Microsoft Releases IE7 Beta 3

Favorite release note... by peipas · 2006-06-30 05:19 · Score: 5, Funny

"If Flight Simulator 2004 stops responding after you have installed Internet Explorer 7 Beta, find the oleacc.dll file in the Flight Simluator folder and rename it to oleacc.old. Then restart Flight Simulator."

Re:Favorite release note... by Mayhem178 · 2006-06-30 05:22 · Score: 5, Funny

'the most efficient way to deploy and manage Web-based solutions.'

Typos. Let me fix that for you.

'the most efficient way to destroy and mangle Web-based solutions.

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"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
Re:Favorite release note... by JudasBlue · 2006-06-30 06:00 · Score: 4, Informative

This dll hooks the Flight Simulator app into the Active Accessiblity API which provides features for people with disabilities. While I haven't coded to the MS platform specifically for a very long time, unless something major has changed, it wouldn't be odd at all for parts of that API to be actually buried in the innards of IE. A very annoying MS trait, that; to bury parts of their APIs all over the place. Many things can be said of MS as a development platform, most of them bad from my perspective, but one thing it most definitely isn't is orthangonal.

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7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Re:Favorite release note... by mcg1969 · 2006-06-30 07:28 · Score: 3, Informative

Actually, it seems to me that, in this case at least, there is a more benign explanation.

I don't think the issue is that the AA API stuff is buried in the innards of IE7. The nature of the proposed fix suggests that the AA API stuff is now being moved to the system when IE7 is iinstalled, so that all applications can share it.

Flight Simulator's version of the DLL is old and incompatible; so by moving it out of the way, FS 2004 can now access the centralized DLL.

Yeah, messy, but if anything, it's a step towards orthogonality.
Re:Favorite release note... by Nutria · 2006-06-30 22:16 · Score: 2, Funny

He expected to go back to IE6 and get work done until 7 was out of beta.

It's Microsoft. What the heck should he expect? Competence?

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"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1

"planned reliability" by Weaselmancer · 2006-06-30 05:22 · Score: 4, Funny

Sorry, but that gave me a chuckle. Reliability, compatibility and security are still in beta.

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Weaselmancer
rediculous.

Let's see. by Inoshiro · 2006-06-30 05:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

IE 7 still did not correctly implement the box model, positioning, all CSS1, all CSS2, or any CSS3. The same IE-specific parsing bugs for CSS are in place in IE 7.

At this point, you have to ask; is it that the people at Microsoft are incapable of producing a specs-compliant rendering engine (when every one else in the world can?), that they are roped by backwards compatibility, or that they think people will see IE 6 + tabs as "good enough"?

It's to the point where every site I make has 2 code paths: not IE, and the IE-specific overrides (up to an additional 20kb per page!).

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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.

Re:Let's see. by elrous0 · 2006-06-30 05:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yeah, but let's not pretend that everyone else is able to meet specs and standards perfectly either. Try the ACID test with Firefox sometime and you'll see that MS aren't the only ones with problems in this area.
-Eric

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Re:Let's see. by Tweekster · 2006-06-30 05:33 · Score: 4, Informative

I think if a developer is working on ACID test conformity they are pretty close. Microsoft isnt even close to that point of worrying about that yet and looks like they wont ever be.

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The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Re:Let's see. by Kelson · 2006-06-30 05:37 · Score: 2, Informative

IE 7 still did not correctly implement the box model, positioning, all CSS1, all CSS2, or any CSS3.

Of course, no one else implements all of CSS2 either. Though everyone else seems to be pretty far ahead of MSIE in that respect.
Re:Let's see. by binary+paladin · 2006-06-30 05:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

You have got to be fucking kidding me. There's a difference between not being perfect on the ACID test and being... well... IE. This is not even in the same ball park. Not even the same sport. Not even the same planet.

So Firefox only scored a 1500 on its SAT. IE is still wearing a helmet and drooling on itself as it takes the short bus back to Redmond. Seriously just... just don't even go there. IE is the biggest frustration on the planet right now to anyone who actually works in this industry.
Re:Let's see. by heinousjay · 2006-06-30 05:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

The ACID test has as much bearing on real world browser usage as my opinions on foreign policy have on Mexico's actions.

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Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Re:Let's see. by naelurec · 2006-06-30 05:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yeah, but let's not pretend that everyone else is able to meet specs and standards perfectly either.
Yah but I can develop a XHTML/CSS website to the standard, using one of the mentioned browsers (firefox, mozilla, konqueror, safari, opera, etc..) and when I view that website in any other standards compliant browser on various operating systems, it looks VERY close if not the same. Then I view it in Internet Explorer and absolutely cringe.

As a developer, you get the following options:

1. Develop exclusively for Internet Explorer and don't care about any other browser (fortunately this mentality is dying due to the marketshare of alternative browsers). Other browsers tend to display these sites fairly well as long as there is no IE-specific crap (ie: active x)

2. Develop a tables based design with limited CSS .. basically, throw out lots of accessibility related formatting, but limit overall development time. Seems like most sites favor this method.

3. Develop two separate sites .. do browser detection (yuck) and serve up (at minimum) a separate CSS doc for Internet Explorer than for all other current browsers. Works ok until you realize the incompatibilities between different versions of IE and end up having to do version checks and maintain many separate layouts.

4. Develop to the standard and if IE can't display it properly, oh well.. (not terribly useful for most sites).

Its absolutely aggervating as a web developer to not only learn a standard and code to the standard, but end up having to learn the "IE" way and all the various hacks and workarounds (I believe Microsoft refers to this type of crap as "shims").. when working on a new layout, its not unrealistic to end up having to spend twice as long just to make a standards compliant XHTML/CSS design work in IE.. Its a shame because *most* developers simply can't devote the time ($$) and as a result, webpages are not standards compliant, less accessible and harder to maintain.
Re:Let's see. by Kelson · 2006-06-30 06:08 · Score: 4, Informative

I'm pretty sure Opera 9 does. It passes the ACID2 test.

Repeat after me: Acid2 is not a rigorous CSS compliance test. Passing Acid2 does not mean you support every aspect of some version of CSS. It was designed to catch a number of aspects that most browsers did not support as of a year ago.

I'll agree that Opera 9 supports more of CSS2.1 than Firefox 1.5, but I believe it also supports more of CSS 2.1 than Safari 2, which also passes Acid2.

As for "Where's Netscape?" -- present-day Netscape is a fusion of IE and Firefox. It uses the IE's Trident engine on some pages and Mozilla's Gecko engine on others. Previous versions of Netscape that have enough CSS support to consider were also Gecko-based.
Re:Let's see. by ltbarcly · 2006-06-30 06:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

That is just about the most fucked up analogy I've ever seen.

First of all, "real world browser usage" is some sort of average of what happens when people use browsers on internet connected computers in "the real world", which I guess means "not in a laboratory" or something. Philosophy professors would fall down in seizures if forced to listen to something that poorly defined. "Mexico" is a place. The connection here is well beyond me.

Now, are you saying that the Acid test doesn't effect "real world browser usage"? Because what does affecting "real world browser usage" even mean?

Perhaps you mean that most browser makers don't shoot for acid test compliance, and therefore browser users aren't affected by this. You are wrong, since basically all non-ie browsers are working toward acid test compliance, and khtml/konqueror/safari already pass. So you would be stupid if you thought this, and I'm certainly not calling you a stupid idiot.

Maybe you mean that the CSS tested by the acid test doesn't represent what you actually come across on the web. Now, this is accurate, but it may be a self fulfilling prophesy. Bad CSS support causes simple CSS usage, because people can't trust browsers to correctly render CSS the way it is written if they make it complex. IE has bad CSS support, therefore in "real world browser usage" people don't come across very much complex CSS. You conclude that the Acid test is irrelevant, because it test something that doesn't come up in practice. But as you see, that 'practice' is a result of the very bad CSS support the Acid test is trying to help browser makers correct.
Re:Let's see. by bunratty · 2006-06-30 06:16 · Score: 4, Informative

But the web is supposed to be a cross-platform environment from the ground up. For the most part, I treat it that way, and just let pages look suboptimal in IE. If someone complains how a page looks in IE, I just "dumb down" the page so IE can understand how to format it better.

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What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Re:Let's see. by Kelson · 2006-06-30 06:19 · Score: 2, Informative

Here's another comparison chart that includes Safari (KHTML) and Opera 9 (Presto).
Re:Let's see. by jamesots · 2006-06-30 06:23 · Score: 2, Informative

Option 5: Develop to the standard while being aware of IE's limitations. Use the '* html' hack to work around these problems. Not very difficult once you know how.

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Ho hum for the life of a bear
Re:Let's see. by zaajats · 2006-06-30 06:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

The ACID test has as much bearing on real world browser usage as my opinions on foreign policy have on Mexico's actions.

This isn't "Score:2, Funny, but rather "5, Insightful".

Really, the ACID test is about using techniques as complicated (and pointless) as they get to break browsers, while real web dev is about making sites that work.

A browser that passes the test is not automatically better than one that doesn't.
Re:Let's see. by CaymanIslandCarpedie · 2006-06-30 06:57 · Score: 2, Interesting

Perhaps you mean that most browser makers don't shoot for acid test compliance

I cannot claim to know exactly what the GP meant, but my reading of it thought he was refering to some peoples view that ACID2 is biased against MS. The issue was basically some of the authors of the original ACID test (and other outside parties) have accused the ACID2 of basically being used as a marketing tool against MS. Thier view on this is basically the original ACID test was built by asking "what are the most important features needed" and was then a tool to help all browser companies work toward compliance by meeting that test. They claim ACID2 was basically built by asking "what features is IE worst at and will have the most trouble implementing".

Now I have no idea about any of this but thats what I'm guessing he was talking about. That it was supposedly built more as a challenge to MS than to help ALL browsers work toward a common goal. How true any of this is, I got no idea. Just stuff I've ran across on the web. Here is one reference I was able to quickly find.

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"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Re:Let's see. by Bogtha · 2006-06-30 07:03 · Score: 3, Informative

IE 7 still did not correctly implement the box model, positioning, all CSS1, all CSS2, or any CSS3. The same IE-specific parsing bugs for CSS are in place in IE 7.

Exactly which box model bugs are you talking about? The most common one that people complain about is whether width includes padding or not. Unfortunately, despite everybody still complaining about it, Microsoft fixed that bug in 2001 when they released Internet Explorer 6.

I believe they still get error-handling wrong, which means they don't conform to CSS 1, however they have implemented the last remaining functionality of CSS 1 with Internet Explorer 7, so if you write valid CSS 1 that shouldn't be a problem.

As for CSS 3, they've added a few CSS 3 selectors.

You are wrong when you claim that Internet Explorer 7 has the same parsing bugs; for instance, they've fixed the * html and _property hacks.

is it that the people at Microsoft are incapable of producing a specs-compliant rendering engine (when every one else in the world can?)

None of the browsers you point to even implement HTML properly. Compliancy is obviously too much to expect from anybody.

I agree that Internet Explorer is miles behind other browsers, and I agree that it's really frustrating, but the specific claims you are making are false.

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Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Re:Let's see. by heinousjay · 2006-06-30 07:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

All I really meant by it is that ACID2 (mis)uses obscure techniques to deliberately break browsers. It has no bearing on how people actually make webpages, and the techniques it does use are so out of line with the norm that we don't even need them.

It's simply not a grave situation. It would be nice if all browsers worked the same, but I'm not an idealist by profession, and I certainly don't give additional point to things based on their obscurity. That's one geek trait I've never picked up.

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Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Re:Let's see. by CastrTroy · 2006-06-30 07:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think what he's saying is that just because the browser passes the ACID test doesn't mean that it renders 100% of the pages correctly. As far as I'm aware Safari/Konq is the only browser that passed it fully. Yet, other than IE, it's the browser I hear most about when it comes to rendering errors. You could make a program correctly renders the input of the ACID test. It wouldn't really look at the input, just read the file and output what it's supposed to. The ACID test doesn't test 100% compliance. It's just something for bragging rights. It doesn't show real world results with the billions of pages on the web.

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Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:Let's see. by westlake · 2006-06-30 07:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

I treat it that way, and just let pages look suboptimal in IE.
I suppose it is safe to assume your clients don't mind losing 85-95% of potential hits to their competitor's IE-friendly web site.
Re:Let's see. by jonadab · 2006-06-30 07:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

> So Firefox only scored a 1500 on its SAT. IE is still wearing a helmet
> and drooling on itself as it takes the short bus back to Redmond.

You exagerate. Yes, Firefox handles CSS (especially CSS2) rather a lot better than IE, but the browser drooling on itself on the short bus with regard to CSS is Netscape 4 (remember that frustration?), and the one scoring 1500, when it emerges, will handle a lot more CSS3 than any browser I've yet seen can manage so far.

Perhaps a better analogy would involve grade levels: IE7 is still a couple of grade levels behind Firefox, but in time it can potentially get to where Firefox is today. Sure, it needs to study CSS2, but that's coming up on its academic schedule, I imagine.

> IE is the biggest frustration on the planet right now to anyone who actually
> works in this industry.

Okay, that much is true. (Well, it's true if you define "this industry" as web development specifically, rather than lumping all computer stuff together as is often done.)

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Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Re:Let's see. by Jugalator · 2006-06-30 08:13 · Score: 2, Informative

Maybe a comment from Microsoft themselves on this topic would also be of interest to some:
In that vein, Ive seen a lot of comments asking if we will pass the Acid2 browser test published by the Web Standards Project when IE7 ships. Ill go ahead and relieve the suspense by saying we will not pass this test when IE7 ships. The original Acid Test tested only the CSS 1 box model, and actually became part of the W3C CSS1 Test Suite since it was a fairly narrow test but the Acid 2 Test covers a wide set of functionality and standards, not just from CSS2.1 and HTML 4.01, selected by the authors as a wish list of features theyd like to have. Its pointedly not a compliance test (from the Test Guide: Acid2 does not guarantee conformance with any specification). As a wish list, it is really important and useful to my team, but it isnt even intended, in my understanding, as our priority list for IE7.

Source (that also contains a brief summary of the most important fixed in IE7)

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Re:Let's see. by tjohns · 2006-06-30 08:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

Really, the ACID test is about using techniques as complicated (and pointless) as they get to break browsers, while real web dev is about making sites that work.

A browser that passes the test is not automatically better than one that doesn't.
I beg to differ. The whole idea behind standards is to provide a single target to develop for. While the Acid2 test just tests a small subset of those standards, it's still important. Quite frankly, I'm sick of seeing different resuls in MSIE whenver I develop a web page, and I'm sick of sites that break in anything except Internet Explorer just because they decided to cater to its bugs and deficiencies.

Yes, the ultimate test of a web browser is whether the page renders and works correctly. However, the closer browsers are to meeting the W3C standards, the less likely it is that a page will work in one browser and not another.

Oh, and for the record, a lot of tests are not "complicated and pointless". Sure, there's some stuff you probably won't take advantage of, but theres a lot of stuff in there that would make web developers' lives easier should browsers ever consistently support it. I suggest you read the Acid2 Guided Tour.
Re:Let's see. by Ankle · 2006-06-30 09:12 · Score: 2, Informative

Not only are they close, but in the reflow branch Firefox passes ACID2.
Re:Let's see. by _DangerousDwarf · 2006-06-30 12:17 · Score: 2, Funny

Nah, his mom doesn't really care. :)
Re:Let's see. by elrous0 · 2006-07-01 02:04 · Score: 2, Funny

No kidding. I'd *LOVE* to be at a meeting where the web developer stood up and said "I know this new redesign looks like ass in IE, but that's IE's problem, not ours!"
-Eric

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.

*Yawn* by TheDarkener · 2006-06-30 05:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm sure there are improvements with this new release, but how much can you really improve upon a structurally flawed program? It's like Vista... They always tout "It's the BEST Windows EVER" and "The most SECURE OS!" and all that garbage...but what happens 2 weeks after it's public release? Flaws. Flaws, flaws, horribly unexplainable flaws that should have been caught with some basic QA *before* release.

Firefox rules. It was built from the ground up to AVOID the problems created by poor programming in IE.

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It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Uninstall by jeffy210 · 2006-06-30 05:23 · Score: 5, Funny

"you should uninstall it before installing this release"

Wait, wait, wait. A version of IE you can actually uninstall? Did I miss something here?

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"And may your days be long upon the earth."

Re:Uninstall by tehshen · 2006-06-30 05:28 · Score: 5, Funny

That's a bug, it'll be removed from the Vista version.

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Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Re:Uninstall by IflyRC · 2006-06-30 05:36 · Score: 2, Informative

Yes you can uninstall it but it reverts everything back to IE 6.0 It worked quite well for me in Beta 2.

FUCK! by binary+paladin · 2006-06-30 05:35 · Score: 3, Funny

Still... no... proper... box... model...? Not even and... option or something?

Well, let me just say, as a web developer... FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! FUCK YOU FUCKING MICROSOFT FUCKERS! ROT IN HELL YOU CHEAP IMITATION HACKS WHO COULDN'T PROGRAM YOURSELVES OUT OF A FUCKING BOX! (Whatever that means.)

Okay. I needed that. Seriously, what the fuck have they been doing all this time? Pounding their dicks with mallets?

How long has this piece of shit been in development? If this browser is any indication of Vista well... no wonder I haven't updated past 2000. There is so much nice stuff sitting in the CSS standard and it's largely being ignored. The IE team should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell.

Re:FUCK! by NickFitz · 2006-06-30 06:09 · Score: 5, Informative

IE will use the W3C box model if you include an appropriate DOCTYPE in your page (as per the standards) thereby triggering "strict" rendering mode. The box model is only broken if you use"quirks" mode rendering.
This has been the case since IE5.5.

It's also how Firefox, Opera and Safari - and probably every other CSS-supporting browser of any note - cope with all the malformed HTML/CSS out there.

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Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.

It's not that bad by edmicman · 2006-06-30 05:42 · Score: 4, Informative

I know the Slashdot crowd will poo-poo on this release, the zealots will shout for their favorite browser, etc. And for the most part, they're right. The media seems oblivious to this, but I've stopping thinking of IE7 as a competitor to all of the other browsers. Instead, I see it as what a baseline browser that's integrated into the OS should be.

Yes, IE7 is basically where Firefox and everyone else was at years ago. Yes, it has tons of room for improvement. But for the unwashed masses out there, having a PC that comes with IE7, or being forced to upgrade as part of Windows Update is a good thing. Sure, I could install Windows from scratch, open up Write, and begin my novel. Or, if I want and need more features, I can choose from Word, Open Office, WordPerfect, etc. Same goes for the browsers. IE7 will give the average user a higher starting point, but the alternatives will always do the job better, and I don't think IE7 will stop the adoption that Firefox is seeing. Who is seriously going to go back to IE after using and customizing Firefox to how they want it?

I use Firefox at home, and partially at work, but I also have to use IE for our Intranet development (it's easier for now, and they're too ingrained to IE for me to start using FF full time. If something doesn't work right, I'd rather not have to tell the "well, it works right in FF, it's your problem"....anyway....). I grabbed the IE7b3 yesterday and have found it leaps and bounds better that IE7b2. Pages load faster (still not as fast as FF), the UI is snappier (still not as snappy as FF), and some of the quirks of before have been fixed. It's better than IE7b2, and tons better than IE6. Is it going to replace FF at all? Heck, no.

Re:It's not that bad by mcmonkey · 2006-06-30 05:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Instead, I see it as what a baseline browser that's integrated into the OS should be.

Buddy, you gotta lay off the Redmond kool-aid. A true baseline for a browser that's integrated into the the OS is...nothing. Null. The empty set.
There should be no web browser that's integrated into the OS. There are many reasons for this, but I'll name one: security. Browsing the web is an inherently insecure operation. Why would you (for any technical reason) integrate that function into the core of your OS?
You wouldn't. IE is integrated into Windows for marketing reasons. Until that integration is done away with, we know MS isn't serious about all their security talk.
Would you integrate your digestive system into your hands? Eating would be so easy--you'd just have to touch stuff! What that's? Sometimes you touch stuff that isn't safe to eat? Here, put this 'patch' on.
Re:It's not that bad by misleb · 2006-06-30 06:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

I know the Slashdot crowd will poo-poo on this release, the zealots will shout for their favorite browser, etc. And for the most part, they're right. The media seems oblivious to this, but I've stopping thinking of IE7 as a competitor to all of the other browsers. Instead, I see it as what a baseline browser that's integrated into the OS should be.

A "baseline" browser would be standards compliant and minimal, which IE7 is not.

-matthew

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"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Re:It's not that bad by WeAreAllDoomed · 2006-06-30 06:29 · Score: 2, Informative

Instead, I see it as what a baseline browser that's integrated into the OS should be.
first, a browser shouldn't be integrated into the OS. secondly, a "baseline browser", if anything, should RENDER CORRECTLY. *That's* the baseline. Then, if people want tabs, extensions, or other add-on features, they can start looking around.
the IE dev team has had plenty of time to fix their broken software, and they haven't. they left the rendering engine a pile of poo, and either intentionally wasted their time on end-user stuff like tabs etc, or they simply aren't able to fix the important stuff, so they did the bells and whistles.
this product is an enormous screw-up, like its predecesors.

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free software, open standards, open file formats, no software patents.
Re:It's not that bad by TheoMurpse · 2006-06-30 06:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

But for the unwashed masses out there, having a PC that comes with IE7, or being forced to upgrade as part of Windows Update is a good thing. Sure, I could install Windows from scratch, open up Write, and begin my novel.
Wrong. Your analogy would only be accurate if Write took random (but not all!) letters you typed and converted them to leet. Then it would do font sizes wrong so that if you opened it up in OpenOffice or even Word the font sizes would be different, and the layout would be completely screwed up. However, because the average user has a great baseline, they wouldn't feel the need to upgrade to Word. Then, when they passed on the documents to other people who opened them with standards-compliant word processors (observing accurate measurements and font sizes) the documents would be screwed up, and decide it must be their word processor's fault, since "my coworker would never do something that stupid as type in leet in a too-large font size".

No, having IE come on a system at all is bad, as it encourages developers to continue to use Microsoft-only hacks that blocks users of other browsers from enjoying the sites. Take for example, me: I work for the University of Texas at Austin Liberal Arts IT department developing websites. Last year, I spent a semester building a website for learning American Sign Language for the students and for anyone in the general public who wished to use the video resources as a study guide. Unfortunately, I spent more time making the site work on IE because of its failed standards compliance than I did on actually building the standards-compliant site. To top it off, all the work I put into making it work in IE only made it work in IE 6! It will still fail in IE 7, so when users upgrade, I'll have to make updates to a static site! This has wasted my time, taxpayers' money, students' chances at education; and has harmed the ASL community because it is one less resource (and boy, is it a good one!) for ASL-as-a-second-language people to use in their studies. A standards-compliant page is necessary in order to support alternative browsers and provide a common page that, in theory, all browsers (hopefully IE one day) will display correctly. I can't just code to IE because, as we are seeing, IE changes; standards remain the same (margins are margins are margins, not padding).

In short, the existence of IE on users' computers hurts society economically and educationally.
Re:It's not that bad by Kelson · 2006-06-30 06:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

There should be no web browser that's integrated into the OS.

I think you're using different meanings for "integrated." You mean firmly entrenched with tendrils running throughout the system. I suspect the GP post meant pre-installed (i.e. integrated in the installer and/or the user experience).

There are a number of reasons that some web browser should be pre-installed with a new computer or OS install. The foremost is this: A whole lot of software -- browsers included -- is distributed online these days. A built-in browser of some sort is necessary just to get your browser of choice. Care to guess how many Slashdotters have used IE primarily to download Firefox?

You could, of course, get by with a minimal browser like Off By One (and we're back to the WordPad vs. Word analogy), as long as it has the ability to fill out forms and download files.

The alternative is to rely on CD-ROM distribution just to get online. (And don't suggest command-line FTP as the way to let people download Firefox/IE/Opera/what-the-hell-ever. You can figure it out, I can figure it out, but most people don't want to mess around with the command-line when there's a simpler way to do it.)
Re:It's not that bad by misleb · 2006-06-30 07:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

On the other hand, if you have, say, 5 common browsers (Safari, IE, Opera, Firefox, and Konq.) which all render roughly the same except for one (IE), can you really say that the odd man out is the "defacto standard?" Do you compare raw number of users or number of products? When a web developer wants to make a web site which display correctly on all browsers, IE is the one that causes most of the problems. Where is the "defacto standards" in that?

-matthew

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"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death

XHTML DTD Parsing by charleste · 2006-06-30 05:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

But no mention in the FA as to whether or not IE will support the DTD specs from W3C (currently, IE 6 does not ignore entities that have the IGNORE attribute, hence XHTML 1.1 DTDs from W3C are not parsed - they throw errors.

IE 7 is a Major Improvement by ThinkFr33ly · 2006-06-30 05:44 · Score: 5, Informative

The IE 7 team has talked in length about the changes to the rendering engine and the decisions they've made.

Some particularly interesting posts are:

Standards and CSS in IE
Improving the CSS 2.1 strict parser for IE 7
Layout Complete Announced at MIX06
What's New for CSS in Beta 2 Preview
The prolog, strict mode, and XHTML in IE
All your are belong to us
Call to action: The demise of CSS hacks and broken pages.

It's not perfect, but it's a major improvement in basically every way over IE 6.

Re:IE 7 is a Major Improvement by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2006-06-30 06:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's not perfect, but it's a major improvement in basically every way over IE 6.

Wow, seven different press releases/comments from MS. Well, someone just installed it on a test box, so let me take a look at the HTML I'm outputting. Golly looks just the same as IE6. IE fails to show either the CSS or XHTML formatting it failed to before. Now lets take a look in some other browsers. Firefox works. Opera works. Safari works.

They can talk all they want, but they still haven't managed to do anything. Talk is cheap. Luckily, as this is content that only network security experts will be looking at, nobody cares is it is unformatted for IE users since none of them would touch the bloody thing.
Re:IE 7 is a Major Improvement by ThinkFr33ly · 2006-06-30 09:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

The only reason I have to believe it is still not working is because either IE engineers are absurdly incompetent or MS does not want it to work.

You do realize how rediculous that statement is, right? It just makes you look stupid. If you want to bash MS and make stuff up to do so, feel free, but at least be a little less obvious about it.

If you have a bug, post a sample of the HTML here along with a screen shot (or detailed description) of the behavior your seeing. If I can verify it I will certainly make sure it gets into the bug tracker.

My hunch is that this you will fail to do this either by not responding at all, or by making up some reason why you can't post some example HTML.

Still the slowest browser around by drinkypoo · 2006-06-30 05:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

It seems to be slightly faster than b2 was, but it still takes longer to load than firefox (which is hilarious, because I consider firefox to be one slow-starting mofo) and loads pages about half as fast. Probably it's a checked build or something, but it's unacceptable. I'm uninstalling and going back to IE6 (for those things for which I need IE) as soon as I feel like rebooting.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

nextgen of customized "browsers" by hobo+sapiens · 2006-06-30 05:58 · Score: 2, Funny

Internet Explorer Administration Kit 7 Beta 2 Looks like a real joy. Now every ISP can create their own rambling piece of crap like the Yahoo! browser!

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blah blah blah

as I said yesterday... by Tumbleweed · 2006-06-30 05:59 · Score: 3, Informative

It's Still Fisher-Price. :(

Cui bono? Who benefits? by jbn-o · 2006-06-30 06:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Comparing anything to perfection is a false dichotomy because nothing is perfect. The question the grandparent poster is asking is better answered by asking oneself cui bono—who benefits? Then you'll see that as long as a proprietor can keep open standards from taking hold, that proprietor benefits. If the most popular browser were to become a free software browser, such as Firefox, you'd see Microsoft change their browser implementation to better conform to standards because they wouldn't be able to compete with broken-by-design software.

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Digital Citizen

Does IE7 support the <CANVAS> tag? by cr0sh · 2006-06-30 06:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

I find this tag to be one of the more interesting "new" HTML tags. From what I understand, the Safari browser (OSX?) was the first to have it, then (IIRC) Opera, then finally the Firefox browser. IE6 doesn't support it, although people have been able to create some interesting workarounds using SVG.

I just like the possibilities this tag brings to browsers and web applications, as well as (simple) gaming. However, I haven't heard anything about it working (or not) in any of the IE7 betas that have been released yet...

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Reason is the Path to God - Anon

Re:I know someone who works... by HillBilly · 2006-06-30 06:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sometimes when you use a product so much you get used to its quirks and forget that its broken. The first moment he uses IE he should be able to immediatly see problems that over developers have forgotten that are there.

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"Go into the hall of mirrors and have a bloody hard look at yourself" - HG Nelson

Re:Vista? by NickFitz · 2006-06-30 06:18 · Score: 4, Informative

According to the announcement on the IE Team's blog:

This beta does not install on Windows Vista Beta 2; a new version of IE7+ in Windows Vista will be available with the next public Windows Vista release soon.

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Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.

The ACID Test by ThinkFr33ly · 2006-06-30 06:25 · Score: 4, Informative

Here is what Microsoft has to say about IE 7 and the ACID test:

"...I've seen a lot of comments asking if we will pass the Acid2 browser test published by the Web Standards Project when IE7 ships. I'll go ahead and relieve the suspense by saying we will not pass this test when IE7 ships. The original Acid Test tested only the CSS 1 box model, and actually became part of the W3C CSS1 Test Suite since it was a fairly narrow test - but the Acid 2 Test covers a wide set of functionality and standards, not just from CSS2.1 and HTML 4.01, selected by the authors as a "wish list" of features they'd like to have. It's pointedly not a compliance test (emphasis added) (from the Test Guide: "Acid2 does not guarantee conformance with any specification"). As a wish list, it is really important and useful to my team, but it isn't even intended, in my understanding, as our priority list for IE7."

Re:The ACID Test by Ajehals · 2006-06-30 15:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

This is a Very Bad Idea, it sounds OK but its not;

Why? Because if what you describe were to happen then everyone would be playing catch up to Microsoft all of the time. The situation you describe would give IE a huge advantage over every other browser as IE would always be 100% compliant, and all the others would not be. Every change in IE would have to be implemented in other browsers after the IE release. Not to mention that Microsoft could add features that are proprietary or subject to a software patent and therefore not even implementable in other browsers. That is no basis for a 'standard', and why wouldn't Microsoft do this? After all it would give them dominance. It would have the potential to destroy any competition to IE, and give Microsoft carte blanche to dictate the future of the web. This is all bad, even if you love Microsoft.

Lets not even get into the fact that it would also involve Microsoft issuing clear documentation to their competitors as to what they have implemented in the first instance, which is unlikely. Now add to that the fact that some of IE's rendering quirks are as a result of bugs. Some are so well known that people write tutorials and how to's and offer code to cut-and-paste so you can fix issues without even the slightest inkling of what the problem is. More over some of these bugs have been fixed over time... So am I to understand that other browsers and their development teams should actually implement features in their browser that are bugs in another? Ridiculous.

What about issues where responses to certain code open up security vulnerabilities in IE, should they also be implemented in other browsers so that everyone gets a uniform experience? Didn't think so.

The W3C provides a set of standards that should be implementable by everyone, people making browsers should be using them and people coding websites should be using them. That way there are no problems for either party, and new features can be added in due time with due consultation of all the interested parties.

I will add however that if you are producing a web page and your code is 100% W3C compliant you usually only have a few - well documented issues to resolve. The real problems with how pages look in different browsers occurs when the page author is not 100% W3C compliant, and a page may then look great in one browser and terrible in another.

No, it doesn't by Kelson · 2006-06-30 06:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

Changes to IE7's rendering engine have been primarily in fixing bugs and catching up to established standards like CSS. came out of WhatWG (or, more precisely, came out of work Apple was doing to make Dashboard widgets possible, then submitted to WhatWG), which, so far, the IE team appears to be ignoring.

Since WhatWG's work does seem to be catching on, with Opera, Firefox and Safari all implementing features and not just talking about it, there might be some pressure on Microsoft to start adding support in IE 7.5 or IE 8.

Changelog? by Rinisari · 2006-06-30 06:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

I saw this earlier when I was downloading the IE 6 Administrator's Kit. I searched around for almost an hour trying to find a good, old-fashioned changelog listing the changes since Beta 2. Anyone found that yet?

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Colin Dean Go a year without DRM

Re:Finger in the security dike by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · 2006-06-30 06:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's good that MS is taking a more serious approach to security with IE and Windows Vista. But really, how much can they do when 2 security holes open up for every one they patch?

If they were serious about security they would spend some of their billions of dollars on hiring really good security people and implementing their suggestions. Little things like making the browser run in userspace. Implementing zones or jails, and not requiring local services to run on the network for normal operation. These are fundamental security improvements that could be made. Implementing them would reduce the number of functional exploits, instead of just trying to patch them all. MS is not interested in doing any of this. Instead, they plan to start making money selling antivirus signatures to remove the malware their holes let into your system. Just because a press release says, "we're serious about security" does not mean it is true in any way.

Re:Deploying FireFox via GPO by jZnat · 2006-06-30 07:01 · Score: 2, Informative

A quick search for "firefox msi" gives this site as a result for what you are looking for. I could have sworn that Mozilla posted MSI's for Firefox nowadays, but I guess I was wrong.

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'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

Re:Deploying FireFox via GPO by linuxrocks123 · 2006-06-30 07:09 · Score: 3, Informative

http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/

Not official from Mozilla, but well-maintained and not a hack. I wouldn't dismiss it because it's not "official"; the whole point of open-source is third parties being able to do things with the code.

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vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.

Re:Wishful Thinking by rhinocero · 2006-06-30 07:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

And then, whichever two they pick, they'll still get yelled at for lacking the third.

Another option by ThreeDayMonk · 2006-06-30 08:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

You missed an option:

5. Develop to standards and ignore IE.

I know, I know, it's not an option for everybody. I'm lucky enough to work in an all-Mac company, so I've been able to ignore IE entirely for the internal sales web application I'm working on. It was a moment of pure joy when I realised I don't have to worry about IE this time. I was able to strip out a load of JavaScript and replaced it with simpler and easier to maintain CSS2 rules. And my code and layouts work first time!

It's not an option for most people, but when you have the chance to do ignore IE, you realise what a terrible cancer it is on web development productivity.

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If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.

Re:Wishful Thinking by rainman_bc · 2006-06-30 08:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

That's a part of life. They need to take a queue from practically every other platform and just BREAK STUFF sometimes for the greater good.

You must be new around here. Every time a new Microsoft OS comes out, someone bitches endlessly about killer app from 1992 not working any more.

Honestly, Microsoft is damned either way around here. On the one hand they break compatibility and a bunch of sysadmins chime and and bich about some custom app not working any more and they will refuse to upgrade their LAN, and if they don't, well you are exactly correct... Some security holes are left open.

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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

CSS is overrated by nmg196 · 2006-06-30 08:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm a web developer and the main reason I don't use CSS exclusively isn't because of poor browser support or rendering bugs, but CSS itself.

CSS is really really annoying. Sometimes you just need to use tables because even with a good standards compliant browser like Safari, it's just not possible to do what you want with CSS.

Things which use to be REALLY easy with tables in quirks mode (like a 3 column layout, 100% high with a header and footer) are almost impossible to implement using CSS. There are a multitude of websites giving example or template layouts in CSS. Some of these show 100 odd lines of CSS with loads of exceptions for each browser. The same thing can often be achieved with a single table in about 8 lines of code.

I mean just look at the CSS for slashdot - there are pages and pages of it and loads of browser exceptions. It had none of this complexity when it was a basic tables based site. They've just used CSS whereever possible for the sake of it.

The box model is really really annoying. If I tell something to be 200px wide, then it should be 200px wide all the time. However in most standards compliant browsers, it will be wider than 200px because it adds the margins and borders to the outside of it's own width. That makes it very difficult to work with as you have to subtract all those dimensions from the width you're giving it and need to alter about a million dimensions everytime you want to make something a bit wider.

CSS has a long way to go in my opinion.

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