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Microsoft's IE Team Leader Answers Slashdot Questions
We got lots and lots of questions for Dean Hachamovitch, whose formal title is "general manager Internet Explorer at Microsoft Corp." Picking a mere 10 of those questions was not easy, and I wish Dean could have answered twice as many -- and so does he, but his schedule has been tight this week. Anyway, here are his answers to the Chosen Ten.
1) How about this...
by also-rr
Would you like to make available IE on other operating systems?
Dean Hachamovitch:
We did make versions of IE available on other operating system for a pretty long time, up through IE5 on Unix and the Mac. At the time we developed them, those offerings made sense. I don't see a good reason to make IE available on other operating systems at this time.
2) IE7 release time
by BeeBeard Why did IE7 take such a long time to release after IE6?
Dean Hachamovitch:
Basically because we were doing a lot of other things before we started work on IE7: a few releases of MSN Explorer, a lot of work on what turned out to be Windows Presentation Foundation, a lot of investment in what turned into IPv6 support in Windows Vista, and lot of security response, a pretty intense effort on Windows Server 2003 (and IE's "Enhanced Security Configuration"), and then a pretty intense effort on Windows XPSP2. You can read a more detailed answer here
3) Follow up
by LordEd
If you had more time, is there a new feature you would have liked to include in IE7?
Dean Hachamovitch:
Yes, several come to mind. None were more important than shipping. None were more important than the bug fix work we did in response to beta feedback.
The temptation to get "just one more feature in" is so strong... one more CSS fix, one more neat facility for developers, one more performance optimization, one more cool end-user feature. The thing that made it easier to resist the temptation and ship is the prototype and planning work we've started on the next release of IE.
4) Simple questions
by Billosaur
IE has a dominating command of the market, although Firefox is slowly making inroads, due to innovations such as tabbed browsing that IE has had to incorporate to maintain that command. But where are the IE innovations? Why can't the IE team get ahead of the curve on Firefox? Is there anything you consider an innovation that is unique to IE that would plausibly be something the browser market would have to incorporate to stay competitive?
Dean Hachamovitch:
I think IE7 is the first browser with integrated real-time anti-phishing functionality, with an RSS platform and support for Simple List Extensions (see below), with "QuickTabs," with support for OpenSearch, and with shrink-to-fit printing on by default. In Windows Vista with Protected Mode, IE7 is the first browser to "put itself into a sandbox" and run with low privileges.
I think that during the IE7 beta process, you've seen other browser vendors copy some of these features and/or deliver add-ons for others. (IE has also delivered some functionality - like spell-checking in forms or in-line find, as add-ons; you can read more here.
I want to call out the Phishing Filter and RSS in particular. I think there's a clear difference between the protection offered in IE7 and other places. I suggest readers look here and here and decide for themselves. I was surprised when I read this because I think IE7 delivers real-time protection that respects user privacy at the same time.
I think IE7's RSS is pretty deep. First, the support for the Simple List Extensions that we made available under a Creative Commons license is cool - check out the links below in IE7. Also, the platform enables developers to deliver on some great scenarios, like sharing subscription information between different applications and services easily (from the new version of Outlook 2007 I run at work to IE7 at home via Newsgator). You can read more about that here.
- Amazon Wish List as an RSS feed
- eBay Search Result as an RSS feed
- Yahoo Music Top 10 list as an RSS feed
In regards to tabs, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_browsing, NetCaptor (an IE-based browser) was first.
5) My shot
by Njovich
What do you consider the greatest weakness of Firefox?
Dean Hachamovitch:
Hey, I've met a bunch of the Firefox folks and respect them and am not about to say mean things about them or their product, period. I have started to see some things that even some Slashdotters find a little confusing, like the whole Iceweasel thing.
6) Security
by Seto89
One of IE7's revolutionary features was supposed to be security, although it took less than 24 hours for Secunia to post an advisory about a security hole. Moreover, the bug seemed to be carried over from as early as IE5.5. What approach did you take to improve browser's security, and how come the vulnerabilities have been carried over?
Dean Hachamovitch:
The overall approach we took is called the secure development lifecycle. You can read more about it in general at http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnsecure/html/sdl.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/8753.asp. The very short version is that we stepped back to analyze all the ways to attack a browser and then figured out the best ways to defend in depth against attacks. We reduced attack surface area, for example, turning off several feature and protocols by default and with ActiveX opt-in. We re-wrote a lot of the URL handling code in our networking layer. We ran a lot of tools against the source code to look for vulnerabilities. We listened to feedback from lots of smart people who are skilled in the art of attack.
As anyone who reads SecurityFocus or FullDisclosure will tell you, security is an industry problem and innovation in attacks is ongoing.
The MHTML issue is pretty interesting. IE calls another Windows component to handle some MTHML functionality. That component has a vulnerability. The important things here are (1) a malicious site can steal user data and (2) of course Microsoft cares about privacy and will fix this issue promptly. Some of the blogs over at zdnet - in particular George Ou's and Ed Bott's, have had some balanced opinion pieces on this issue.
While I was writing this, someone disclosed another issue irresponsibly. On the one hand, it's minor (a malicious site can make the address bar, when it's selected and in a pop-up window, deceiving... clicking in the pop-up window addresses the issue) and our anti-phishing technology helps a lot. The MSRC blog has more detail. At the same time, an attacker could draw a fake or misleading address bar in a pop-up window in a browser that doesn't automatically show the address bar in every window. Again, I think all this shows is that innovation in attacks is ongoing.
7) How about this....
by Toreo asesino
Let's pretend for a moment that Internet Explorer isn't the default web-browser built into Windows and instead, users are presented with a choice on first login (e.g. a message asking 'How would you like to browse the internet? MSIE, Firefox, Opera').
Would you expect IE to become as dominant as it is now if users had to specifically choose it over another?
Ignoring the slight impracticalities, if so (I'm guessing you do), on what basis would this be?
Dean Hachamovitch:
OK, I'll pretend. My first question is when we ask users this question... if it's in 1995, then Opera isn't on the list (Wikipedia just told me that its first public release was in 1996) and neither is Firefox. If it's today, then, candidly, we have 10+ years of people seeing the IE icon and all that that means to them.
The funny thing about your question is that in some ways, users are about two clicks from this scenario every time they run Windows XP: from the Start menu, select Set Program Access and Defaults. And it's not limited to the browsers you list, but any browser that they can download.
To answer your core question: I don't know how people would answer that question. I think we've asked users far simpler ones (like setup programs that ask "Do you want a typical or custom software installation?") that have proven frustrating to them. I do blog searches just about every day to read what people are saying about their browser choice, the browser I work on, and the other browsers you list. While it may surprise you, for many users, the differences between today's browsers aren't as clear and obvious as they may seem to many in the Slashdot crowd. I've read a lot of posts that say, "I tried IE7, I'm pleasantly surprised, and I'm switching back." (I read a lot of others for sure.) For some folks, having professional technical support to contact makes all the difference in their browser choice. During a press interview with a technical trade journal recently I asked the reporter "So what do you browse with" and he said "Mostly IE6, sometimes Firefox 1.5." That might surprise some of you.
8) Allowing Developers to Test for Compatibility
by miyako
IE7, like IE6, renders a lot of pages significantly differently than the other main HTML rendering engines available (Geko, KHTML, and Opera). At the same time, IE7 requires WGA to run - so that applications like Wine are unable to run it. This means that web developers who are using Linux and Mac OS X will have an extremely difficult time testing their sites with IE7. Was this intentional? If so what was the reason behind it (do you want to force developers to move to Windows for web development, or simply set IE aside as something different that isn't a regular browser and must be specifically developed for), and if not how do you plan to rectify the situation?
Dean Hachamovitch:
I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers, period. We're also not about to give away Windows client licenses. Because we want end-users to have a great experience on the web, of course we want web developers to have an easy experience working with IE and testing their sites with IE. That's why we published tools like the web developer toolbar and the Application Compatibility Toolkit and so much documentation during the course of IE7 development. I also respect that - as hard as everyone at Microsoft works to make Windows the best operating system for developers run - some developers will choose to run others. Mac developers have a fine solution - I've talked with hardcore Mac people who bought a copy of Windows that they run on their Mac with Parallels to test their work in IE. For other developers, I've seen some very clever solutions like BrowserCam that should help.
9) I asked Hakon about CSS and now I ask you:
by Chabil Ha'
This past summer Håkon Wium Lie was interviewed on /. and my question was selected concerning IE7's glaring lack of full CSS support. Why is it that MS has avoided meeting at least the ACID2 spec for CSS in order to bring some semblance of comformity for developers?
Håkon Wium Lie's response to these questions is boiled down to the fact that you do have the talent and resources to fix these issues and he says that "the fundamental reason, I believe, is that standards don't benefit monopolists" like MS.
How do you respond to his comments (the author of the CSS spec) and does MS have any near future plans to adhere to the existing CSS standard? If not, what would it take for MS to take a more proactive role in supporting it?
Dean Hachamovitch:
During IE7's development, we prioritized the work we did based on the web development community's real-world feedback. The engineering exercise here was choosing the best work for a finite number of developers to do during a finite period of time, especially given the compatibility impact of changing how IE behaves. The work that we delivered in IE7 simply has more positive impact and makes web developers' jobs easier than making an arbitrary (if terribly clever) web page render the way its author intended.
The Acid 2 test explicitly states that it isn't part of a formal compliance suite and it is not a "spec for CSS." It's a suite of tests of HTML, CSS, PNG, and data URL features that Mr. Lie thought were important. I'm glad that Mr. Lie - who is one of the authors of the CSS specifications - acknowledges that Microsoft's developers have the talent to address these issues.
The question here isn't whether we want to support those features or if we understand that web developers want them (we do), but simply prioritization. We focused on web developers' real world problems.
The real goal here is interoperability - something that Microsoft product teams believe in (remember, Microsoft has more than one product that works with HTML, CSS, and other web standards, and they have to interoperate too) and something that benefits customers (end-users, developers, IT Pros, et al.) across the board. The work in Windows Vista around IPv6 as well as the work we've done in IE7 with OpenSearch, RSS and with Certificate Authorities and other browser vendors on Extended Validation certificates are good examples of following through on that belief in interoperability.
Your question also asks about Microsoft's plans to comply with the existing CSS standard; there are actually several CSS standards, some still under construction (CSS level 3) and some made obsolete over time (e.g. CSS 2.1 fixing errors, removing ambiguities and changing required behavior from CSS 2). Just as we did in IE7, we're going to listen to the web development community and prioritize the remaining CSS work and deliver the parts we hear are most important first. We do intend to comply with the standard; no other browser I'm aware of has complete support of every feature in CSS 2.1, so it's clear that we all have to use prioritization to know where best to place our resources.
10) Why develop IE at all
by CmdrGravy
Given that you are not planning on selling IE 7 and the fact that there are already other browsers on the market which can allow Windows users to experience the web fully why is Microsoft investing so much time and effort in continuing the development of IE?
Dean Hachamovitch:
Windows customers expect the best, safest experience with their PCs out of the box, especially around the web browser. We're investing so much time and effort in IE in order to give Windows customers a great, secure, default experience. I'm glad that users can choose other browsers as they see fit - Windows is a platform. We're working this hard on IE because so many end-users rely on it and so many developers have built on the APIs that IE exposes as a part of the Windows platform.
-------
Editor's note: Next week's Slashdot interview guest will be a FireFox person. Only fair, right? :)
by also-rr
Would you like to make available IE on other operating systems?
Dean Hachamovitch:
We did make versions of IE available on other operating system for a pretty long time, up through IE5 on Unix and the Mac. At the time we developed them, those offerings made sense. I don't see a good reason to make IE available on other operating systems at this time.
2) IE7 release time
by BeeBeard Why did IE7 take such a long time to release after IE6?
Dean Hachamovitch:
Basically because we were doing a lot of other things before we started work on IE7: a few releases of MSN Explorer, a lot of work on what turned out to be Windows Presentation Foundation, a lot of investment in what turned into IPv6 support in Windows Vista, and lot of security response, a pretty intense effort on Windows Server 2003 (and IE's "Enhanced Security Configuration"), and then a pretty intense effort on Windows XPSP2. You can read a more detailed answer here
3) Follow up
by LordEd
If you had more time, is there a new feature you would have liked to include in IE7?
Dean Hachamovitch:
Yes, several come to mind. None were more important than shipping. None were more important than the bug fix work we did in response to beta feedback.
The temptation to get "just one more feature in" is so strong... one more CSS fix, one more neat facility for developers, one more performance optimization, one more cool end-user feature. The thing that made it easier to resist the temptation and ship is the prototype and planning work we've started on the next release of IE.
4) Simple questions
by Billosaur
IE has a dominating command of the market, although Firefox is slowly making inroads, due to innovations such as tabbed browsing that IE has had to incorporate to maintain that command. But where are the IE innovations? Why can't the IE team get ahead of the curve on Firefox? Is there anything you consider an innovation that is unique to IE that would plausibly be something the browser market would have to incorporate to stay competitive?
Dean Hachamovitch:
I think IE7 is the first browser with integrated real-time anti-phishing functionality, with an RSS platform and support for Simple List Extensions (see below), with "QuickTabs," with support for OpenSearch, and with shrink-to-fit printing on by default. In Windows Vista with Protected Mode, IE7 is the first browser to "put itself into a sandbox" and run with low privileges.
I think that during the IE7 beta process, you've seen other browser vendors copy some of these features and/or deliver add-ons for others. (IE has also delivered some functionality - like spell-checking in forms or in-line find, as add-ons; you can read more here.
I want to call out the Phishing Filter and RSS in particular. I think there's a clear difference between the protection offered in IE7 and other places. I suggest readers look here and here and decide for themselves. I was surprised when I read this because I think IE7 delivers real-time protection that respects user privacy at the same time.
I think IE7's RSS is pretty deep. First, the support for the Simple List Extensions that we made available under a Creative Commons license is cool - check out the links below in IE7. Also, the platform enables developers to deliver on some great scenarios, like sharing subscription information between different applications and services easily (from the new version of Outlook 2007 I run at work to IE7 at home via Newsgator). You can read more about that here.
- Amazon Wish List as an RSS feed
- eBay Search Result as an RSS feed
- Yahoo Music Top 10 list as an RSS feed
In regards to tabs, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_browsing, NetCaptor (an IE-based browser) was first.
5) My shot
by Njovich
What do you consider the greatest weakness of Firefox?
Dean Hachamovitch:
Hey, I've met a bunch of the Firefox folks and respect them and am not about to say mean things about them or their product, period. I have started to see some things that even some Slashdotters find a little confusing, like the whole Iceweasel thing.
6) Security
by Seto89
One of IE7's revolutionary features was supposed to be security, although it took less than 24 hours for Secunia to post an advisory about a security hole. Moreover, the bug seemed to be carried over from as early as IE5.5. What approach did you take to improve browser's security, and how come the vulnerabilities have been carried over?
Dean Hachamovitch:
The overall approach we took is called the secure development lifecycle. You can read more about it in general at http://msdn.microsoft.com/security/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnsecure/html/sdl.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/8753.asp. The very short version is that we stepped back to analyze all the ways to attack a browser and then figured out the best ways to defend in depth against attacks. We reduced attack surface area, for example, turning off several feature and protocols by default and with ActiveX opt-in. We re-wrote a lot of the URL handling code in our networking layer. We ran a lot of tools against the source code to look for vulnerabilities. We listened to feedback from lots of smart people who are skilled in the art of attack.
As anyone who reads SecurityFocus or FullDisclosure will tell you, security is an industry problem and innovation in attacks is ongoing.
The MHTML issue is pretty interesting. IE calls another Windows component to handle some MTHML functionality. That component has a vulnerability. The important things here are (1) a malicious site can steal user data and (2) of course Microsoft cares about privacy and will fix this issue promptly. Some of the blogs over at zdnet - in particular George Ou's and Ed Bott's, have had some balanced opinion pieces on this issue.
While I was writing this, someone disclosed another issue irresponsibly. On the one hand, it's minor (a malicious site can make the address bar, when it's selected and in a pop-up window, deceiving... clicking in the pop-up window addresses the issue) and our anti-phishing technology helps a lot. The MSRC blog has more detail. At the same time, an attacker could draw a fake or misleading address bar in a pop-up window in a browser that doesn't automatically show the address bar in every window. Again, I think all this shows is that innovation in attacks is ongoing.
7) How about this....
by Toreo asesino
Let's pretend for a moment that Internet Explorer isn't the default web-browser built into Windows and instead, users are presented with a choice on first login (e.g. a message asking 'How would you like to browse the internet? MSIE, Firefox, Opera').
Would you expect IE to become as dominant as it is now if users had to specifically choose it over another?
Ignoring the slight impracticalities, if so (I'm guessing you do), on what basis would this be?
Dean Hachamovitch:
OK, I'll pretend. My first question is when we ask users this question... if it's in 1995, then Opera isn't on the list (Wikipedia just told me that its first public release was in 1996) and neither is Firefox. If it's today, then, candidly, we have 10+ years of people seeing the IE icon and all that that means to them.
The funny thing about your question is that in some ways, users are about two clicks from this scenario every time they run Windows XP: from the Start menu, select Set Program Access and Defaults. And it's not limited to the browsers you list, but any browser that they can download.
To answer your core question: I don't know how people would answer that question. I think we've asked users far simpler ones (like setup programs that ask "Do you want a typical or custom software installation?") that have proven frustrating to them. I do blog searches just about every day to read what people are saying about their browser choice, the browser I work on, and the other browsers you list. While it may surprise you, for many users, the differences between today's browsers aren't as clear and obvious as they may seem to many in the Slashdot crowd. I've read a lot of posts that say, "I tried IE7, I'm pleasantly surprised, and I'm switching back." (I read a lot of others for sure.) For some folks, having professional technical support to contact makes all the difference in their browser choice. During a press interview with a technical trade journal recently I asked the reporter "So what do you browse with" and he said "Mostly IE6, sometimes Firefox 1.5." That might surprise some of you.
8) Allowing Developers to Test for Compatibility
by miyako
IE7, like IE6, renders a lot of pages significantly differently than the other main HTML rendering engines available (Geko, KHTML, and Opera). At the same time, IE7 requires WGA to run - so that applications like Wine are unable to run it. This means that web developers who are using Linux and Mac OS X will have an extremely difficult time testing their sites with IE7. Was this intentional? If so what was the reason behind it (do you want to force developers to move to Windows for web development, or simply set IE aside as something different that isn't a regular browser and must be specifically developed for), and if not how do you plan to rectify the situation?
Dean Hachamovitch:
I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers, period. We're also not about to give away Windows client licenses. Because we want end-users to have a great experience on the web, of course we want web developers to have an easy experience working with IE and testing their sites with IE. That's why we published tools like the web developer toolbar and the Application Compatibility Toolkit and so much documentation during the course of IE7 development. I also respect that - as hard as everyone at Microsoft works to make Windows the best operating system for developers run - some developers will choose to run others. Mac developers have a fine solution - I've talked with hardcore Mac people who bought a copy of Windows that they run on their Mac with Parallels to test their work in IE. For other developers, I've seen some very clever solutions like BrowserCam that should help.
9) I asked Hakon about CSS and now I ask you:
by Chabil Ha'
This past summer Håkon Wium Lie was interviewed on /. and my question was selected concerning IE7's glaring lack of full CSS support. Why is it that MS has avoided meeting at least the ACID2 spec for CSS in order to bring some semblance of comformity for developers?
Håkon Wium Lie's response to these questions is boiled down to the fact that you do have the talent and resources to fix these issues and he says that "the fundamental reason, I believe, is that standards don't benefit monopolists" like MS.
How do you respond to his comments (the author of the CSS spec) and does MS have any near future plans to adhere to the existing CSS standard? If not, what would it take for MS to take a more proactive role in supporting it?
Dean Hachamovitch:
During IE7's development, we prioritized the work we did based on the web development community's real-world feedback. The engineering exercise here was choosing the best work for a finite number of developers to do during a finite period of time, especially given the compatibility impact of changing how IE behaves. The work that we delivered in IE7 simply has more positive impact and makes web developers' jobs easier than making an arbitrary (if terribly clever) web page render the way its author intended.
The Acid 2 test explicitly states that it isn't part of a formal compliance suite and it is not a "spec for CSS." It's a suite of tests of HTML, CSS, PNG, and data URL features that Mr. Lie thought were important. I'm glad that Mr. Lie - who is one of the authors of the CSS specifications - acknowledges that Microsoft's developers have the talent to address these issues.
The question here isn't whether we want to support those features or if we understand that web developers want them (we do), but simply prioritization. We focused on web developers' real world problems.
The real goal here is interoperability - something that Microsoft product teams believe in (remember, Microsoft has more than one product that works with HTML, CSS, and other web standards, and they have to interoperate too) and something that benefits customers (end-users, developers, IT Pros, et al.) across the board. The work in Windows Vista around IPv6 as well as the work we've done in IE7 with OpenSearch, RSS and with Certificate Authorities and other browser vendors on Extended Validation certificates are good examples of following through on that belief in interoperability.
Your question also asks about Microsoft's plans to comply with the existing CSS standard; there are actually several CSS standards, some still under construction (CSS level 3) and some made obsolete over time (e.g. CSS 2.1 fixing errors, removing ambiguities and changing required behavior from CSS 2). Just as we did in IE7, we're going to listen to the web development community and prioritize the remaining CSS work and deliver the parts we hear are most important first. We do intend to comply with the standard; no other browser I'm aware of has complete support of every feature in CSS 2.1, so it's clear that we all have to use prioritization to know where best to place our resources.
10) Why develop IE at all
by CmdrGravy
Given that you are not planning on selling IE 7 and the fact that there are already other browsers on the market which can allow Windows users to experience the web fully why is Microsoft investing so much time and effort in continuing the development of IE?
Dean Hachamovitch:
Windows customers expect the best, safest experience with their PCs out of the box, especially around the web browser. We're investing so much time and effort in IE in order to give Windows customers a great, secure, default experience. I'm glad that users can choose other browsers as they see fit - Windows is a platform. We're working this hard on IE because so many end-users rely on it and so many developers have built on the APIs that IE exposes as a part of the Windows platform.
-------
Editor's note: Next week's Slashdot interview guest will be a FireFox person. Only fair, right? :)
From TFI:
Microsoft just gave away a subtle clue: “cool” is newspeak for: “embrace and extend.”
Is IPv6 that hard to do, btw? I'm sensing some lack of modularity in the kernel's networking code.
I want to know if being able to use all that doublespeak and back speak is a requirement for the job, or if microsoft teaches them how to do it.
he writes these long answers to some of the questions, but just turns it all around twists it up and inside out, by the time you read the entire answer you realize he didn't say anything at all.
A Smith & Wesson beats four aces -- Murphy's Law of Poker
Thing is, that's not good enough for some web designers. I used to a bunch of online surveys to make a bit of cash, on Windows. These apparently required IE for some reason, and would complain with any other browser. Now, I recently got a Mac Mini and tried using the bundled IE 5 to do the surveys. No joy. No, it didn't complain I was using an old version of IE. It complained that I wasn't use IE on Windows. I ditched the surveys because I was getting crappy money anyway, so it was no great loss, but this was the first time I'd seen a web site differentiate between IE on different operating systems. So in this case, having the latest version of IE on a Mac wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference.
Q: If you had more time, is there a new feature you would have liked to include in IE7?
A: (summarized) Yes.
I guess what he should have asked was:
Q: If you had more time, what are some new features you would have liked to include in IE7?
The funny thing about your question is that in some ways, users are about two clicks from this scenario every time they run Windows XP: from the Start menu, select Set Program Access and Defaults. And it's not limited to the browsers you list, but any browser that they can download.
That's a bit of a silly thing to say. The question was if users were, on install, without downloading beforehand, given a choice, would they choose IE? This scenario requires one to actively download a new browser first.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
...is this guy a PR drone or does he just play one on slashdot?
Using wiki to support arguments? FOR SHAME mr. ie team leader!
The funny thing about your question is that in some ways, users are about two clicks from this scenario every time they run Windows XP: from the Start menu, select Set Program Access and Defaults. And it's not limited to the browsers you list, but any browser that they can download.
Ah, but how are you supposed to download another browser on a clean install? By opening Internet Explorer. And by that time, for most users, the choice has already been made.
"Dean Hachamovitch:
OK, I'll pretend. My first question is when we ask users this question... if it's in 1995, then Opera isn't on the list (Wikipedia just told me that its first public release was in 1996) and neither is Firefox. If it's today, then, candidly, we have 10+ years of people seeing the IE icon and all that that means to them. "
Ok, and why is it that those people have 10+ years of seeing the IE icon? Oh yeah, I remember, because you COULDNT REMOVE IT.
stuff |
If we're going to pretend that we're back in time before IE has ever been integrated into Windows than the choice would presumably be between Internet Explorer and Netscape. At that time Netscape was all over the news with one of the biggest IPOs ever. Netscape and web browser were virtually synonymous. How many people would really have chosen IE 2.0 over Netscape 1.2 or 2.0?
...the throught process that went into sending the FireFox team a cake when they released 2.0?
Hilarious!
"Picking a mere 10 of those questions was not easy..."
Sure was. Here is the first question:
"Would you like to make available IE on other operating systems? "
What? What? WHAT!?
A 'yes or no' question for an interview? Asking if MS wants to port their application to another operating system? I'll bet all of the questions posted looked equally good.
Oh, and Dean is real busy -- "his schedule has been tight this week" Who cares and why does this belong in the summary? Why is Roblimo carrying Dean's water?
Thanks, Dean, for finding time in your busy schedule to answer the questions like you agreed to. Sorry we couldn't think up any worthwhile questions!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
They created their own www and say so. Their goal is to make sure all the websites that are made for IE will look good. Standards be damned. Not that we didn't know that, but nice to here from an official source.
"The temptation to get "just one more feature in" is so strong... one more CSS fix..." Let's congratulate MS on resisting this overpowering desire so successfully for so long.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Hey, I've met a bunch of the Firefox folks and respect them and am not about to say mean things about them or their product, period. I have started to see some things that even some Slashdotters find a little confusing, like the whole Iceweasel thing.
Nice. Nothing "mean" to say about FF but who at MS could resist taking a little pop shot at Free Software?
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Can someone tell me what's so special about RSS in IE7? (I don't run Windows so I can't try it for myself). I clicked on the RSS links he provided and Safari brought them up just fine. I'm presuming I could book-mark them and Safari would notify me when they're updated, too. So what's IE7 doing that is different/clever?
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
*I used a png file cos I wanted some simple transparency and my background colour wasn't white. I know a few dozen people are going to point out that its fixed now, or that there's a 5 line hack to get around it, but it didn't work in the IE version I tried (6, I think) while the validator page showed me I was 100% compliant with the specs. Talking about listening to real world problems is just plain annoying.
I'm also a little drunk (friday night, here) so forgive any other errors.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
Hey I use Forefox as well as the next Slashdotter, however, I am a creature of habit - smart businesses know this. At work (which I'm there at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week) I have no option but to use the default browser, which is Internet Explorer. I use Firefox at home, but to be completely honest, if I need to actually get some work done, I switch to IE if it's a trusted site and I need to do browser work. If I go porn surfing, then I switch to Firefox with NoScript, Adblock and SiteAdvisor. It's kind of like a "just in case" scenario - sorry Firefox, but your browser on my older system just makes it GRIND to a halt (Only 128 MB RAM - Althon 1300+, 16 Meg Video Card) - IE, I can use all night, and I don't hear the pagefile being accessed when I type in a new address.
I'm sure alot of people are probably in the same boat but don't really speak up - the zealots, to be sure, make it sound like everyone in Slashdot is using Firefox, but if I remember correctly, more people STILL use IE browsing Slashdot than Firefox. I'm sure I'll upgrade to IE7 because it's just faster on *MY* system and it includes tabbed browsing which I enjoy in Firefox. I'll miss using the extensions, which is why I'll probably still use Firefox if I need armour plating to surf in the wild.
Would of been nice to have this release a little sooner however.
What? Who is asking for Windows licenses? That has nothing at all to do with the question.
...dodged in one place.
This was one of interviews I was really looking forward, and I am a little disapointed.
He dodges the more difficult questions like "Let's pretend for a moment that Internet Explorer isn't the default web-browser built into Windows" with irelevant and a bit arrogant answer: if it was 1995, people would choose IE. And he goes on telling that people use IE beacuse that's what they used past 10 years. Well, duh.
About CSS support, I again cannot but notice a slight stench of arrogance: "We focused on web developers' real world problems." You stupid kids don't know how to do this, we the IE developers listen to the real world developers. I'm sorry, but that's pretty sloppy excuse for not caring about standard. About as bad as "we know what's best for the user, so we choose what to implement from the standards."
Hmm, what? The Wikipedia page says that Opera had tabbed browsing AT LEAST a year before the browser he talks about, and that others also had tabbed browsing a year before Opera independently developed it. So, wtf?
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Honestly, you don't see Apple making Safari for Linux and Windows (and though Safari is based on KHTML, it's a lot more too).
Operating System vendors have no incentive, no matter who they are, to make their products available on other platforms. Open Source apps have the advantage that those with a little more objectivity can take the code and release it for a competitor, but that's not exactly the same thing.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
"We did make versions of IE available on other operating system for a pretty long time, up through IE5 on Unix and the Mac. At the time we developed them, those offerings made sense. I don't see a good reason to make IE available on other operating systems at this time. "
Why did they make sense then and not now?
itsatrap
I got nothin'
http://interviews.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=202 138&cid=16547462
Especially now I read his "answers".
How about this: Instead of using corner cases in Gecko and Opera as excuses, why don't you complete the implementation of major features of CSS 2? When an entire chapter (*cough*TABLE LAYOUT*cough*) of the Salmon Book has to be excluded to remain compatible your browser, your browser is broken.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Whenever he's asked "why?" he always avoids one of the primary answers: management. He basically gets defensive and explains what they did do. But he never states how management changed priorities for them. Or if management told them not to add some feature. To me his answers are incomplete. Because there is no way they come up with all these features yet wait years to work on them without management's intervention.
So just say it. Things weren't delayed because you were too busy working on other things. Features and bug fixes were delayed because you were told to work on other things.
Blame your management. We all know they're a big part of the problem.
Developers: We can use your help.
BTW, do you have any info that particular claim is bogus?
damaged by dogma
".. integrated real-time anti-phishing functionality .. RSS .. Simple List Extensions .. "QuickTabs,".. OpenSearch, .. shrink-to-fit printing .."
I do recall hearing of RSS previously. Of these, which have been copied by the Firefox team and what are they called. Were such feetures around in similar form before IE7 or does the Firefox team posess a time machine. I do recall hearing of RSS previously.
"In Windows Vista with Protected Mode, IE7 is the first browser to "put itself into a sandbox" and run with low privileges."
It may be the first browser in Windows land but Browsers have been running in protected mode on Linux for years.
"during the IE7 beta process, you've seen other browser vendors copy some of these features"
Like who and when specifically? In the same interview he mentions an address bar spoof, so I guess the real-time anti-phishing functionality is still a little buggy.
davecb5620@gmail.com
HA HA HA HA HA HA ... .... ... phew
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
hahahaha
Oh...that was a good one.
I guess it depends on how you use 'expect' here, but everyone I know expects Windows to crash and become infected with spyware after enough time.
"In regards to tabs, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_browsing, NetCaptor (an IE-based browser) was first."
From the Wikipedia article:
"BookLink Technologies pioneered this interface design in its InternetWorks browser in 1994. Independently, the founders of Opera built an MDI-based browser in the same year (via a technical preview not available publicly; a public release was made in 1996). The tabbed interface approach was then followed by the Internet Explorer shell NetCaptor in 1997."
So the guys that did Opera did the tabbed thing first; they released the Opera browser later. The public release of the tabbed browser was still done months before the IE shell modification.
go read the privacy policy and especially the bit about "protecting microsoft and its partners/agents property"
its not a phishing filter its a MS revenue protection tool
"I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free."
In a short sentence he manages to sidestep the question and offend the person who made it: I must admit Microsoft software engineers really are smart guys!
But my favorite one is this one:
"The real goal here is interoperability - something that Microsoft product teams believe in"
I'm the Samba developers wholeheartedly agreen on this. All in all, much more typical MS market-speech than I expected.
rehdon
And what about Netscape?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I used to a bunch of online surveys to make a bit of cash
Wow, so there are people who fall for those "Make money taking surveys" scams! ;)
Now, with that out of the way, I'd like to tell you about an amazing opportunity in my home country of Sierra Leone. The Prime Minister was assassinated in a coup, leaving behind no heirs and approximately $20M in assets. If we do not get his money out of the country, it will be seized by the state. If you provide me with your bank routing information, I will send you the money, and attempt to flee the country. When I make it to the US, we'll split the money 50/50. Would you like to benefit from this once in a lifetime opportunity?
He wasn't talking about Firefox, he was talking about the Slashdotters [that] find [it] a little confusing...
(which is valid... have you read some of the threads here?
Did anyone else notice that he did not address the main point of question 8 being that IE renders web pages differently then most everything else out there and that it does not adhear to the standards?
Let's pretend for a moment that Internet Explorer isn't the default web-browser built into Windows and instead, users are presented with a choice on first login (e.g. a message asking 'How would you like to browse the internet? MSIE, Firefox, Opera').
OK, I'll pretend. My first question is when we ask users this question... if it's in 1995, then Opera isn't on the list...and neither is Firefox.
Skipping the obligatory 'Well, if it's 95, Netscape is a choice' comment that's been mentioned, how can someone actively update a static installation? In fact, the first cds of XP, even cds with SP1 included, wouldn't have had Firefox included as an option. How can we pick Fox as an option if our system restore CD is from a 2004 Dell? We'd still have to use IE to download it.
Would MS be responsible for alerting you to updates of your other browsers? While I'm sure most of us would say no, to the general public, I would imagine the thought process would be, "Windows installed it, they should take care of it." And going back to 95, Netscape didn't have an automatic update solution as far as I can remember. They might have been stuck with 2.0 while IE was being upgraded through updates and developed a dislike to Netscape turning them off of 3rd party browers.
I can understand our want to have alternates included, but is just including them enough? Should they offer a second cd with additional packages? At this point, I don't think windows has the setup infrastructure to handle 3rd party programs.
Simply offering alternatives just isn't enough, I think. It doesn't help that presses of XP variants are few and far between, but even if they weren't how easy would it be to get a new CD of XP? If it's up to MS, I bet a new CD would mean a new sale. You can't exactly download a new ISO every couple months for reinstalling.
I have started to see some things that even some Slashdotters find a little confusing, like the whole Iceweasel thing.
As opposed to Microsoft, which lets you use their Internet Explorer trademark?
IE5/Mac is unsupported by MS, no longer available for download, and its rendering engine is very different from and more buggy than in IE on Windows.
Deus est fatalis
..some of which I got converted to Amazon, some paid via PayPal. So it wasn't a scam, and I did make a bit of cash. I looked around to see which sites were legit first. I actually got into it because I know someone who makes a fair bit - not a fortune, but a fair but - with some surveys she's sent. Thing is, hers are in the area of pharmacy, whereas the ones I were doing were consumer stuff. Hence, I stopped doing them, for the same reason I stopped doing MTurking in that it just wasn't worth my time.
This question was fully answered by a comment to the original call for questions.
Thus the slashdot "editors" totally wasted a slot with a stupid question.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I was going to moderate on this article, but I just could resist the urge to post...
So in reading his responses to the above questions, the thought struck me that this guy is a really smooth-talking PR kinda guy. Most of his answers boiled down to either "yes" or "no" with a bunch of quasi-technical words thrown in for good measure, or he completely avoided the question and either rambled about some other random crap or answered a completely different question instead. Methinks this guy (based solely on the responses posted here, mind you) belongs in the PR department, rather than heading up a software creation department. But then again, perhaps it is a common prerequisite to working as a manager at MS to have mad doublespeak skillz.
-- There, everybody likes a gorilla.
Windows customers expect the best, safest experience with their PCs out of the box... priceless. Just, priceless.
been lookin throught the acid test source for a while.
I'd fire someone for writing something like that.
Nobody really really writes like that. I don't think that it's all that important for any browser to pass that particular test.
I think a very large suite of test cases using sampes from many real websites that have no IE hacks would be a much more useful test.
Also I remember reading somewhere that the acid test also tests how a browser reacts to some sort of invalid code like a broken comment. If there were a version of the acid test that tests only perfectly valid code and dropped the src=data: stuff most browsers would be much closer to passing it.
atm nobody really uses data: sources and I for one VALIDATE EVERYTHING. If the browser work perfect with totally valid code, it works for me.
In a word a total Microsloth weasel.
This interview appears to be just as bad as the one with Blizzard that occured a while ago. Blame lies on both the chosen questions and some not even being answered. Slashdot should have just posted "Yeah we got the interview back. It was so bad we printed it out, crumpled it up, and threw it in the trash."
* If you had more time, is there a new feature you would have liked to include in IE7?
* ...But where are the IE innovations? Why can't the IE team get ahead of the curve on Firefox? ...
* Let's pretend for a moment that Internet Explorer isn't the default web-browser built into Windows and instead, users are presented with a choice on first login
* IE7, like IE6, renders a lot of pages significantly differently than the other main HTML rendering engines available
Seem either very vague or appear to be dodging the question (or the very obvious intent) that is being asked. Moreover I think that the questions were actually quite a good selection, and not too aggressive (nor too fluffy). I would like to know how much input or oversight Microsofts marketing / other departments had in the answers.
I've been looking at (and commenting on) some of the Microsoft related blogs that are out there, such as MSTechToday and I am intrigued at how defensive Microsoft advocates are (I know that Mac, GNU/Linux and BSD advocates are fairly Zealous too...), but they appear defensive even when they don't need to be. Love it or loath it, Microsoft software is now in general, stable, usable and allows you to be productive, and Microsoft are focusing on security too.
Things like the "get the facts" campaign against GNU/Linux appear to be no better than negative political ads (Oh and check how many of the companies featured pointing out why OSS isn't an option for them in production are using OSS web servers, Firewalls and other technologies).
The one thing that stands out is that whilst the GNU/Linux groups are very keen to point out how great and how secure and stable the OS is, they don't tend to have to justify the direction they are going, even to pro-Microsoft posters. The Microsoft advocates on the other hand seem to have to point out that everything is being done to address a customer need that they have identified, and that anyone claiming a feature in the OS, or one being introduced into the OS may not benefit windows users (or in the case of DRM and Driver signing) may damage interests is working against some sort of ideal.
I guess the answer to that is that people use MS software because it fills a need of some sort, or because in a given situation there is no alternative (or because they are locked in to it for a given cycle), whilst GNU/Linux, BSD and Mac users use their respective products because they think that they are the best solution out there, and because they feel that the organisation / group also have a philosophy that they can either agree with or actively support.
I guess what I am saying rather badly is that those people making the software that is and runs on Mac OS, GNU/Linux, BSD etc.. stand for something, whilst Microsoft doesn't seem to anymore (and the whole Microsoft is evil and stand for evil doesn't count as its fairly invalid and is voiced by people who detest MS not its user base - although I guess there may be a certain attraction to some people :) ).
Just a thought, In modern markets is a philosophy that you aspire to something that adds something to your product? Google seem to think so, Banks seem to be keen to promote their reputations and ideals, even auto manufacturers try.
Anyway, thanks
I should declare that I use GNU/Linux and Solaris rather than MS products these days; but was quite fond of Active Directory and 2000 server, before any of the above is seen as either entireley pro or anti Microsoft
I do think many/most Windows users expect a good reasonably safe computer experience right out of the box.
I also think the IE team is working to provide this.
Are you suggesting that most Windows users really expect a horrible insecure mess of an experience, or that they're in Redmond designing trojan and spyware interfaces all day?
I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers, period. We're also not about to give away Windows client licenses.
"You want access to our commanding market share of users? Then you'll damn well have to buy our product and become one of them. No cross-platform development for you."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
"The funny thing about your question..."
"I think the core of your question..."
"The question here..."
Is it me or does he try and create his own questions and avoid the real answer?
notexto
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I'm a web developer and I train people how to use the CMS we build and we always recommend they do changes to their website using Firefox. Most of the time when we train people they don't even KNOW what Firefox is, you try to explain that it is a browser and they look at you dumbfounded but when you tell them "it's like Internet Explorer, except more secure and faster" they understand.
The point is, the average person doesn't even know that there are other browsers out there, they are just so used to using Internet Explorer and Windows that they can't really understand the concept of there being other browsers or even operating systems and to me, this is a problem. The problem isn't that they are using them really, the problem is that they don't know there are other options.
So they continue to put a lot of effort into IE because 'Windows is a platform', and users and developers expect it to be there.
Well, users expect a browser to be there - they don't give a damn whether it's IE, FF or Netscape. Developers, of course, do care. But in that case, he's just saying that 'we got developers hooked on IE by promising it would be there, so now it needs to be there because of those developers'. A bit of circular logic that ignores the fact that the reason they made the promise in the first place was to kill the competition.
But the question remains a serious one. With a good renderer available for free for them via Gecko, why not simply base IE on that, and provide the necessary backward compatibility for developers based on wrappers? Well, the most logical answer is that they don't *wan*t to adhere to standards, because they know that'll result in websites that require IE - (i.e. Windows). It's the monopoly, stupid.
Another point. He says they IE7 took so long to appear because they weren't working on it. Essentially, they had all these OS security holes to fill - and Vista to develop, etc. Well, doesn't that beg the question, why develop a web browser at all? If you don't have the resources to maintain your browser, keep up with the latest standards and provide some modicum of a secure web browsing experience, why do it at all? IE is not a revenue stream, it has lots of anticompetitive and negative image baggage, and is not best of breed. Web developers would like them more for supporting the same standards as all the other browsers than for any other development aids IE might provide.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Awe, such a nice guy. Except that he wasn't asked to say mean things. A flaw is a flaw is a flaw. How hard would it have been to talk about memory usage, extention incompatiblities, uh... startup times? Anything?
It's a good question but you can't ask someone that when they're paid to say anything else. To identify a weakness, he'd have to use it (lest
Nooooooo~ Windows users expect to be able to get porn, music, and games from teh interweb.
IE is neither great nor secure but it sure is default!
Who the heck were they getting 'real-world' feedback from? Gates & Ballmer? My 7-year old daughter?
Any technical person I've talked to about IE6, and especially web developers, has two major issues that they wanted fixed:
So maybe they hit the second one a bit, but how did they miss the feedback on #1?
Like what? Better RSS functionality? A new UI? I don't ever recall hearing developers ask for those. Who is he kidding? They didn't care what cross-platform web developers wanted. They talked to a few dedicated IE web developers and that's it.
Here's the real answer:
Translated: Other Microsoft stuff relies on the HTML and CSS parsers and renderers, in a big entangled mess, and those other things are just as broken as IE6, and the whole thing is so fscked up that we couldn't figure it out in time, and then we'd have to get those other dev groups to coordinate with us, and that's a pain in a bureaucratic place like Microsoft, so we just gave up and concentrated on bells and whistles for the users.
Really! I'm not joking! But apparently, Dean is...
Similes are like metaphors
Nope, and there are reasons, but I'm not telling you what they are.
The entire IE team was busy with much more important things, like the MSN Toolbar, and specialized changes for individual customers with deep pockets.
None. We just wanted to ship in time.
A better phishing filter, RSS, Expose-like tab view, and a better security model.
I wrote a cheap insult about Iceweasel, but then decided to just shut up and not say anything, but apparently my text editor bugged up or something and didn't erase the insult.
All the usual methods. It's hard work though, since all those attackers innovate so much -- it's an industry-wide problem, not just with us! -- and people keep irresponsibly making vulnerabilities public.
Customers love IE so much after 10 years of using it that I'm sure it would.
I will completely ignore your mention of WGA, treating it as self-evident that IE should require this. Therefore, it is impossible to address your concern because we won't give away Windows licenses.
We don't care about standards. We care about the real world!
The security holes and lack of features in IE were starting to reflect badly on our claims of having the most secure and innovative products.
He makes it sound like IE is forging ahead on some sort of visionary path. Not true. Just keeping pace, if that.
Firefox 2 has integrated anti-phishing protection
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/phishing-pro
Firefox has had integrated RSS support for several releases now, originally just called "Live bookmarks" and first available in Firefox 1.0... in 2004. It's just been enhanced in 2.0 to include support for feed subscriptions using other web services (bloglines, etc) or via external application.
By default the following URL shows me a sample of the feed, and provides several options for subscribing.
http://www.mozilla.org/news.rdf
I don't know what 'Quicktabs' are, but we all know Internet Explorer is a little late to the party with tabbed browsing, Opera, Safari, Firefox, and even Mozilla way back via add-ons had this functionality.
Firefox has had a simple and extensible search plug in system for a while now. (Since 1.0?). I beleive both OpenSearch and Sherlock format are also supported in 2.0.
(PS: This post is spelling mistake-free thanks to Firefox integrated spell checking)
It's just amazing how out of touch this guy is. It's often said that Microsoft is so inward focused, that its workers are so completely "brainwashed" that they simply can't even understand criticism offered to them. They're in a completely different world. This response illustrates that completely.
I'm perfectly happy to see people I don't agree with speak, and I'm greatful to read their thoughts so that I can see their mindset. This response was bad on an entirely different level. He couldn't seem to even fully grasp the questions.
That's probably the real meaning to be gleaned from this response.
I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers, period. We're also not about to give away Windows client licenses.
I beg to differ. I think it's about tying IE so close to the OS (with WGA and limited version support) as to require someone to buy the latest version of Windows and a machine to run it on in order to continue to support Microsoft's broken browser. I'm sorry, but this is a bad answer. THe profit and market share motives were completely ignored, and shouldn't be.
If Microsoft was really concerned about the browsing experience, they'd bend over backwards to attain parity with the other browsers on the market WRT standards support. Acid2 is a nice test suite to show it. As a part time developer, I can say with certainty that the stuff they've fixed is nice, but it still doesn't come close to what's required for true partiy, and by that I mean the ability of a developer (me) to write a single document for the web that's rendered the same way by the 3 browsers I see in the top of my logs (IE, Firefox and Safari).
When they get there, I'll start listening. Until then...I trust IE as far as I can throw it's program manager.
This is not a sig. this is a duck. quack.
Looking quickly at the security life cycle given, it still appears that security operates independently of feature development.
As does:
"we stepped back to analyze all the ways to attack a browser and then figured out the best ways to defend in depth against attacks"
With security on a separate path, things will slip in.
A better path example would be:
Manager tells development that we really need ActiveX in the browser.
Development consults on security, and believes it is possible to do securely.
Development proposes adding major new feature, ActiveX to browser, gives details.
Proposal is reviewed for security and possible thrown back.
ActiveX implemented in browser. Details of new access/entry points into browser/system are detailed.
Specific implementation is reviewed for security and possibly thrown back.
Implementation of ActiveX added to browser.
Testing...QA...Release.
Instead of the apparent method:
Manager tells development that we really need ActiveX in the browser.
Development proposes adding major new feature, ActiveX to browser, gives details.
ActiveX implemented in browser.
Implementation of ActiveX added to browser.
Testing...QA...Release.
Some users are getting virus-ware that they didn't want via tricks that take advantage of ActiveX feature.
Oh well.
A few million users are virus-ware that they didn't want via tricks that take advantage of IE features.
And MS is getting bad press, as well.
Oh, we need to write software to defend against the every changing virus writers.
So fixing CSS bugs is a feature? They threw in lots of features, like tabbed browsing, yet they consider actual bugs to be extra features that will have to wait.
Did he really expect the slashdot crowd to accept that allowing IE7 to run in Wine is the equivilent of giving away a window client license? I would have respected him so much more if he just said "we are required to develop with our in-house libraries and we have no interest in users of other operating systems using our products". Someone should enlighten him to the fact that most of the developers in question can easily afford Windows but choose not to run it, and wanting to have IE for testing purposes is a long way from being miscontrued as an attempt to illicitly acquire a windows client license. This comment is dishonest at best.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Question ...But where are the IE innovations?...
Answer
I think IE7 is the first browser with...shrink-to-fit printing on by default...
Not exactly 'parallel parks itself' innovating, but hey...its something!
"It just comes off to me as apologetical -- we should be reverential to this MS guy for taking the time to entertain the questions. Hey, we are your customer!"
Even the Firefox users?
The problem with IE5 for Mac is that it was released on a staggered development cycle from IE on the PC. This led to radically different functionality depending on the platform. IE for the Mac was a huge step forward (for IE at the time, that is) when it comes to standards compliance. But it doesn't help developers to comply to standards in one place and not the other. So when the next version of IE came out on Windows, it was in some ways more standards compliant than IE for Mac. But it was also somewhat less compliant in other areas. Had they chosen to do a straight port to the Mac--bugs, foibles and all--it would have been preferable. Even if it was less standards compliant than IE 5 for the Mac ended up being.
There's nothing magic about the standards that makes them better than any other browser target. The only reason developers are constantly clamoring for standards compliance is that is presents a single target to code to. We don't care which target we code to, we just don't want to have to support multiple targets. And that's why Microsoft's refusal to comply with standards is so frustrating. Every new IE release creates a new target to code for (though hopefully the release of IE7 will mean we can finally stop testing for IE 5.5).
This is why Hachamovitch's mention of needing to maintain compatability with other products at Microsoft is somewhat disingenuous. That compatability is only a problem because they've chosen to deviate from web standards both in IE and in the other products. Standards compliance can become a mechanism for allowing projects to work independently from each other without fear that they will need anything more than a couple of tweaks before launching to ensure that the two products work well together. But since they've chosen to deviate from standards (I won't go so far as to say that they've intentionally deviated, but it does seem that way at times), all those project teams need to work closely together to ensure that changes to IE don't break everyone else's code.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Ice Weasel? Come on, is that really a respectful name for the browser?
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
-- Matt Groening, in his "Love is Hell" book: http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26730.html
I don't see a good reason to make IE available on other operating systems at this time.
Translation: Nobody who runs Mac or Linux would be crazy enough to run IE by choice. Also, having IE tightly associated with Windows helps us strategically as a monopoly.
Let's pretend for a moment that Internet Explorer isn't the default web-browser built into Windows and instead, users are presented with a choice on first login (e.g. a message asking 'How would you like to browse the internet? MSIE, Firefox, Opera'). Would you expect IE to become as dominant as it is now if users had to specifically choose it over another?
[C]andidly, we have 10+ years of people seeing the IE icon and all that that means to them.
Translation: We're counting on them to stay with IE because it's become a habit.
IE7, like IE6, renders a lot of pages significantly differently than the other main HTML rendering engines available (Geko, KHTML, and Opera). At the same time, IE7 requires WGA to run - so that applications like Wine are unable to run it. This means that web developers who are using Linux and Mac OS X will have an extremely difficult time testing their sites with IE7. ... not about to give away Windows client licenses... I've seen some very clever solutions like BrowserCam that should help.
We're
Translation: Failure to adhere to standards helps our monopoly position. If you want to reverse-engineer our browser to figure out how it deviates from standards, you have to pay us money for a Windows license (or pay money for BrowserCam, which can't be a free service because BrowserCam pays us money for their Windows licenses).
Find free books.
Until IE is cross-platform, portable, open-source, highly customizable, faster than Firefox, and not a Microsoft product, I'll never use their browser again. Unless of course I absolutely have to in rare cases.
Currently theta testing the prototype "Event Horizon" server-scaled desktop box with a 50 Gigameg of Ram.
I really didn't have a problem with any of his answers EXCEPT his answer on how best to test web sites on different versions of IE on other OS's.
Hey Dean, no one was asking you give away a Windows license. We were asking you to give developers a better way to test against past, present and future browser versions and you responded by acting like we wanted to get Windows for free. Don't you have a clue about the real world for web developers?
I have a legally owned XP Pro license. I run IE 7 on my computer to test that but I can't also test IE 6. So I install another copy on a VMWare virtual machine. That is a total headache for just wanting to test a web site.
MS owns Virtual PC. You already make a stripped down version of Windows (Windows Starter). Why can't you make self running virtual pc images basically of IE images? Prevent anything except IE from running on the virtual machine and take out anything not essential to testing a web site. This could be used in Linux or on a Mac.
But hey, make it hell for us Dean. We really appreciate that.
Editor's note: Next week's Slashdot interview guest will be a FireFox person. Only fair, right? :)
What about an IceWeasel rep??
cat Your_Thoughts >
"I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers, period. We're also not about to give away Windows client licenses."
Seems that he missed the real core of the question, what's so special about IE that they blocked it from running in Wine?
I'm reading all these comments criticising MS for it's lack of support for standards and everyone seems to forget that before IE became prevalent it was even harder to make a web applications work consistently on multiple browsers. Not only would Netscape come out with proprietary tags between versions, but they would also break HTML rendering and JavaScript support from one version to another. With Netscape version 4.x it got so bad that IE 4 was a godsend.
Granted the way that IE grabbed marketshare was unfair; but at least with 90% plus marketshare web developers had as standard a platform as you could get in the late 90's. When CSS started to make it to the mainstream IE was doing a very good job of supporting what most people needed at the time. Today we know that that support was lacking, but who really needed to care with "other" browsers being on the fringe.
Skip to present day, and HTML rendering is the least of MS's problems with IE. Making developer's lives easier is a nice bonus, but not at all essential for them. Developers always have a knack for getting around limitations and being creative to get things to work. We like to bitch and complain, but in the end we get the job done. Contrast this with high profile issues such as security and you can see where MS's priorities are going to be.
I wonder if the survey form would actually work if you had a browser (or plugin) that let you change your user agent id to that of an IE browser on windows.
This guy is full of shit. The foulest, most vile stinking kind of shit. A corporate marketing droid shoveled it into him.
When answering a question about IE's lousy standards support (#9), he uses interoperability as a defense. What the fuck.
Let's play with word prefixes for a moment.
Lots of people have heard of interoperability. Most people understand it to mean "operability between or among platforms.
Obviously, intraoperability would be "operability within a single platform".
What he's actually talking about is how standards compliance would affect Windows as a whole. Help files, Office, Outlook, a lot of things depend on MS' 8 year old (or more) decision to merely pay lip service to web standards and/or pervert them for their own internal uses.
MS doesn't care one bit about other platforms. They don't even consider the existence of other platforms most of the time. That's their business. Closed source, closed minded.
But to dismiss developers' demands in favor of not having to fix their platform? That's not caring about developers, customers, or anyone other than themselves. MS has the same attitude about lots of topics, including security. All their past design choices are coming back to haunt them.
Fact: IE7 still sucks at web standards, and MS doesn't care. They're even whispering to people that it doesn't (among the roar of UI catch up). They just had to whip up the token effort that is IE7 so people would get distracted from Firefox. People are fed up with IE, especially web developers. The best, most secure browsing experience? Certainly not with IE, and maybe not even on Windows.
My guess is that the survey site was using some ActiveX component. These were only ever supported in Windows.
Seriously, what a cakewalk. This is more scripted than a presidential Q & A session.
Tim
Would you care to explain, then, why Microsoft produces Office for Mac?
1) Would you like to make IE available on other operations systems?
.aspx , the first non-Excedrin page I found). Congratulations on changing a default print setting and supporting new features that only you had access to...?
MS Guy: We _did_ do that.
Slashdotters: You don't see a good business case, but would you like to answer the question? At least say that you think other operating systems are strongly supported by other browers. Better yet, tie this question in with question 10.
2) Why did IE6 -> IE7 take so long?
MS Guy: We worked on other things.
Slashdotters: Why is the IE team working on projects like Microsoft Presentation Foundation when IE is losing market share?
3) If you had more time, is there a new feature you would have liked to include in IE7?
MS Guy: Yes. Also, successfully fought the temptation to get in "one more CSS fix".
Slashdotters: Please prioritize fixing CSS and standards support ahead of "cool end-user feature[s]".
4) Firefox has popularized innovations like tabbed browsing. What are some IE innovations?
MS Guy: I think "real-time anti-phishing functionality", "RSS platform", "Simple List Extensions", "QuickTabs", "Support for OpenSearch", having a different default print setting, and support for a feature of Vista.
Slashdotters: Phishing is preventable on the user end; if someone is likely to succomb to phishing attacks, preventing them is of little benefit as they will likely also open virus-infected files and leave themselves open to other malware. Built-in RSS support should be low priority given the number, quality, and variety of other solutions available. Simple List Extensions is an XML spec for exchanging information between apps...that's innovation? (Using the word "Extensions" rather than referring to an exchange of information is also a shameless attempt to capitalize on Firefox's popularization of the word. MS: "We have extensions now, too!") QuickTabs seem to be a decent idea, but not working real well (at least from http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/10/529938
5) What do you consider the greatest weakness of Firefox?
Response: I respect Firefox folks.
Slashdotters: Awesome. Would be nice if your other snarky comments didn't undermine this.
6) IE7 is supposed to be very secure, but in less than 24 hours a bug was found that has existed since IE5.5. Explain?
Response: Paragraph about how the _development cycle_ is now secure, and that they turned off ActiveX by default. Says the exploit mentioned is because of another Windows component that IE calls. "Not my problem WONTFIX"
Slashdotters: *re-open bug*
7) If IE was not default on Windows, would IE be dominant? Ignore impracticalities.
MS Guy: Proceeds to outline all of the impracticalities. Says that all users have the capability to change default browser, if they don't it's their problem.
Slashdotters: You can change thousands of settings within a couple clicks. Saying any user can do it assumes that "any user" knows how, which is obviously false.
8) IE7 will have significant marketshare, but won't run on Wine or OSX. Was it intentional to force web developers to buy Windows?
MS Guy: I think you're trying to get Windows for free. You can run Windows on Mac hardware now. Use BrowserCam
Slashdotters: Answer the question or f*** off.
9) An author of the CSS Spec and supported of Acid 2 said IE doesn't support standards fully because standards don't benefit monopolists. Response?
MS Guy: Acid 2 is a measure of features one person thinks is important. We don't agree that developers think HTML, CSS, PNG, or data URL features are important. Developers want IE to work with other MS products, not to support web standards.
Slashdotters: Why then do you never, ever, ever, ever get asked about cross-application support features and always, in every single interview ever, get asked about supporting web standards?
10) Why
If MS really wanted to make life easier for developers thay would have released IE7 as a portable app (or made it possible to install it beside IE6) to make it possible to test pages in IE6 and 7 while the user base moves to the new browser. Instead (as I am a freelancer and don't work in an office full of windows pcs) I have to phone/email a friend and ask him to send me a screen shot.
Of course it's only the different rendering engines that effects the way pages are displayed so if I could install IE7 but have the ability to roll back to the IE6 rendering engine that would do.
I can understand why MS don't want to release IE for other OSs as that and photoshop are the only reasons I use Windows (rather than *nix).
For those of you who don't speak Microsoft fluently, here's some of the highlights:
1. Would you like to make available IE on other operating systems?
I don't see a good reason to make IE available on other operating systems at this time.... other than the fact that many websites only work in IE. Not a problem since everyone should be running Windows anyway
2. Why did IE7 take so long to release?
We're pretty much a mom-and-pop operation, we can't really afford to dedicate a team to developing one product.
3. Is there a new feature you would have liked to include in IE7?
Yes, but I can't tell you. And you just wasted one of only 10 questions that I'll answer. Next?
5. What do you consider the greatest weakness of Firefox?
I can't tell you. And you just wasted one of only 10 questions that I'll answer. Next?
6. We are secure, but those damn hackers are sure innovative.
7. Would you expect IE to become as dominant as it is now if users had to specifically choose it over another?
Some people do prefer IE, and having professional technical support to contact makes all the difference in their browser choice. Honest. Don't ask me to back that up, you're running out of questions.
8. Allowing developers to test for compatibility
We are not going to give Windows licenses away for free. Next?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
need windows if IE was available on other platforms?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"The funny thing about your question is that in some ways, users are about two clicks from this scenario every time they run Windows XP: from the Start menu, select Set Program Access and Defaults. And it's not limited to the browsers you list, but any browser that they can download."
Where is this??!?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
and for others, not needing said "technical support" in the first place is *PRICELESS*!
Exactly the bullshit answers I expected. Especially on the question of CSS support. News flash: IE's whacked CSS support IS a REAL WORLD PROBLEM FOR DEVELOPERS.
R(k)
Regarding asking users of a fresh install what browser to use:
Anyone who thinks Start->Set Program Access and Defaults is an intuitive way to choose a browser is nuts.
Anyone who thinks "Do you want a typical or custom software installation?" is "far simpler" than "What browser would you like to use?" is even more nuts.
No wonder Microsoft can't make decent software if this is the sort of person they have making interface decisions.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
coz people pay for it.. for some reason.
"But the question remains a serious one. With a good renderer available for free for them via Gecko, why not simply base IE on that, and provide the necessary backward compatibility for developers based on wrappers? Well, the most logical answer is that they don't *wan*t to adhere to standards, because they know that'll result in websites that require IE - (i.e. Windows). It's the monopoly, stupid."
Thats more than a little bit disingenuous.
The reason why they dont base IE off of Gecko is not because of some mysterious conspiracy theory. It's because it would create an uncontrollable dependency. It would take the evolution of the core browser out of their control. They would have to either upgrade at the pace that Gecko/Firefox sets, or make a private branch and try to stick on all the IE specific stuff back onto it.
The net effect of this would be to basically give up a part of windows to the Mozilla team, and lose their ability to evolve the browser and the html rendering engines that much of the OS uses, the way they need to.
No business in their right mind would do that, there's just no benefit to anyone.
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
We're investing so much time and effort in IE in order to give Windows customers a great, secure(haha), default experience
They're implementing things from the classic Saltzer and Schroeder paper. Running IE in a restricted account is honoring the principle of least privilege, and the "service broker" is what used to be called a "reference monitor", a component stripped down to the job of checking all resource access against policy.
It should be obvious that the GP is referring to making OS features (of which IE is, arguably, one) available on other platforms for free.
The "Office" example is an entirely separate product, sold separately for cash, and unrelated to the operating system, except that, in this case, the same parent company owns both products.
I've been trying to change my default browser at work, where we tend to use a very Microsoft-centric desktop for most things. (Outlook, IE, Office, etc.) Switching the browser that runs underneath the Start Menu browser icon is quite easy, but I still haven't figured out how to make all applications use Firefox, or any other browser for that matter.
The most obvious example is Outlook, which seems to want to open links in MSIE no matter what I do. It' be nice to be able to tell Outlook to use another rendering engine entirely (such as Gecko), but I'd be keen to simply tell it to run Firefox instead of IE when it wants to open a completely new browser instance. Does anyone know how to change this? Is it even possible with Outlook?
Probably because Office isnt a free product, and brings them revenue. IE is free, and does not. MS is a business, and the only reason a business exists, is to make money.
Technophile
Actually, I think that's fairly easy to explain.
... and not cheaply.
The browser is an app that they are providing free with the operating system.
Office, on the other hand, is an application suite that must be purchased separately
Given that MS want to 1) maintain Office as the dominant productivity package, and 2) makes a nice profit selling Office, they have quite an incentive to make a Mac version.
It's not my fault! It was this way when I got here.
Not quite. Microsoft used to ship ActiveX for MacOS as well, but it was never ported to OS X.
One of the main differences between IE 5.1 for Mac Classic and IE 5.2 for Mac OS X (other than the UI) is that the Mac Classic version still had ActiveX support. You can actually see this side by side if you have a PowerPC-based Mac that came with OS 10.3 or earlier (10.4 stopped shipping with IE, though Safari had long since been the default), and you installed the Classic environment. Just open up both browsers and compare the preferences.
Also, if you have a name that can resolve to both A records (IPv4) and AAAA records (IPv6), there is a big problem of prioritization. This is important, as there is no guarantee that the two sites would be the same and the way that URLs are currently handled does not make it easy to choose one over the other.
Transitory addresses can also pose a problem. 99% of the work is handled by the OS, but any cookie that uses an IP address must be updated to the new address if it is to remain useful. The same is true of IPv4, but IPv4 users haven't used mobile IP much and generally use a fail-over or load-balancing system that presents a single address to the outside world.
These are all corner cases, we're just going to see a lot more corner cases with IPv6 than we did with IPv4, and I'm not convinced any implementation is taking that into account.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'd wager a guess that it's because Office creates documents, and is not just a viewer like IE. Providing a version of the Office suite of programs for Mac ensures the best possible translation of these documents.
Open Office and others keep getting better at handling these formats, but MS often makes changes. Whether this is a monopolistic approach or simply responding to users' wants with changes in format to support a larger feature set is impossible know for certain without being in the boardroom. My guess? It's a bit of both... They're a business, and it's common practice. (Take a peek at Adobe.)
When you pull that shiny new PC "out of the box", you really are experiencing Windows and IE at their best and most secure.
No sig for you!!
What about iTunes or QuickTime?
I'm sorry, I took a full ten minutes to read his answers, and the only thing I got out of it is my being ten minutes closer to going home. This is a perfect example of how NOT to answer questions on slashdot (or any technical forum). I want to hear frank, honest answers. He dodged a few questions and the ones that were answered were riddled with ...because microsoft cares so much for it's customers... and ...oh because we make the best software ever...
I'm sorry, I'm usually not a Microsoft bigot, but this leaves me with little confidence in IE 7 and, if this is now typical of M$, I have serious concerns about the quality of Vista.
At the same time, Firefox 2.0 caused huge problems after being installed, so I'm not happy with the quality there either, but this is a Microsoft bashing post, so I'll leave that out.
And since someday I may want to work for Microsoft, I'll click off the Post Anonymously box.
Your starting score was always 1. Look at the post you just made -- it's a starting score of 1 with a +1 karma bonus, for a total of 2.
As for why it's missing from your parent post, I remember reading it in the FAQ -- the upshot is that a post that has been modded down twice loses its karma bonus (just that comment).
Is he trolling? Firefox isn't professional because they dont charge $300 USD per service call?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
The work that we delivered in IE7 simply has more positive impact and makes web developers' jobs easier than making an arbitrary (if terribly clever) web page render the way its author intended.
...snip...
The question here isn't whether we want to support those features or if we understand that web developers want them (we do), but simply prioritization. We focused on web developers' real world problems.
So what he's saying is, "We hear the web developers, understand what they are asking for, have the resources to solve their delima, but choose to focus on other areas that MS feels is more important to web developers." The end of the first quote above is what really pissed me off. They don't think it's a priority for the web page to render the way the author intended? Now I know what I've been doing wrong all these years! I should develop my web apps/pages to render differently than I expect! Geesh!
I'm still confused as to these "real world problems" he's talking about. If nearly every web developer out there has been screaming about standards for years, then what are the problems he is talking about?
It's quite obvious that the real answer to web developers is "We don't care about you!" Not even enough to answer the question without contradicting themselves.
Developers! Developers! Delevopers!
It's interesting that they come just short of taking credit for tabbed browsing.
From the wikipedia article:
Web browsers are notable for implementing this kind of interface (called tabbed browsing). BookLink Technologies pioneered this interface design in its InternetWorks browser in 1994. Independently, the founders of Opera built an MDI-based browser in the same year (via a technical preview not available publicly; a public release was made in 1996). The tabbed interface approach was then followed by the Internet Explorer shell NetCaptor in 1997.
So how does anything in that section say anything about Microsoft except that someone at NetCaptor followed BookLink Technologies and Opera after they made tabbed browsers. Even if they could claim that NetCaptor was first, how does Microsoft have anything to do with that?
Lame...
</rant>
"Why did IE7 take such a long time to release after IE6?" Aww come on, what a throwaway question. His answer is ridiculous--Microsoft with its untold billions couldn't hire some devs to work on MSIE while other devs worked on the oh-so-essential and useful MSN Explorer? Everybody knows the real reason: MS didn't give a damn about IE because it had no competition. I suppose I might have actually respected the guy if he had gave a decent answer, but instead, this bullshit.
Penny - plain text accounting
They don't anymore. They did, at one time, because of a deal with with Apple to do so. And they produced IE for Solaris, but that was really a half-hearted attempt using Wind/U emulation layers. Neither are supported any longer.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Was that, it was so tempting to shove in more features, that they simply didn't have time to fix bugs in the existing features. Features that they've had 8 years to work on. After all, I picked up the following nuggets of wisdom in this interview (paraphrase here): "Since other browsers have minor bugs with html and CSS 2.1, and since CSS 3 is still being developed it's impossible for us to support CSS 2.1 - it's a moving target! And, it's no problem if we have major bugs with html and css, since no browser perfectly supports CSS 2.1 - and heck, most users don't know the difference anyhow - they'll never realize if a website doesn't look right, that it's our fault! Man, it's great that people are used to clicking on the 'e' icon to browse the Internet."
Er.. sorry, I misread. Thought you said IE, rather than Office.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Where WRONG answers are modded up to +5 informative, as long as they slam MS.
Nice job douche.
Apple has a huge incentive to support iTunes on Windows, namely the Millions of dollars they're making selling music to Windows users. Maybe I should have said, "Barring an overpowering financial reason, there is no incentive..."
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Having a wider iTunes user base means more purchases from the Apple iTunes store. Likewise, having a wider user base for QuickTime means more purchases of progams used to make QuickTime videos (which Apple sells for $$$). Microsoft wouldn't get a similar benefit from a more widely distributed IE.
He effected a bored affect.
> Operating System vendors have no incentive, no matter who they are, to make their products available on other platforms.
I can't let this go unchallenged. A ton of examples to the contrary: Quicktime Player for Windows, iTunes for Windows, Office for Macintosh, Sun Java for all platforms, Windows Media Player for Macintosh.
It depends on the app, and the business need to port it to other platforms. In theory all browsers render all web pages the same because everyone uses the same open standards. Well, we all know that is a crock, but that's the theory anyway.
jfs
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Can someone illuminate me on something. He keeps talking about all this work they did on IPv6 support for Vista. Doesn't WinXP already have IPv6 support built in, and hasn't it had that support since like SP1?
Is there some difference between Vista's IPv6 support and XP's? (I've not really played with WinXP's IPv6 implementation, but I've seen stuff in Windows for it).
A couple of his answers mentioned helping the developers. Now, why, when developing an end-user browser, would your focus be on developers? I do web development. The BEST thing they could have done for me is to make IE7 standards compliant. Period. Any gizmo, feature, or other perceived nicety is secondary to that.
Oh, and Browsercam? That'll help - it's a nice service, but it costs $400 per year to use it.
Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from all that is known.
Why don't you just download the standalone versions of Internet Explorer from Evolt? That way you can have ever version running on the same Windows install at the same time. Get them from:
http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone
-- My funny sig is in my other pants
Congratulations on successfully coming up with ten answers that were all sufficiently wordy to print yet completely devoid of content. Granted, Slashdot may not be the best environment for gathering intelligent questions for a MSFT project manager, but at least some of those were pretty good questions, and it seems like he could have come up with a lot better answers than this even if he was obligated to toe the company line.
I haven't seen an interview this inane since Blizzard's marketing department intercepted our questions for the World of Warcraft developers.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/21/schmalens
For a more in depth article explaining mosai.. er IE try http://berghel.net/publications/mosaic-wars/os2-m
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Why did they make sense then and not now?
Because now there are viable alternative browsers for those other platforms, which IE would have to compete against on a level playing field. Rather than lose they choose not to compete.
Note: the answer to this question implies the real answer to number 7.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I've talked with hardcore Mac people who bought a copy of Windows that they run on their Mac with Parallels to test their work in IE. For other developers, I've seen some very clever
That's nice. Did you talk with them about how MS just used the EULA to make that clever idea illegal for Vista?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I already corrected myself further down. If you'd have read all the comments, you'd have seen that.
Office for the Mac exists largely because Apple paid Microsoft to do it. iTunes for Windows is necessary to support the iPod on Windows. Java is a bizarre circumstance. Even Sun hasn't ever been able to quantify the value they got from it over the years, and is now set to open source it. It's more of an OS itself than an application.
Why doesn't Apple port Safari to Windows? Pages? Keynote? Garage Band? Final Cut? Etc..?
The reason is that it give a value add. People will buy Mac's for those programs. Porting them to Windows would erode the reason for them to make Mac's.
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Rirelobql xabjf gung EBG-13 vf gur yrnfg frpher rapelcgvba rire, ohg jbhyq lbh jnfgr lbhe gvzr npghnyyl qrpelcgvat vg???
There is a great deal of spin in these answers.
1. (Would you want to make IE for non-Windows systems)
We did make versions of IE available on other operating system for a pretty long time, up through IE5 on Unix and the Mac. At the time we developed them, those offerings made sense. I don't see a good reason to make IE available on other operating systems at this time.
Then it made sense. Now, it does not make sense. I don't see a good reason to make our work on IE7 available to Mac and Linux users. They are not worth it.
2. (Why so long since IE6?)
Basically because we were doing a lot of other things before we started work on IE7: a few releases of MSN Explorer, a lot of work on what turned out to be Windows Presentation Foundation, a lot of investment in what turned into IPv6 support in Windows Vista, and lot of security response, a pretty intense effort on Windows Server 2003 (and IE's "Enhanced Security Configuration"), and then a pretty intense effort on Windows XPSP2.
We've done all these other things! Instead of hiring other people to do those things, my company chose to reassign the IE people to those projects. For some reason, I dunno, I think I remember them saying "strategy" or something. No more important enemies there to drive before us, no more women there to hear lament.
3. (Fluffy question.)
Fluffy answer.
4. (How does IE beat Firefox?)
I think IE7 is the first browser with integrated real-time anti-phishing functionality, with an RSS platform and support for Simple List Extensions (see below), with "QuickTabs," with support for OpenSearch, and with shrink-to-fit printing on by default. In Windows Vista with Protected Mode, IE7 is the first browser to "put itself into a sandbox" and run with low privileges.
Buzzword! Buzzword buzzword? BUZZWORD!
Buzzword uses Snowjob! It's super-effective!
Firefox has anti-phishing (groan) technology when used with Google Toolbar. IE had it with Google Toolbar long bfore IE7. But, although there are multiple Firefox extensions that do phishing checks, IE does have it built-in first. Of course, I'm super-cautious about sites I enter my financial information into, so I might say that my browser doesn't need phishing protection bloating it up and sending in all my URLs to some mothership....
Well, let's be fair, IE *does* say that their protection respects user privacy. Although I don't have the details of their protection, that could be some good they've brought into the world. But it still seems, to me, to be more of something for a plug-in to do.
RSS, Firefox has had it for a long while, even before Live Bookmarks. QuickTabs seems to be just a CamelCase rename for a Firefox feature. Oh sure, there may be something to differentiate Firefox's tabs, but it doesn't seem to have been important to generate any outside excitement other than "OMG IE's got TABS!" And Firefox 2.0, according to Wikipedia's article on OpenSearch (as of 10/27/2006 4:31EST), does have OpenSearch -- if IE7 had it first, it was by a matter of days, and without counting the RCs as releases.
For him to crow that IE7 is the first browser to put itself into a low privilege sandbox is ludicrous. Before Internet Explorer came along a web browser was just a damn process like any other! A user --well one on a more sensible operating system that Windows at the time-- could very well run it with whatever privileges he chose! Microsoft doesn't get to congratulate themselves for solving a problem they created, dammit!
I think that during the IE7 beta process, you've seen other browser vendors copy some of these features and/or deliver add-ons for others. (IE has also delivered some functionality - like spell-checking in forms or in-line find, as add-ons; you can read more here.
I'
You don't really have a choice, two or two thousand clicks away...
Ever tried to update your copy of WinXP with Firefox? Not happening. So really your choice is to have IE alone, or to have IE and the browser of your choice that you use most of the time.
I have but there are problems. First like the original question, that only works on Windows. Second the browser is buggy at best. You can't test version sniffing code for example because it always displays the current IE version number. I believe there are problems with the way script in general works but I could be wrong. I guess it all comes down to the fact that I think Microsoft should help developers who will be designing web pages to work with their product.
Sorry I misunderstood the question. I promise a blog post on blogs.msdn.com/ie about this in the next week or so. I think there are some things we can do to make this better.
I love the above quote; it is probably my favorite out of the entire article.
I love how big 'we're fatherly and we know best' MS suggests that pre-vesion-7 IE's abysmal 'support' for web standards isn't a 'real-world' problem. These very clever, mystical 'web developer' characters must have much more technically-incomprehensible problems than their websites actually working as planned.
Perhaps not the best thing to suggest to a slashdot audience.
orangeacid
Dean, I look forward to seeing that blog post and thanks for at least listening. In the past sometimes it seemed like not too many people in Redmond were listening.
:)
But honestly, the situation with testing numerous browsers is a real headache. XP can't even run IE5 and while its a small portion of the audience and getting smaller its still there and we know IE6 will be there for a long time even with Automatic Updates. I really feel for the guys on Linux or Mac who have absolutely no way of testing sites on IE. But again, I don't know if that Virtual PC image idea has any merit but some way of seeing how sites would look, how they react on IE would be great. Someone suggested using the evolt standalone IE versions that I know is technically illegal and doesn't work that well anyways.
So after all that babbling, thanks again for making an effort to help us with this. I for one don't dislike you guys, I just hate when my job is harder than it has to be. (as we all do
Safari came out at a time when IE 5 (Mac) was showing its age and somewhat before Firefox had become a compelling alternative. Apple needed a browser solution that wasn't dependent on Microsoft so they unveiled their own independent solution, and with IE for Windows and Konqueror for Linux there just isn't a need for Safari on other platforms. But the iPod, iTunes, QuickTime all represent a situation where it is very much in Apple's best interest to develop solutions for Windows.
The whole CSS and standards response felt like one big runaround to me.
I'm a professional web designer + developer, and my biggest problem isn't debugging my PHP, or wondering if the users will appreciate the effort I put into the accessibility of a clients' site - It's wondering if IE will even work when I build the first draft of the page templates. I know well in advance that I'm going to have to AT LEAST specify a second stylesheet just for IE, and sometimes, even more than that.
The jab at other browsers about not being 100% compliant either isn't the issue - the issue is that IE 7 isn't even close to the other major browsers.
Real-world feedback? Who did you listen to, the 14 year old who is trying to pimp out his MySpace? I'm sorry, but that line feels like complete BS to me. I participate in NUMEROUS web development communities, and those of us who have been in the industry for a while all have the same mantra - "IE sucks." It didn't change with the release of IE7, and I don't see it changing much even by IE 9 or 10, if you keep up that attitude.
Or, perhaps the real world feedback you speak of is the apathy that started forming a year or so ago regarding IE's standards compliance. We (web designers/developers) know that we have to work to fix it, and it has become commonplace. Many of us have accepted that you (the MS IE dev team) will not be fixing it any time soon, so we just plain don't care.
My first thought when I heard that a new IE was coming out wasn't, "I wonder what cool new features they'll have" - it was "I wonder if they'll make the rendering engine any worse."
I can't stand IE. Any chance I get, I convert people to alternative browsers. Thank Jesus I'm also a local techie; Every time someone brings me a spyware infested machine (no, I'm not intending to jab at MS for that; it's a well debated topic as is), I wipe it, reload it, slap new browsers on it, and give the users instructions on why they should check them out. Sometimes I even walk them through the other browsers in person. The only time I tell them they should use IE is when a site requires it.
And, since many of my support callers are on dialup, they love the fact that a standards compliant site will typically load faster for them (if done correctly).
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Blimey, thanks. Live and learn.
Is he serious? The way he is answering some of these questions, Slashdot could just as well have called the entire article off.
Question (summarised): "IE7 requires WGA and renders a lot of websites different than other browsers, which makes things difficult for people creating websites on Linux and Mac OS X. Why are you doing this? Or if you're not doing it to lock people into your platform, what are you planning to rectify the situation?"
Answer (summarised): "Your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers! We won't give away licenses. Did you know there's a web developer toolbar for IE7? And we wrote a lot of documentation when we were writing IE7. It's OK with me that some people develop on other systems. Mac users have found a great way to run IE7 without using Windows - they just use Windows."
You've got to respect the sheer amount of effort he is putting into completely ignoring the question. And that's some pretty impressive aimless rambling right there in his answer, too.
Seriously, I think this is just about what a tech interview on South Park would sound like...
Basilisk Digital
This guy uses the term "The Best" twice to describe IE/MS and what they aspire to be, i don't like the core ideology of this statement. If I were in his position and had successfully interpreted for myself the corporate DNA, then i would say things like: high quality rather than THE BEST. Rubs me the wrong way his choice of words
You would think for the opportunity for free public relations with one of the largest groups of systems administrators, geeks, and critics of his product he'd be able to find some free time. If he can't spend the time to demonstrate why his browser is a reasonable alternative, for which I'm willing to listen, I'll spend my resources convincing my social network why they should use my browser of choice. I spend the time explaining to my peers why I recommend my browser of choice, and I'm not in the browser industry.
The problem with being the #1 browser in the world is that if they did decide to fix everything all at once, then they break a LOT of websites.
The funny thing is, they're still breaking pages just by updating smaller parts their of CSS implementation, but only those pages that are in the standards compliant mode (CSS1Compat). It's effectively impossible for them to change the rendering engine without breaking a lot of things for a lot of people, because many pages use user-agent sniffing and not CSS hacks (those don't apply to IE7 outside of quirks mode), or use conditional comments that include IE7 to feed different versions of CSS. This means that even if they achieved CSS support parity with the modern browsers, and fixed all the CSS hacks (as they already did), IE7 would still sometimes get the old CSS meant for earlier versions, and break pages.
This is what they get for taking so many years with fixing CSS in IE! Not that they've improved it much if you look at this chart. The IE 6 and 7 columns look practically the same. So, IE7 is still not a modern browser in this regard. And this is why IE7 just means another bug-ridden rendering engine to support if you develop in standards compatible mode, until IE6 is dead. And looking at how even fifth generation IEs are still around in significant numbers, I wouldn't hold my breath on IE6 going away in the next few years, Windows Update or not.
Deus est fatalis
IETab works.
"May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan."
Thanks and I for one will be keeping a close eye on that as I've mailed people (including Paul thurrot - http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_lice nsing.asp ) about this, commented about this on many a blog including IE's and no one (at Microsoft - so far) seems to accept that charging and/or charging excessively ie more than once (multiple versions of XP/Vista) can make no sense. We want to make pages that work in your product (or multiple versions of it IE5, 5.2, 5.5, 6 and 7) but we're (developers) expected to fork out for a copy of the OS each time to do it? and previously pay for Virtual PC.
No, a business exists because someone wanted to do something.
Making money is what enables the business to continue, and to be successful, but it is not the prime reason for its existence.
Otherwise all businesses would be banks, insurance companies or oil companies.
Just to kill my mistaken moderation
If you'd like Microsoft to sell IE separately from windows, perhaps that's what should have been asked.
Huh? What are you talking about? It's right here; you can download it at no cost.
What a load of crap. "IE7 IS Windows, we can't give it away without a $200 license." "Most ignorant computer users assume that Internet Explorer IS the internet, and that Microsoft IS the computer. Why change it if it pays my bills?" "We added a whole bunch of innovative features, mostly just to catch up with Firefox." I don't know who I am angrier at, Microsoft or the idiots that pay that much money for a closed source, insecure, useless piece of shit out of plain ignorance. I am perfectly happy with Kubuntu and Firefox. I seem to not be the only one, yet there are so many websites geared only to Windows XP with IE6+. The folks at MS have their heads so far up their own asses...They get away with insecure, outdated, overpriced, non-compliant software because they have a whole world full of people who don't know any better. We (the open source community) need some kind of funding for advertising. There should be a non-profit organization to liberate people from the monopolistic control that these jerk-offs have. ARRGH!!! So, fuck you and your lawyer speak, guy. Your web browser sucks, your operating system sucks, and anyone who uses Microsoft software can kiss my Linux using, freedom of speech loving, knowledge is power preaching, American ass.
-Scottux
Just look at his answers (emphasize is mine):
I think IE7 is the first browser with integrated real-time anti-phishing functionality, with an RSS platform and support for Simple List Extensions (see below), with "QuickTabs," with support for OpenSearch, and with shrink-to-fit printing on by default. In Windows Vista with Protected Mode, IE7 is the first browser to "put itself into a sandbox" and run with low privileges.
I think that during the IE7 beta process, you've seen other browser vendors copy some of these features and/or deliver add-ons for others. (IE has also delivered some functionality - like spell-checking in forms or in-line find, as add-ons; you can read more here.
I want to call out the Phishing Filter and RSS in particular. I think there's a clear difference between the protection offered in IE7 and other places. I suggest readers look here and here and decide for themselves. I was surprised when I read this because I think IE7 delivers real-time protection that respects user privacy at the same time.
I think IE7's RSS is pretty deep. First, the support for the Simple List Extensions that we made available under a Creative Commons license is cool - check out the links below in IE7. Also, the platform enables developers to deliver on some great scenarios, like sharing subscription information between different applications and services easily (from the new version of Outlook 2007 I run at work to IE7 at home via Newsgator). You can read more about that here.
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
That is only because Firefox doesnt support activex for 'security' reasons.
Surely you can just write to the CSS standard and IE will render it perfectly. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!
(sorry, I've gone mad from yelling out "internet FUCKING explorer" all day at work.)
> Windows customers expect the best, safest experience with their PCs
> out of the box, especially around the web browser. We're investing
> so much time and effort in IE in order to give Windows customers a
> great, secure, default experience.
Generally speaking I would say that is not true.
People *expect* problems using M$ software. That is not to say they don't want those problems, but, as a result of their experience with using the M$ platforms (DOS, WinNT) they've learnt that their PC *will* have problems at some stage.
The reasons why Microsoft has been doing the work it has on M$IE is simply that: Firefox is definitely the better browser by a long shot - and people were noticing that fact; and also, it had become obvious that M$ had stopped development of IE after it had used it's dominance of the desktop OS market to effectively kill Netscape by pushing IE prominantly onto the desktop of every user who ever used M$ Windows.
If we compare this with other PC desktop/browser solutions such as KDE/Gnome on Linux and Firefox, then we find the expectation to be very different. People expect it to work - and to continue to work - without fault and without virus problems.
Many people say that. And put that way it sounds fair doesn't it?
BUT - if it was that simple then why don't firefox and many many other browsers pass the acid2 test?
If standards are so difficult to implement then I am wondering if the standards themselves are flawed.
After experimenting with IE I've gone back to FF (besides - it broke MS-Producer which i need for work). But neither of them are standards compliant
There may be something to the idea of the standards being tough to implement. What I've noticed is an occasional lack of clarity on the part of the W3C in the standards. Sometimes you can read things and think it means one thing when it really meant the other. Part of CSS 2.1 I believe was clarifying confusing parts of the spec and there probably are places where all the standards need to be clarified further. What's important is when browser makers find something confusing is they shouldn't just add it in. They need to go to the W3C, other browser makers and the developer community and get their opinions on the correct course of action. That way everyone is one the same page and W3C knows that it needs official clarification.
I wouldn't deny that the standards could be difficult but at the same time you have to put this in perspective. Microsoft had the time to add in Vector Markup Language, Channel Definition Files, CSS filters and various other things that are unique to IE. The developers of these clearly understand how to implement complex "standards" (for lack of a better term). While most browsers don't pass the ACID2 test, there is an effort to get to that point among Mozilla and Opera developers to get to that point and with each release they get closer.
I give the IE team credit, IE7 is light years ahead of IE6 in standards compliance. Its not perfect but considering where they've come from to where they are now is pretty impressive. Once IE7 replaces IE6 on most computers our jobs as developers will get easier.
``Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means''
exit(0) in x86 assembly for DOS? What's so bad about it?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
>anonynous
Sorry, that should be "anonymous"
You may need some nous to use it but you won't get anywhere without the "mous".
PS: Try the user ftp next time (it's easier to spell!)
Nice try.
If you look at your keyboard you will notice that some keys are placed next to each other. If the user is unattentive he might accidently press the wrong key i.e. n instead of m. If the user is unattentive once again when he reads through his post he might miss the typo.
In conclusion: I am a somewhat sloppy proof reader (did I mention that I'm English isn't my first language?) and I'm sorry for that. However you are an asshole.
Ever tried to update your copy of WinXP with Firefox?
Start -> Control Panel -> Automatic Updates.
Alternatively, download all the hotfixes from microsoft.com manually and run them.
Not happening. So really your choice is to have IE alone, or to have IE and the browser of your choice that you use most of the time.
In other words you only use IE when you want to, or when functional requirements demand it.
*WOW*. That means IE is *just like every other piece of software*.
It sells great. Forget what Slashdot community say, check amazon.com top selling Mac software and also check versiontracker.com download numbers (again,ignore comments).
They make great money.
Mac community will kill me but I think IE 5.x was the most standards friendly thing coming from Microsoft and if Windows IE was like that,a single browser running like ordinary program, there wouldn't be too many IE haters out there.
In fact, when you use Konqueror on KDE (I would use it if I was on Linux), the code has many stuff coming from Apple.
I don't use Windows at home anymore and I prefer to use the browser at work that I use at home.
In the long run, it may actually make sense to program a browser for someone else's operating system. Making a browser for your own OS is a recipe for security problems. If someone steals from you, how did they get into the house? I've been stolen because of occupants more that from random breakins. I have no control over who my daughter brings in while I'm not at home. My daughter is the user, the home the OS and the thief is the program she decided to run. That will teach me to leave my tax folder lying around. "How did this pr0no get in here?" "Why are these pr0no sites charging my bank account?" "Why are they using my daughter's email address?" "Who debited $300 from my account from an ATM I didn't visit that day?"
Build a browser for someone elses house and it will help prevent you from integrating the browser in ways that make huge security holes. Then you can release it for your own system without adding those things that integrate it too much. I disabled my daughter's email and changed the permissions for some other things. Then she had the nerve to bother me while I was trying to get some sleep for the next day expecting me to turn all of those things back on. NO.
I don't know. Did I just need to vent? Maybe, but to make a long story short, I don't use Windows at home and I won't be using IE in any version at work if it's not available for the OS I use at home.
The funny thing is, at work we run PC's with XP, but all of our design programs are unix based. From my PC I use an Oracle Program and another that runs off of an AIX server. I don't know why they won't let me run Linux. Even our certification server is using Apache. With all of this *nix going on, you would think that we would be trusted to handle Linux. Maybe they just don't trust the MIS guys. Some of them have tried Linux, but so long ago that they don't realize how much it's come along.
Another funny thing is that there has just been an upgrade to the AIX machines and they now have Firefox installed. After all that time I wasted trying to find a way to install it for myself, they did it for me. Even our specs are now on an Apache server. I can view them from Hummingbird--->AIX-->Firefox--->Apache web server.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
I really feel for the guys on Linux or Mac who have absolutely no way of testing sites on IE.
e
I test on IE on my Linux box all the time. Sure, the fonts are fairly different so it's not good for final layout but it's awesome for discovering if pages render correctly and way easier than keeping a full-time VMWare session running.
http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Pag
I got partway through the answers before it became blatantly obvious that everything this guy says is coming straight from a Microsoft PR perspective.
"I think the core of your question is about giving away Windows licenses for free. We love developers, period. We're also not about to give away Windows client licenses."
The question had nothing to do with windows client licenses. The question had to do with running internet explorer outside of a windows client license. Failing to block people from using IE on other platforms without requiring them to purchase windows is a far cry from giving away free copies of windows.
Had he not been a PR bot he could have answered the question by simply stating "Yes, we intentionally blocked IE from running on wine by requiring WGA Validation. We did this because we want a windows client license to be prerequisite to running the browser."
Remember the flying alien thing that held Anakin skywalker and his mother as slaves? For some reason when I read this guys replys the narration in my head is in the aliens voice.
For Aiur!!!
Your answers struck me as pretty reasonable. I suspect some folks here just find it hard to imagine that a genuine, if diplomatically worded, answer from anybody representing a company can be their own answer.
Sorry for the rude idiots here. They're loud but they're not everybody.
Well done Dean for going through with this, I say. I'd imagine it takes some guts to stand up to the /. crowd in your position.
I'd just point out though I'm not sure you quite answered my question - it was one I knew you wouldn't want to take on directly...
10 years ago, I was quite used to seeing a Netscape icon on the desktop, so I don't quite buy the "everyone's used to an IE icon" argument. Still, I agree that most people don't really care about what browser they use as long as it does the job, which in fact, would actually would lead me to ask the same question again - with all browser being equal; why IE?
Anyway, thanks for your time. It's appreciated.
throw new NoSignatureException();
I agree to an extent - no software vendor has any obligation to make their product available on any platform they don't want to support.
Moreover, his complaint should be directed towards those sites that require IE on Windows (or IE at all). Most of these sites will operate just fine if you tell your browser to lie about what it is, which means that most of these sites are requiring IE for artificial reasons.
It's not the browser that should be targetted, it's the developments tools.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Adblock is more or less my "killer app" for Firefox.. Any notion of why MS didn't include a feature like this?
Late response, but can I add that one of the best options around until recently was a hacked workaround to install all the versions of IE onto one box (here). Sure it was less than perfect (For example I had issues with cookies, making it impossible to test full applications but possible to test single pages). However it seems that Microsoft has decided to make life even more difficult for web developers by shutting this down. WTF?
This is a serious issue for web developers. We need to be able to run multiple versions of IE to test sites because web users still use earlier versions of IE. This is a particular issue because the different versions of IE do some things wildly differently (eg IE5 and 'undefined', a string as opposed to undefined which everyone else uses).
Sure I can run this under a virtual machine and kudos to Microsoft for making Virtual PC available for free. I shouldn't have to though. I can run multiple versions of Opera. I can run multiple versions of Gecko. I can run multiple versions of KHTML. I can't run multiple versions of mshtml.
meh
Most of these answers are really bad....
The fellow is playing PR rather than "honestly answer these questions". Not that I blame him.
10. Why does IE have to exist? It's part of the Windows platform. (OK.) Am I the only one reading into MS redefining 'Platform' as the Windows OS and suite of applications?
Or is my definition, Hardware and Software, incorrect?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
I wish I could be this disillusioned.
listen i actually purchased windows.
i actually like internet explorer.
i actually couldn't care less about firefox(it's an ugly slow memory eating browser).
infact if the ie icon was gone from the desktop it would be replaced by opera.
i can see that interoperability is so beyond every firefox users grasp that it's a waste of talking time.
firefox developers do one small thing.make firefox...ok and thunderbird.
these programs don't have to be compatible WITH ANYTING.not even their own plugins.
microsoft can not do that.they would break hundreds...no wait...maybe THOUSANDS of programs....in fact just forgeting about the HTML component and just adding new fresh code that displays html so that lazy programers can follow standards(btw firefox can't really define what a standard is...and if you read the standards you can actually see that some of them are quite open to your own interpretation)...the only thing that would happen would be this:
a million old websited wouldn't work correctly.
a thousand programs which relly on the html component(OMFG YES U CAN ACTUALLY USE IT IN YOUR VB DELPHI W/E CODE) would amazingly not work correctly anymore.
the very next day the whole world would turn on microsoft.
at what price?
a few happy firefox users that actually believe firefox is bug free(just google up the exploit list please).
and another thing...microsoft is a COMPANY...not an opensource church where YOU decide how things should be run and what things should be included.
If you don't like it make your own OS(ha ha u're gonna say linux but realisticly that OS doesn't stand a chance in stores) and convince the ENTIRE world that it should be preinstalled on every computer.
then convince the entire world that it's easy to set up.
then convince the entire world that the millions of dollars required for user support are worth it.
then you can have your firefox icon on your desktop.
what....let me guess...that's not FAIR right?
Linux is hard linux is unstable linux uses configuration files....linux has no backward compatibility...linux is huge...linux programs are mostly free and unsuported and their production may stop immediately...why can't you just force microsoft to put firefox in there...right?
Because this is a democratic world and u can just sod off...that's why.