you.
Isn't IE still 90% of the market share? where did this subject line come from?
/. was completely non biased and objective
Sure I wish it was dead just like everyone else, but last I checked my grandmother wasn't going to download firefox so she can receive RSS feeds and use tabbed browsing...
what a bias misleading subject...
i thought
muahahahahahahaha
When Firefox can pass the Acid 2.0 Test, come back to me.
Sincerely,
Opera 9tp Fan
(disclaimer, not bashing FF, just found the previous comment to be an offer too tempting to turn down)
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Sure IE isn't dead yet but by not working with standards, by being overly invasive, by being integrated into the OS and several other mistakes that they REFUSE to correct, they are doing their best to kill it. It's like they are doing there best to ignore the public outcry while cramming something else down there throats.
Sure Joe Average user doesn't care about these things (at least not directly) but he does care about the indirect problems that these things incur. All he knows is that with Firefox, he doesn't get POPUPS, it lets him modify it to what he wants it to look and act like and it's simple easy and fun to use. Most users completely forget about IE until another applications forces them to open it and asks if they want it to be their default browser.
Now even universities, schools and businesses are installing Firefox and doing their best to remove all pointers to IE due to security risks. And once the end user becomes familiar with the brwser at work or school, they will be more likely to download it and install it at home.
There is a reason why some sites show Firefox usage as high as 30%; hell even internally at Microsoft, 8-11% of people use a Mozilla based browser (based on stats from exclusive third party vendors to Microsoft).
In this case, Microsoft is their own worst enemy and needs to modify their business strategy or else continue to lose market share in the browser.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
While I am also a Firefox fan and use it despite Konqueror's being very nice and passing the Acid2 test, it should be pointed out that Firefox does NOT pass the Acid2 test. At least, Firefox/1.5.0.1 does not. The dev tree might, but who counts that? One may as well claim that Looking Glass is the best operating environment ever - but since it's vaporware/unreleased it would be a false statement.
Sure, Firefox breaks less than IE does when loading the Acid2 test, however by a strict measurement, only one (two) browsers to date pass Acid2:
KHTML (Safari/Konqueror)
If you want to count dev trees/beta releases, then you've got:
Opera
Firefox
Also, I think it's great that the Opera folks are almost mocking Microsoft, and challenging them to pass Acid2. Aside from KHTML which is there, and MSIE which TOTALLY pukes on it, Every other browser is almost rendering Acid2 to be recognizable as a smiley face. At least everyone else is attempting to handle proper CSS and bad CSS correctly, e.g, render compliant CSS, and downgrade gracefully on broken CSS.
What MSIE renders could just as well be accomplished by splashing paint on a sheet of canvas. With the way Microsoft is handling things, I wonder why they don't just ignore CSS altogether and turn their browser into a random pixel renderer?
Get with the program, Microsoft. You have the greatest market share so it is in your best interest for maintaining your share to act responsibly. I hope the mass reaction to MSIE 7.0 is for major sites to either block the browser, or to use CSS which causes MSIE to totally break, and for those sites to recommend all browsers which are not MSIE as alternatives.
Microsoft has held the web back long enough with their refusal to implement proper PNG rendering - their holding back the web has to stop now.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Dont' worry, it'll be stone dead in a minute. /source/vista/ie7/*
$ rm -rf
But seriously...
User: I wish to make a complaint!
Ballmer: (hurriedly) Sorry, we're about to ship Vista.
User: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this web browser, what came bundled not five years ago from this very operating system.
Ballmer: Oh yes, IE, ah, version 6. What's, ah... W-what's wrong with it?
User: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it.
Ballmer: No, no, It's ah... it's undergoing a security upgrade.
User: Look, matey, I know a dead browser when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Ballmer: No no, i-it's not dead, it's... getting its user interface upgraded!
User: User interface?
Ballmer: Y-yeah, the UI. Upgradin'. Remarkable browser, IE, isn't it, eh? Beautiful layouts!
User: The layout-complete build don't enter into it. It's stone dead!
Ballmer: Nononono, no, no! 'E's bein' upgraded!
User: All right then, if he's bein' upgraded, I'll run 'im!
(starts typing)
IEXPLORE.EXE! C:\MYDOCU~1\HELLO.JPG
Looky looky looky! Happily rendering the Goatse Guy! Hey, IE, I've got lots of lovely RAM for you if you're running, Mr. Internet Explorer!)
(pounds keyboard)
Ballmer: There, the page refreshed!
User: No, he didn't, that was you clicking reload!
Ballmer: I never!!
User: Yes, you did!
Ballmer: I never, never....
(pounding Ctrl-Alt-Del on the keyboard again)
User: HELLO, WORLD! HELLO TASK MANAGER! PLEASE WAKE UP!
Now that's what I call a dead browser.
Ballmer: No, no.... No, it's just running a signed ActiveX Control in the background.
User: A ACTIVEX CONTROL!?!?
Ballmer: Yeah! You invoked an ActiveX control, just as it was wakin' up! Believe me, IE runs those easily, major!
User: Look my lad, I've had just about enough of this. That browser is definitely deceased, and when I booted its PC up after buyin' it not half an hour ago, you assured me that the PC's total lack of computational power was due to it being tired and shagged out after a prolonged virus scan.
Ballmer: Well, he's... it's, ah... probably needin' activation and authorization with Windows Genuine Advantage.
User: WINDOWS Genuine ADVANTAGE?!? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did the OS crash flat on its back the moment I plugged it into the router?
Ballmer: The Norwegian Bluescreen prefers kippin' on its back! Remarkable UI, though, isn't it, guv, eh? Lovely layout-complete screenshots!
User: (coldly) Look, I took the liberty of examining that browser cache when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that the PC had anything to run on its hard drive in the first place was that it had been bundled in there along with the spyware and the DRM.
Ballmer: Well, of course it has DRM there! If I hadn't bundled that browser and nailed everything down with DRM, all the content would have nuzzled up to those wires at the back, bent 'em apart with its little bits, and VOOM!
User: "VOOM?" Look matey, this browser wouldn't "voom" if you put four thousand kilobytes of W3C standards through it! It's bleedin' demised!
Ballmer: It's not! I-It's just authenticating!
User: It's not authenticatin,' it's passed on! This browser is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late software release! It's a stiff! Bereft of RAM, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the system with DRM and your monopoly it'd be pushing up the daisies! Its spawned processes are of interest only to historians! It's hopped the twig! It's shuffled off this mortal coil! It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This.... is an INACTIVE X!
Ballmer: Well, I'd better upgrade it, then.
(I'll stop it now. It's silly.)
Right, its Opera.
ducks
Chances are any disscution on Slashdot will degrade into a flamewar about ID/Christianity within 14 posts.
Firefox IMHO is a much better user expierence with tabs (once you get use to the idea) and having a little search box.
I just wanted to comment on tabs and the little search box. I was helping a not-so-computer-literate friend out the other day. When I suggested he google something, he clicked on the icon to open up a new browser. I then suggested he close that new window and open a new tab. Which I had to teach him how. Then he started to goto google.com, and I stopped him suggesting he type it in the search box. Which he did, but instead of pressing enter to submit it, he pressed the go button just to the left of it. That go button only works for the URL, not for the search. So i had him put the cursor back in the search box and press enter.
A simple task turned into a crash course on web surfing. Is he the only idiot out there or are there thousands of other firefox users out there not using firefox's ease of browsing features simply because they don't know how?
There's no place like ~/
My wife is already sold on a MacBook (she's waiting for the design to mature a little, we've been burned before buying the first generation of a product). I'm happily running Windows 2000 and Ubuntu and they suit my needs just fine. In fact Windows 2000 suits all my needs right now, however I am trying to get used to Ubuntu just for fun.
There are people who don't use them, and they usually aren't "idiots". They're generally part-time or former IE users who switched for security reasons, not ease-of-use, and treat the interface the same way they treated IE's.
A friend of mine who is fairly computer literate and uses (the official) Netscape didn't know it had tabs until I showed him a few days ago.
fyi, when you search in firefox's search bar, pressing alt-enter will open the result in a new tab.
I'm responsible for several installs of firefox around here after I accidently demo'd my app with firefox and they wondered why it looked different in IE. I'm also the IT guy, so no problem there.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I heard he was dying!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I didn't use the search box either until I learned the keyboard shortcut for it (Ctrl-K). Since then, I use it constantly.
he better not die, he said he was going to get me out of summer school!
Collector's Edition
"What's important is that IE 7 is WAY more standards compliant than the previous version..."
Dude, they couldn't be any less standards compliant than previous versions. They had nowhere to go but up.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
But conformance with W3C specifications guarantees passing Acid2 test.
Acid2 is not the ultimate goal, but it's a pretty and easy to understand by non-techies indicator of progress in HTML/CSS support.
It's exactly the same principle as other standards, such as the standard rail gauge that allows standard trains to ride on all standard tracks. Do you want websites to just work? If so, you should care about standards.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I personally dislike the idea of data urls, for the following reasons.
Back to Acid2 guided tour. Here are the problems I see right off the bat.
I'm sure I'll find more later, but it's getting late here.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011