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A Mozilla Plugin to Help Overcome IE Rendering Flaw

Posted by timothy on from the like-a-screaming-monkey dept.

least_weasel writes "An article on Ars Technica reveals Mozilla's intention to create and release a plugin for Internet Explorer that would allow the often-criticized IE to utilize some of the cooler rendering code developed for Firefox. The current WIP focuses on rendering using HTML5 standards, but the plans seem to be more ambitious than just fixing this one small piece of IE. The article covers some of the plans, hurdles, and potential benefits. It also spills the beans on the code name for the project: Screaming Monkey."

31 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Er... by XanC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's the advantage over just installing Firefox? Do people who don't have permission to install software have permission to install plugins like this?

    1. Re:Er... by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Insightful

      it makes MS and closed source look bad if Mozilla/open source fix their deficiencies.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    2. Re:Er... by the+kostya · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People who would care about these things already use Firefox/Opera/whatever. Everyone else does not care. It is like mocking the jocks because while all they do is run around and bang chicks, you gain valuable programming experience working on code no one will give a rats ass about.

    3. Re:Er... by MrMunkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The fact still remains that people use IE, because that's "the Internet" on their computer. It's been suggested that Adobe might include these plugins (there's also one in the works for the canvas element) with their Flash installer. That would greatly increase the number of people with IE that would support some of the features that are already available in FF/Opera/Safari.

      I think that people who don't have permission to install the plugins just won't be able to do so, but they wouldn't be able to install FF anyway.

    4. Re:Er... by jsebrech · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It allows web developers to take advantage of this feature

      Canvas is a strange pick though for something to extend IE with. There's excanvas, which does a reasonable job of emulating canvas on IE using VML. It's not a perfect emulation, ofcourse, but in my experience it's good enough once you learn its limitations. For stuff like dynamic charting canvas is the right choice even today.

    5. Re:Er... by anaesthetica · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think the idea might be to get a first mover advantage on IE. If the IE installed base gets this plugin and gets used to the behavior, Microsoft will find it harder to do their usual trick of implementation-but-not-quite. People who have this plugin will be upset if Microsoft releases a new version of IE that breaks the Canvas behavior that they've become used to. A wide deployment of the plugin (perhaps through Adobe as the article speculates) might create just enough perceived path-dependence that Microsoft won't go out of its way to break the Canvas standard with a proprietary implementation.

      --
      The Rise and Fall of Online Community
    6. Re:Er... by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would definitely like to think that way too, but I guess Mozilla/Firefox deserves a bit more credit here. I sincerely believe that they are doing this for two things primarily:

      1) To improve user's experience - even if they are using IE
      2) More importantly, to do their part in better standardization.

      From TFA:"The Canvas element allows web developers to programmatically render interactive bitmap images in HTML content. It was invented by Apple to bring richer graphical capabilities to the company's WebKit renderer. The Canvas functionality eventually became part of the HTML5 standard and has been implemented in both Gecko and Presto. Canvas is used extensively in several popular web applications, including Google Maps, but it hasn't gained widespread acceptance because it isn't available in Internet Explorer. "

    7. Re:Er... by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Funny

      it makes MS and closed source look bad if Mozilla/open source fix their deficiencies.

      Duuuude, that's the beauty of MS and closed source - they don't *need* Mozilla/open source to make them look bad!

    8. Re:Er... by bane2571 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not sure how it works on IE but you can install firefox plugins on the fly. If that is true on IE, imagine sites that rather than saying "runs best on IE7" instead say "This is gonna look crap if you don't click here

    9. Re:Er... by PitaBred · · Score: 4, Funny

      And then that jock gets a job in the city rec department, and his bangin' cheerleader girlfriend is a professional beautician, between them making as much as you do by yourself with your programming experience.

      Stupid, non-applicable analogy aside, nobody else cares about whether they use IE or Firefox, but they sure as hell notice when things don't work right. This plugin will let people develop sites to standards that still work with IE, so companies should be ok with allowing their webdevs to work forward properly, and it'll have the side effect of proper sites making people sit up and take notice of their broken browser.

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    10. Re:Er... by Ash+Vince · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It allows web developers to take advantage of this feature, but still have their sites be accessible by people using IE (out of ignorance or otherwise). Right now no web-developer can really target features not available on IE unless they want to alienate a large percentage of their user base.

      As a professional web developer I can say that is complete rubbish. We can not rely on most IE users to have this plugin so we can not take advantage of any new features. The fact is that while IE is as prevalent as it currently still is we have to develop primarily for that platform. In the corporate world a great many people still use IE6 so we have to test under that very thoroughly too.

      --
      I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
    11. Re:Er... by larry+bagina · · Score: 4, Informative

      opera, safari, and firefox all support canvas natively. excanvas uses vml, which is ie specific.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    12. Re:Er... by neokushan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd also like to believe Microsoft will get a bit arsey about it and be all "wut, we don't need ur bloody plugins, we'll make these features available ourselves!" and thus push them towards implementing more standards rather than just fixing the broken ones they have now.

      Note: Not trying to troll on Microsoft here, just trying to point out that it would be helpful to everyone if IE supported more features that other browsers have.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    13. Re:Er... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Link doesn't work. Please fix.

    14. Re:Er... by carlzum · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And then that jock gets a job in the city rec department, and his bangin' cheerleader girlfriend is a professional beautician, between them making as much as you do by yourself with your programming experience.

      Sigh, if life were fair this would be true. The jocks become corporate sales guys and upper management types. While I honed my programming skills they developed "leadership" skills on a football scholarship at State U. Now they drive nice cars, play golf on office time, and their cheerleader girlfriends have become hot moms.

      I think I'm going to put Revenge of the Nerds on to feel better.

  2. I'm a bit skeptical by superyanthrax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great idea... but if someone would have the wits and knowledge to look for this plugin, wouldn't they be using FF already? If websites prevented stuff from working without this plugin, wouldn't that just turn off viewers? Not sure how this is going to help, people have been harping at Microsoft about standards for years and all they've done is move towards them at the pace of a snail.

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Sad or happy day in Redmond? by ozamosi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is it a sad or happy day for Microsoft, when their competitors get bored with beating them, and instead try to improve the Microsoft products to make them competitive - for free?

    1. Re:Sad or happy day in Redmond? by snl2587 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The new plan for Mozilla:

      • Embrace I.E.
      • Extend I.E. with this plugin
      • Extinguish I.E. with a "Get Firefox" button on every page.

      What could possibly go wrong?

    2. Re:Sad or happy day in Redmond? by Urger · · Score: 5, Funny

      Remember that many shops don't admin access to their computers and are stuck with IE because IT says so. Yes such places exist. They are not just a story your mother told you to scare you.

      --
      Ubiquitously - A Ubiquity Developer Community
  5. Screaming Monkey.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    So I take it Balmer is involved in some way?

  6. Spill the beans? by EvilRyry · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've been reading about this for months. Its not exactly top secret.

    https://wiki.mozilla.org/Tamarin:ScreamingMonkey

  7. Interesting, but difficult by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    FYI, Screaming Monkey was already discussed in an earlier story.

    Unfortunately, scripted manipulation of VML is too slow to be used for highly interactive web applications. Mozilla's solution is to bake its own native Canvas implementation into an ActiveX plugin that can be integrated directly into Internet Explorer.

    The only problem is getting people to install the plugin. My own solution was to use the market penetration of Java Applets to develop a shunt that would render Canvas using Java APIs. (Note that the events system has not been completed in that demo. Make sure you click outside the block falling area so that the browser receives the keyboard commands.)

    The same sort of shunt could be done with Flash 9 or Silverlight. Which would do a nice end-run around the problem of getting plugins installed.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  8. Internet explorer... by th3rtythr33 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now with all of the features of Firefox, without the bother of all the security.

  9. Re:HTML5 is a standard now? by secPM_MS · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I would be rather cautious about simply trying to implement and support HTML5, which is no standardized yet. I attended BlackHat ~ 2 weeks ago and Stamos's talk "Living in the RIA World" had some interesting things to say about HTML5 in its current state. If you wait ~ 6 months, BlackHat will allow viewing. My notes concerning HTML 5 follow.

    HTML 5: have DOM storage (session and local) and database storage. These should all be SameOrigin. Meant to block userâ(TM)s deleting of tracking cookies. Use of database storage, there can be SQL injection against the local database. Some browsers support GlobalStorage that donâ(TM)t have SameOrigin control. Lots of new attack surface in FF3. Websites can be protocol handlers (support spyware!!). Installation of protocol handler is one click. WebKit is a big supporter of HTML5 and supports these issues.

    HTML5 has limited storage (~ 15 Mbytes total) allowing easy exhaustion attacks and there is no UI to manage this. DOS is easy. Can easily plant arbitrary evidence on a system. HTML 5: Security âoeneed to write this sectionâ.

    We now have web developers making desktop apps without any security or privacy expertise. The Web is becoming more heterogeneous and far far more dangerous.

  10. Look to the beam in your own eye by szquirrel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hey, that's great. Do they also have plans to fix the flaws in Firefox?

    Off the top of my head, could we finally have support for SVG as a native image format? Or even just SVG rendering that isn't slower than a stone cow?

    Don't want to sound like the grumpy old man, I just want most of my web shit to work in *one* browser before I worry about how it works in every browser.

    --
    Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
    1. Re:Look to the beam in your own eye by Ant+P. · · Score: 4, Informative

      You want SVG as background-image? Here you go. Fast enough to do this in realtime? I honestly couldn't say, I'm more excited that their CSS3 support is finally catching up to Konqueror 3.5.

  11. Re:HTML5 is a standard now? by oahazmatt · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well i'll be darned, I guess someone should call the XHTML2 camp and tell them they lost the war!

    Nah, don't bother them. They're busy working on the HD-DVD website.

    --
    Those who believe the Internet is private,
    find their privates are on the Internet.
  12. Re:HTML5 is a standard now? by jsebrech · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We now have web developers making desktop apps without any security or privacy expertise. The Web is becoming more heterogeneous and far far more dangerous.

    What bothers me is how security is somehow pushed to the forefront as the most important issue, even more important than functionality.

    The most secure system is one that is turned off. This new stuff they're adding increases the attack surface, sure, but it's also necessary to build stuff that actually works (like a web app that doesn't die when your wifi does).

    But even aside from the issue of functionality vs. security, there's the issue of security somehow being way more important in the browser, which I think is nonsense. Client-server apps have always had lousy security, and were easily hijacked. Just because they now run in a browser, the threat level hasn't changed. A hacker that is determined can break in sure, but they've always been able to break in. Nothing has truly changed, except for the perception of the threat level.

    All in all I think the web stack is pretty secure by default, when comparing it to the alternatives.

  13. Exactly backwards by markdavis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is exactly backwards to what most of us need. We need a [multiplatform] plugin for Firefox that will allow broken IE-only sites to work under Firefox so we can continue to use the browser of our choice. Not that I want to promote the use of IE-only coding, but the reality is that if the site doesn't work, the average users always blame Firefox, not the site designer.

  14. Re:Will not succeed on the field by Ant+P. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any person "clever" enough to click Yes on an activeX installation prompt, you mean?