Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 Reviewed

An anonymous reader writes to mention a review of the latest Beta release for Internet Explorer 7 on Paul Thurrott's SuperSite. From the article: "While it's not enough to make me switch from Firefox yet--I still love certain Firefox features such as inline search--it's no longer an object of ridicule either. IE 7.0 Beta 3 includes huge functional and security advantages of IE 6 and is an absolute no brainer for anyone choosing to stick with IE. If you are an IE user, head over to the Microsoft Web site and pick up IE 7.0 Beta 3 today." ZDNet has some first impressions of the release as well.

Comments

a finer compliment

[yagu]

From the article (emphasis mine): "While it's not enough to make me switch from Firefox yet--I still love certain Firefox features such as inline search--it's no longer an object of ridicule either. "

A finer compliment (no longer an object of ridicule) couldn't be had. This from Thurrott, a Microsoft sychophant. So, it's come to this, Microsoft feints and jabs, feints and jabs, and after ten years (more?) of internet browsing that's how high the bar is set for them. I can't wait for Vista.

Re:a finer compliment

[heinousjay]

Well, to be fair (since you said 10 years or more) there was a period of time from the release of IE 4 to the release of 5.5 that it was essentially the best browser available. It's only since development basically stopped that it has been trounced so hard.

Re:a finer compliment

[Bogtha]

Or, to put it another way, as long as there was viable competition, Microsoft continually improved their browser. When Internet Explorer achieved its objective of killing the competition, Microsoft cancelled development and left it to rot. Now there is viable competition again, Microsoft is scrambling to get back in the game.

This is precisely why monopolies abusing their position to kill the competition is so harmful and why "it's a better product" is no defence.

Re:a finer compliment

[malkavian]

There were a few browsers around in the 'Browser Wars' timeframe. The most common of which was Netscape. And Netscape was a 'Pay For' browser. In much the same way that Opera is now.
Microsoft basically cut the rug from under that. By dumping a product with the OS. In '98 and beyond, everyone that bought a PC already had a browser in. By putting the cost of the browser in with the OS, you'd already paid to have IE with your machine. Netscape didn't have a look in. So, in other words to get Netscape, you'd have to buy two browsers (if you'd bought windows). First IE, which was paid for in the OS price, then adding Netscape on top (if you bought the properly licensed version).
With revenues cut off at the knees, the company couldn't afford to throw money at research and development the way MS could (people were still buying Windows, so they were still selling browsers by default). So, the inevitable decline went on. As a company, you can't fight the bottomless purse (which is what MS had to fund their browser with, funding it from their profitable OS & Office side) who is dumping product for free.
They killed Netscape the company stone dead. It was sold eventually for a fraction of what it was worth as an open market company in a competitive environment.
And it's been languishing ever since.
Firefox, as an open source project, and an incredibly successful one, can compete on price, as it doesn't require the kind of funding that Netscape did as a company.
Opera does a good job of keeping it's brower around, but still, it's marginalised by MS having the browser in the OS, and also by Firefox. It's a hard fight to keep that running.
MS killed a lot of things. Jobs, tax revenues, competition. And the other browsers. It wasn't a beating, it was scorched earth policy. Nothing survives (even their own browser stagnated, thus, marking the segment of the market as 'dead').
But like all scorched earth, in time, shoots grow again, and eventually an ecosystem can develop once more (Firefox, Opera etc).
We just see if MS gets to play the same cards again this time round.

CSS?

[aymanh]

I did a quick search for "CSS" in those reviews, got zero hits. I skimmed through the lists of enhancements, and looks like almost everything has been available in other browsers for years. 'Nuff said.

News for nerds! Ahah

[drspliff]

Uhh, this is a technology site for nerds isn't it? I was expecting a real review of a web browser, not this pseudo-tech magazine style 'yes this product exists' kind of review. The amount of times he mentions 'feature complete' also really bugs me.

Review Outline:
  - They scraped some of the crap off IE 6
  - They've "improved it under the cover".
  - It's now got features that most other browsers have.
  - It'll be released when vista comes around.

What the review should've had:
  - Memory usage comparisons
  - Backwards compatibility
  - Some screenshots of how it miserably fails the ACID2 test.
  - Does it finally have 32-bit colour PNG support?
  - Whats all this 7+ crap and why is it different?

Sorry Paul you're coming across as a hardcore Microsoftie in it for the money rather than trying to give an honest opinion, hope you make lots of money from advertising, but this is a piss poor review.. maybe I should so it to my grandma so she's got something to discuss while she's getting her hair done!

Re:News for nerds! Ahah

[Doomstalk]

you know what...fuck the acid test.the fact that only 3 browsers pass it and that's just because they wanted to pass this particular test...it TELLS YOU SOMETHING.
it's unrealistic.

The ACID test isn't just some sort of browser back patting wankfest. Well ok, it sorta is, but it's still important. The point is that the internet is based off of standards. All browsers that feature the latest HTML and CSS specs should display pages in exactly the same way. If they don't interoperability goes out the window, and we get hack-laden web sites (a-la sites that depend on bugs in IE6 to make sure they display correctly across all browsers), or worse yet, browser specific web sites. ACID2 is designed to make it easy to test consistency across browsers.

if the functions that are implemented there were so importat every browser would support them.they don't... [sic] there for nobody really gives a fuck about the acid test.

That's a fallacy, pure and simple. A lot of web developers would LOVE to take advantage of the features CSS 2.0 has to offer. The reason why they're so rarely used has nothing to do with their usefulness, and a lot to do with Internet Explorer. Microsoft's browser is notorious for inaccurate, incomplete, or nonexistent standards compliance, but it's still the most popular around. Until Microsoft gets off its duff and makes its browser compliant with modern standards, the internet will be stuck with a 6 year old version of the W3C conventions, and a buggy one at that. If/when they get it done, I'm sure a lot of the features ACID tests will go into wide use.

Re:News for nerds! Ahah

[man_of_mr_e]

ACID2 does not test consistnecy across browsers. It's merely a snaphot of one set of features (and some invalid ones). Passing Acid2 doesn't mean you're fully standards compliant. It just means you pass those specific tests. It would be like giving someone a dozen questions from the SAT, and if they pass them claiming they got a perfect score.

Now, if the Web standards project wanted to come up with a *COMPLETE* compliance test, that would be a different story. In fact, one could argue that the lack of a comprehensive validation suite is the real problem with the web, and that faul should fall squarely on the shoulders of the W3C.

If there were a comprehensive validation suite, there would be a hell of a lot less "interpreting" of the standard, and developers would be able to have something to shoot for.

No help for web developers

[ecc962]

"If you are an IE user, head over to the Microsoft Web site and pick up IE 7.0 Beta 3 today."

Except of course unless you're a web developer in which case you still need IE6 on your machine for testing those delightful CSS quirks and, as ever, you can't run two versions of IE on the same machine.

It's odd. MS's developer tools are generally pretty good but they do seem to fall down a bit for those of us who write web applications, especially given the recent rise in far more complex scripting and so on with the whole Web 2.0 buzz / AJAX thing. Oh well.

Re:No help for web developers

[GotenXiao]

Why bother [keeping IE]? I'd rather everyone (yes, web devs, this means you) boycotted IE. It'll be in everyone's best interest - no more broken HTML, no more IE-spread viruses/trojans. Just stop dumbing your site down to meet IE and write code that's standards compliant. When people complain, link them to Firefox and explain WHY you your site won't display. If they still complain, so what? Tell them not to use your site if they want to stay insecure and out-of-date.

PS: everyone who says that IE6 renders CSS correctly in standards mode; tried it. Didn't work. Doesn't work. Never will. Stop maiming your code and write it as the W3C intended - the RIGHT way.

Re:No help for web developers

[poulbailey]

You could use a dose of pragmatism. Telling 90% of your potential customers that their only choice is to switch to Firefox might work for your personal blog with 20 visitors a day, but that kind of attitude doesn't fly if you actually have regular, paying customers visiting your site.

Re:Anyone have

[rtilghman]

I haven't tested Beta3, but without looking I can tell you that the standards support is relatively unchanged since Beta2. The CSS team for IE7 has stated, point blank, that virtually no further changes will be made to the engine on this front. A freaking catastrophe.

Why is this a nightmare? In order to avoid unnecessary workarounds MS eliminated ALL (yes, ALL) the workarounds used by client side devs to solve the core issues with regard to how MS renders CSS and HTML. This includes things like the guillotene bug (where content and images inside a floated box just disappear enitely), etc. However, THEY DIDN'T FIX ANY OF THE BUGS.

This means that we're now going to be headed back to the days when we have to render separately for different browsers, meaning XSLT is going to see a resurgence, costs are going to double, and folks are going to have to go back and recode all their existing apps so they render correctly in IE7.

Welcome to the wonderful world of IE development. By incompetent retards, for incompetent retards, led by a visionary bonobo chimp.

-rt

Re:does not install

[Eideewt]

That would certainly be less work than pointing out every misuse of the word.

Re:VALIDATE IT?????

[nurb432]

Do you really think they care about feedback? They will just shove it down Windows user's throats anyway. the average person doesnt really have a choice.

the Right Direction

[spykemail]

This is definitely a step in the right direction (the Firefox direction that is). I agree that anyone who insists upon using Internet Explorer should get this the moment it's released. Now if only Microsoft can start adopting important standards in 10 years.

The problem I have is this: if IE7 reverses the spread of Firefox, what's to stop Microsoft from repeating history and ceasing all serious development again?

It's fine

[archcommus]

I don't understand you people, who cares if it conforms to standards or not. The fact is, websites are designed to work properly with IE, so they will, period. That's really all the end user cares about. This browser is incredibly functional, fast, and secure. It's only for those who are ignorant to alternatives like Opera and Firefox? Uhh, no. I've tried both and prefer IE7B3 over any of them.

Software freedom still matters more than features.

[jbn-o]

"While it's not enough to make me switch from Firefox yet--I still love certain Firefox features such as inline search--it's no longer an object of ridicule either. IE 7.0 Beta 3 includes huge functional and security advantages of IE 6 and is an absolute no brainer for anyone choosing to stick with IE."

MSIE is proprietary. Those three words cover a great deal of what is wrong with Thurrott's review, even granting him his status as a Microsoft sycophant (as another poster pointed out).

• Security advantages are largely unknown because nobody can inspect the program. We'll undoubtedly learn that MSIE 7 is riddled with security problems which Microsoft will be slow to fix, if they fix them at all. Nobody else will be allowed to improve the program and distribute their improved software. These freedoms are what proprietors deny you and your community. This is the well-established pattern of many proprietors, Microsoft being only one. I seem to recall that MSIE 7 had security problems well before this pre-release.
• Yes, being "no longer an object of ridicule" is damning with faint praise.
• Feature counts are what's wrong with a lot of corporate media; covering the horserace without questioning the underlying, more important, reasons why things are the way they are. Covering the underlying reasons would expose that software freedom is more important than feature counts, and in particular with web browsers one need not give up one to get the other. The Mozilla Foundation has been lacking here too; they don't talk about software freedom as a reason to favor Firefox (or any of their other fine programs). They are buying into a contest that they'll undoubtedly lose to a more monied and advertisement-conscious organization—Microsoft—and we'll see this when MSIE regains significant numbers of the popularity percentage points it lost to Firefox over the last few years.

Slashdot Web dev commenters out of touch?

[kiwioddBall]

I'm a developer and whilst I understand the point of view that IE is not standards oriented, the fact is that you're missing the whole point in that end users like IE, its really easy to use, and don't give a toss about the fact that it isn't standards compliant. All they care about is that web sites work in it, which they do.

Web Developers can bitch all they want about standards etc, but the fact is that all Microsoft are worried about is backwards compatibility, which is the 100% correct way to go. Deal with it! Microsoft build products with the end user in mind. Web Developers are not the mass market end users.

What would happen if Microsoft decided to start making the browser entirely standards compliant? A number of websites would stop working. You guys would moan about Microsoft again, saying how it was all their fault anyway. No change there, no incentive for Microsoft. Microsoft would lose market share because they made their browser the same as everyone elses. Theres no money to be made because you are the same as everybody else. Again, no incentive for Microsoft.

I think you guys should get a reality check, and stop thinking that Microsoft should be impressing you somehow.

Disclaimer. I am a developer, not for Microsoft, and I work on developing, recommending and implementing software based on open source products.