IE8 Beta Released To Public

Tim writes "English, German, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese versions of Internet Explorer 8 have been released for public beta. New features include accelerators, which provide instant context menu access for a number of common tasks; automatic crash recovery, which prevents a single page's failures from taking down your entire browser; and browser privacy, a feature that didn't make Firefox 3. I'm primarily a Firefox user, and I've been using IE8 at work (MS) for the past few weeks. It's a definite improvement over previous versions, and brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for. Give it a spin, submit feedback, and help keep all browser makers on their toes by facing each other's competition."

Comments

Shows what competion can do.

[xzvf]

While IE8 doesn't work on my chosen platform, it shows again how open source sparks development in stagnant environments. This product would never have happened without Firefox.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Bashae]

Yup, I'm wondering why the beta is available in german rather than a language with more speakers, such as spanish. Are they perhaps trying to win back the notoriously large amount of Firefox users in Germany?

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that German was chosen over Spanish for the betas because it's the second-most popular spoken language for programmers (at least, it used to be; I'm not too sure anymore). They cover the top two for debuggers out there, and then also include packages for Chinese and Japanese to test the character rendering and what-not.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Swizec]

If that were the case then it would've been offered in Slovenian ... we use firefox quite extensively.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[naylor83]

Yep, it's kind of mind-boggling what the Firefox team has accomplished indirectly.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[will_die]

According to the European and thier language report German is the 2nd highest known language in the EU at 32% of the population speaking the language. Spanish is at 15% and is 5th.
For the top 5 it is:
English 51%
German 32%
French 26%
Italian 16%
Spanish 15%

Also by mother tounue German is at 18% and Spanish is at 9%

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[eggoeater]

Germany has the largest economy in continental Europe.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[shird]

What makes you think those people seeking an alternative browser wouldn't have chosen Opera instead? (not open source, and frankly much better than both FF and IE IMHO).

Yes FF has a bigger market share than Opera, but Opera may have had that share if FF didn't exist, prompting MS to take the same action.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[TheP4st]

Native Spanish speaking population in the world 330 million
Native German speaking population in the world 100 million

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[nhstar]

Opera is a good choice, and a fine browser. And it is still, hands-down best for testing standards compliance (in my humble opinion).

The only real fault they made at getting market share was waiting as long as they did before making it available for free. I don't pretend to know the finer-points of their business model, or Mozilla's for that matter, but people saw two browsers available gratis and one where you paid $35us (if i remember right...). If you could buy a Porsche or or have a VW, which would you be driving?

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jorx]

Opera wasn't free until Firefox existed... so, there's that...

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[MobyDisk]

In that case, they would have released it in Klingon. Everyone who I know who speaks even a small amount of Klingon, uses Firefox.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[GIL_Dude]

Actually almost all Microsoft Beta code is available in the same languages at first - English, German, Japanese, and sometimes Simplified Chinese. The thing is that they are trying for coverage of the code to make sure localizations fit dialogs, etc. For example, of the languages that use an English like character set (what is it called, Roman or whatever), German tends to have the longest words / phrases. So by covering German they find out whether all of the localizations are going to fit in the space provided. In a similar way, by covering Japanese (and in this case Simplified Chinese) they are covering localizations in non-Roman character sets. Its really not about the number of users / speakers - its about the coverage of testing on the localizations and getting them to fit properly.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[laejoh]

It's an insider joke: Die IE8, Die IE8!

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Coopa]

That's rather non-sequitur and not what the parent is saying, though i agree that saying that 3rd party browsers building a larger marketshare overall has had an affect on IE updates and not just Firefox.

Your point seems to be that if Firefox didn't exist then Opera could have done this. Wasn't Opera around prior to Firefox?

It's all down to personal preference, i guess. Personally i have used Opera a few times in the past and found Firefox (and it's many predeccesors) more to my liking.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Anonymous Coward]

now, try to get stats for "native spanish speaking working with teh internet" and for "native german speaking poulation working with teh internet"... i fear you will get the inverse values.
a.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[duffbeer703]

How many Germans use a computer every day?

How many Mexicans, Columbians and Venezuelans use a computer every day?

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Tom90deg]

Well, would that be second language, or "Known" language? I'd have to say English is the most known language in the US, but it'd definatly number 1 on second languages.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not Arabic or some other right-to-left reading script. Surely that would stress corner cases in the rendering engine?

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Beezlebub33]

Spanish is at 15% and is 5th.

That's in the EU. Off the top of my head I would say it's second (possibly first) in North America, and certainly first in South America.

I don't think so on the last one. Around 50% of the population of South America is in Brazil, and for them it's Portuguese (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_america). If you look at the statistics for internet users in South America, it's going to be Portuguese as well.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[FredFredrickson]

Two words: Mouse Gestures. Cannot browse without it.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jonas_jonas]

Yes, but it changes, if you think about money (GDP per Capita).

There is probably much more money to earn with the german speaking population, than with the spanish speaking population.

Though, it might change in the next few decades.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[muszek]

Opera sells mobile version of their browser. Mozilla gets craploads of cash from Google, I guess for using G as the default search engine... there's this "search bar" with G pre-selected and AFAIR you get a co-branded start page when you install FF if it's not packaged by a 3rd party (Ubuntu for example changes it). 85% of Mozilla's $66.8M revenue came from Google in 2006.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Anonymous Coward]

ermm... actually, greek language has the longest words

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[FishWithAHammer]

Because there are a lot more Chinese/Japanese users than Arabic users.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[psychodelicacy]

But the bulk of that figure for Spanish is made up of people living in Latin America, where studies suggest only a relatively small percentage of the population uses the internet. Cuba has only recently begun allowing PCs in private homes. Some countries in Latin America have less than 3% of the population using the internet; Germany has over 40% (Data refers to years 2004-06; Source) Personal computer ownership per 100 is generally much lower than internet usage per 100 in Latin America, suggesting that this is also a market that can't necessarily choose which software is installed on the computers used.

So, in terms of numbers there are certainly more Spanish-speakers out there using the internet, but a lot of them are in situations where internet usage is rationed and/or not entirely under the user's control. In contrast, Germany has a high rate of internet usage and a high take-up of Firefox - and most users are probably using their own machines, not internet cafes or the like. The figures don't, at first, seem to make sense, but when you take into account the low rates of internet usage and computer ownership in the majority of Spanish-speaking countries, it begins to seem less anomalous.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[limaxray]

German is actually the second most communicated language, right after English. This directly translates to the fact that German is the second most common language on the internet. Granted, most of it is probably porn, but never the less it means more German speaking people would use IE8 than most other language speakers. Why is this? Because Germany has by far one of the strongest economies in the world (3rd behind the US and Japan) and thus can afford greater internet access. Actually, funny thing is the top four economies in the world are the US, Japan, Germany, and China; native speakers of the same four language released.

Spanish, on the other hand, while spoken by many in the real world, isn't nearly as common in the information world.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Aedrin]

This has been questioned before. Their simple response was that German provided more unique wording situations that may or may not work in the UI. So it's completely about testing coverage, not winback opportunities.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jrumney]

Microsoft has long had a policy of translating into German and Japanese first. German words tend to be longer than other languages (except perhaps Dutch) so translation into German catches problems where text overflows the space allocated for it on the screen, and Japanese catches all the stupid character==byte assumptions that programmers make. I'm not sure why they don't do Arabic early as well to flush out left to right assumptions (also affecting Hebrew) and assumptions that characters have a one to one relationship with glyphs (also affecting Indian and South East Asian scripts).

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[AKAImBatman]

I'm still not impressed. I don't care how many whizzy-gig features Microsoft adds to their browser. It is still useless to developers until Microsoft installs standards support. And by standards support, we don't just mean fixing the broken setAttribute method. How about supporting a fucking decade old standards?!? Nope, still no mention of it. In fact, the bug on the issue was "closed by design".

By design? By fucking design?!?! BULLSHIT. Microsoft does not want to be interoperable with other Web Browsers. Period. If Microsoft really wanted to turn around their image in the market, they can start with something as stupidly simple as supporting addEventListener, removeEventListener, and dispatchEvent. I don't even care if the code looks like this:

Element.prototype.addEventListener = function(name, callback, capture) { attachEvent("on"+name, callback); }

^That's fucking WRONG and it would STILL be an improvement!

Microsoft can take their God damn browser and shove it where the sun don't shine for all I care. They have shown such incredible disdain for their customers, that I have to wonder why their even trying to hide it from the market.

*DEEP BREATH*

Microsoft, you are transparent. Your juvenile attempts at lock-in are NOT working and will NOT work. All you're going to do is piss off the people recommending software to grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, sisters, cousins, next door neighbors, school teachers, bosses, subordinates, government agencies, etc. IE will continue to lose market share. It won't be much longer before the alternative browsers reach critical mass. Many websites already show Firefox maintaining parity or even surpassing Internet Explorer. If you actually want to WIN the market, try competing for a change!

Can I get an AMEN?

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[pcolaman]

They primarily speak Portuguese, not Spanish.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Insanity Defense]

dont forget brazil!

Why not? Brazil's language is Portuguese not Spanish.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[ColdWetDog]

You come off as an angry 14-year-old who hasn't the faintest clue what's going on.

Maybe he is a 14-year old who hasn't the faintest clue what's going on, you insensitive clod.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Foofoobar]

No Deutsch was chosen because deutschers rule! Wo ist irhen vater? :)

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Yvan256]

Don't attribute all the credits to Firefox alone. Apple has been pushing Safari a lot lately and Opera aren't just sitting around, Opera is improving a lot too.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Hyppy]

Hey dude. If you're going to talk smack about a politician's lack of knowledge, you might try to spell "than" properly. You come off as an angry 14-year-old who hasn't the faintest clue what's going on.

How about a couple of facts?

1) GP's author is not a native English speaker.
2) I don't see "than" or "then" anywhere in the GP.
3) I have yet to see someone in this thread "talk smack" about any politician.

If you're going to burn karma, at least make it worth it. Perhaps, try replying to the correct post. Otherwise, you come off as an angry 14-year-old who hasn't the faintest clue what's going on.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Bashae]

That's very interesting. Thank you for clearing that up.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[whoisjoe]

I use Firefox, but I only know how to swear in Klingon.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[IRGlover]

1) Fair point
2) check the sig
3) goto 2

Kind of makes your closing comment a bit ironic doesn't it...

(on a side note, as soon as I see the use of 'then' in place of 'than' I immediately think of the US as it seems to be fairly common mistake for USians (much like 'axe'/'ax' instead of 'ask'). So my initial thoughts about your first point were a little doubtful.)

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera also wasn't free until they were making all their money on mobile device tie-ins. Somehow I think that was more of a deciding factor than browser competition, which had been provided in much greater volume by Microsoft before Firefox ever existed.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Hyppy]

much like 'axe'/'ax' instead of 'ask

So, in your observation, citizens of the United States speak African American Vernacular English?

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[rocketPack]

I think my dad is at home right now, why? Or did you mean, "Wer is ihr Vater?"

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft localizes into several languages early in product development. They are usually German, Japanese or Chinese, and Arabic or Hebrew. These languages are chosen because they allow for the broadest coverage of localizability testing without going through the time and expense of localizing every language on early builds of the product.

German is chosen because it has very long words.
Japanese or Chinese are chosen to get a glyph-based complex script language.
Arabic or Hebrew are chosen to get RTL testing.

You don't find many product bugs when you test in a language like Spanish. You do find quite a few when you localize to German ("text in dialog foo is clipped because all of the words localize to 34783 characters long")

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Chelloveck]

I'm wondering why the beta is available in german rather than a language with more speakers, such as spanish.

I have no inside knowledge of IE8, but I've worked on other localized products before. It's quite likely that the German translators were done, but the Spanish translators were still working on it. In other words, it may not have really been a conscious choice by MS to include German but not Spanish, just an artifact of the translators' schedules.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[KURAAKU Deibiddo]

Opera was hardly the first piece of software to have a tabbed document interface, nor even the first browser to have this. But to be honest, how many pieces of software don't borrow ideas from other software? Microsoft is at least as much prone to copying as open source is, and Apple hasn't gotten where it is without using ideas first created by Xerox, etc.

As long as you're not stealing code (e.g. it's not under a license that permits you using it), I tend to think of taking inspiration from how something else does something more along the lines of paraphrasing, rather than outright plagiarism. Since IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc. all have the same purpose, it's pretty natural to expect that they'll have similarities. Arguing about "stealing" tabs seems a lot like arguing about "stealing" the back button.

xzvf does have a valid point, though...if not for Firefox stealing market share from IE, do you really believe that Microsoft would be working so hard on IE development? Look at how long IE6 stagnated. Once they'd effectively killed off Netscape, they thought they won the browser war. Sure, competition from closed-source browsers is helping the situation, as well, but I think it's pretty clear that Microsoft sees Mozilla as the biggest threat. I may be wrong about this, but it certainly seems that concerns about letting the monopoly slip away are fueling their attempts to "reach out" to open source, and their attempts to "embrace" standards.

Still, if IE8 does deliver the standards-compliance by default that's been promised, it'll be a great improvement for web developers, even if it won't get me to encourage anyone to use IE. Having to work around the failings of IE6/7 only creates more work and frustration. I just wish they'd offer it for Windows 2000; Google Analytics continues to show me far too many people using IE6 on it. Most of the domains for which I skimmed Analytics data (7 of them, only one of which had more traffic from IE than Firefox) show Firefox as the most popular browser, but IE6 usage ranges from approximately 3-30% of the traffic, depending on site, and basically all of these visitors are still using Win 2k.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[IRGlover]

I don't think that is what I stated and, if it was, I actually meant that it is an element of speech that makes me think that the user is from the US. If it can then be used to narrow down to a particularly community, fair enough.

I was talking in broad strokes, and so an African American vernacular is, by definition, something that relates to the US.

So, in my conclusion, some citizens of the United States speak African American Vernacular English. I don't think that you can disagree with that ;-)

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Blakey Rat]

It didn't have to be Firefox; if Opera had actually been more pre-active about getting users, they might have spurred Microsoft into action. Also, I'm guessing Apple's Safari had no small influence in the matter.

But it all sums to: "competition is good."

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[AmberBlackCat]

And Firefox would never have happened without earlier versions of IE.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[V!NCENT]

FF has a mouse gestures plugin available.

High speed, can't live without it. No Opera's performance sucks when it comes to website cluttered with flash (banners, networking sites with youtube stuff) and promotional website (flash banners and 'controls' and Quicktime plugins and whatnot) compared to FF3. It is also full with a shitload of bugs that are less annoying than FF3 ones.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[failedlogic]

Yeah, but you're looking at % of pop. that *speaks* x language. I'd be willing to bet that the literacy rate, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/literacy.htm , for some of the countries that speak some of these languages is different.

An illiterate person can probably get away with using the web. And on illiteracy, consider too that if 15% of the world speaks Spanish but only 10% are literate, then it reduces the potential audience let alone those that can afford a computer. Heck, there are families in Canada and the US that cannot afford a computer and they are literate. Sadly enough.

And lets not forget that even if you are literate and speak a language well, it does not mean you can write it. Nigerian 411's being the prime example of this.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Foofoobar]

heh...verdammt spelling! I always get the two mixed up... meinen deutsch ist sehr schlecht.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[T-Bone-T]

People don't get Opera because there are free alternatives that don't have ads. Which would most people use: a free, ad-supported browser or the free and ad-free browser that came with their computer? People are stupid but they aren't that stupid.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use internet and my computer every single day of my life. As the matter of fact I'm a Programmer... and I live in Mexico, can we stop using stupid stereotypes?.
Although I agree that Germany is _very_ IT active (in KDE for example several of the contributors are Germans).

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Cabriel]

Japanese is a right-to-left language.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[pohl]

AMEN. Don't listen to those who say you're whining or blowing it out of proportion. If we don't demand quality and conformance, it'll never happen.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[KnightNavro]

So it the GP's. It should be "ist," not "is."

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Yvan256]

Opera hasn't had ads since at least 3 or 4 major versions, if not more.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[fprintf]

So says Mr. Nicholas Eustanistopolous!

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jonbryce]

You find German speakers in Germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland, and not many other places. You find Spanish speakers in Spain and most of Latin America.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[AceofSpades19]

Opera was around before FF and it didn't do anything anyways, so why would it all of sudden do it now if FF suddenly disappeared?

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[GnomeChompsky]

Kind of. Writing horizontally, it's a left-to-right language, but writing vertically, it's right-to-left..... ie, the lines start on the left-hand side of the page and then wrap successively rightwards.

But I don't think that's how it's usually displayed in computerized type......

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[thegnu]

So it the GP's. It should be "ist," not "is."

And it should be "So IS the GP's" :) /grammarnazism

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[anaesthetica]

IE (and Firefox for that matter) would never have happened without earlier versions of Netscape.

(We can do this reductio ad absurdum all afternoon, if you like.)

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Randle_Revar]

they dropped ads in 8.5, current version is 9.5

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[saveonweb]

I would agree. IE8 follows Firefox and make innovative features available to users that FF fails to reach. Kinda making these features standards and gain popularity for them.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[stormwatcher]

They primarily speak Portuguese, not Spanish.

This is not quite correct. The only country with Portuguese as its official language in South America is Brazil. Colombians and Venezuelans DO speak spanish (just like the mexicans). But you are correct when say that these people don't have access to a computer every day like most people above the equator line, but this is another discussion.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Elektroschock]

heh...verdammt spelling! I always get the two mixed up... meinen deutsch ist sehr schlecht.

GPL raus! Microsoft uber alles.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Foofoobar]

Geezo people relax...would you. Language is a mutable thing. As long as we can understand the attempt at a failed joke and the germans rule, that's what is TRULY important. :)

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[MobyDisk]

That's half the language. If you study the Klingon learning tapes, that is the first thing they teach you.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[mrdoogee]

Stop trying to use reason and logic! If the /. has taught us anything, it is that everything everyone does ever is wrong.
on a related note, MSIE should be released in Cornish

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[number17]

And IE would never have happ3ened without earlier versions of Mosaic!

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Yvan256]

Really? I don't recall seeing as for the last few years.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[pcolaman]

again, I was speaking about Brazil, not the other countries. If you know how to READ, you'd realize I was responding to the guy who said "dont forget brazil!" Geez, I guess reading comprehension isn't required in schools anymore.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[stormwatcher]

So sorry...anyway i'll get my book on reading comprehension and try to hone my skills on that...

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[pcolaman]

You do that. I want a 10 page report by tomorrow :p

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Randle_Revar]

well, 8.5 came out back in Q3 2005, so it has been about 3 years.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[eugene ts wong]

A spelling Nazi that actually speaks German? Wow...

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Jorophose]

Anybody have the numbers on French?

The GP's numbers are a bit scary. I've always been told that French grows against Germanic languages, and has been growing; but seeing that english and german are more popular than french is not reassuring...

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jonadab]

> Native Spanish speaking population in the world 330 million

A web browser is only useful to people with internet access, so the number of people *on the internet* who speak a given language is much more important than the total worldwide population of speakers, when you're deciding which languages to support in a web browser.

And, actually, this is a _beta_ release, so you're mainly interested in web content developers, which is a relatively small subset of the people on the internet, and even further skewed toward peole who are literate in the more strongly represented languages, especially English. (Many, many web developers who are not *native* speakers of English are literate in English as a secondary or tertiary language.)

German has always been strongly represented on the internet, not as strongly as English, but disproportionately strongly compared to the relatively small size of its native-speaking population. We could speculate about the reasons why (most of which would probably be socioeconomic factors at the macro level), but it's kind of just always been that way, since the internet was fairly new. A very high percentage of German speakers have internet access, compared to most other languages.

Spanish and French are more widely spoken in the world than German, but less well represented on the internet. I think the same may also be true of Arabic and Hindi.

Chinese, like Spanish, is under-represented on the internet compared to the size of the native speaker population, but in the case of Chinese the size of said native speaker population is *so* large that it can be a bit under-represented on the internet and still be one of the major languages.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Laogeodritt]

... Mexico => Portuguese? You've got to be kidding me. Venezuela and Colombia (see "Official languages" of infobox) are both majoritarily Spanish speaking regions, with some indigenous languages; Portuguese is not spoken frequently. In fact, in all of South America, only Brazil has a Portuguese majority.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Laogeodritt]

Oh ****, sorry. It looked like you were replying to the grandparent in my email app (RSS feed + loads full page); the parent was hidden. *hangs head in shame*

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Keeper Of Keys]

It will probably be based on "known" languages, as for some reason Microsoft find it difficult to produce language files in unknown languages.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[martinw89]

One word: Extensions. I can choose to have mouse gestures or not. Not to mention a plethora of other things.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Keeper Of Keys]

Expressing pro-Open Source sentiment is not spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - more like Love, Confidence and Trust.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[pcolaman]

It's all good. I made the mistake of not having a definite subject. Instead I simply said They, which could be interpreted differently based on what "they" refers to. I forgot that sometimes you can't see the direct parent depending on how you are viewing it. Somewhere, my AP Language and Composition teacher is groaning :p

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jonadab]

In addition to the things you say, which may well be true, German and Japanese also happen to be the first languages for a large number of internet users, including a fair number of web developers, including the ones for some large multinational corporations who are major customers for Microsoft and, incidentally, are responsible for a number of fairly popular websites. Arabic, being mostly used in third-world countries, just doesn't have the same kind of user/customer base as German and Japanese. You have to go pretty far down the Alexa rankings to find an Arabic website at all, much less one whose developers aren't also literate in English. It's true that a fair number of people speak Arabic, but since most of them aren't developing major high-traffic websites, they may have to wait for the actual final release, possibly even longer.

Indeed, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Hebrew has more internet users than Arabic, despite having a lot fewer speakers altogether.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Two words: Mouse Gestures. Cannot browse without it.

I find these sorts of features discouraging, not because they are bad features, but because they're being implemented at the wrong level. Like spell checking, mouse gestures should be implemented at the OS level so all programs can take advantage of them. As far as I know, OS X is the only OS that provides an easy way to implement such functionality and we know Windows won't be getting it anytime soon. Linux might or might not, but I'm not holding my breath. I have hope that Linux on the desktop development will speed up as hardware makers start to preinstall it, but I haven't seen much real difference yet.

Mouse gestures being implemented in browsers is just another demonstration of how Microsoft and lack of competition has crippled innovation in the desktop OS market.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Road]

For global windows XP mouse gestures, use StrokeIt. Not a lame joke, just google it.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[shutdown -p now]

Except that Opera hasn't been ad supported for several years now?

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jonadab]

> That's in the EU. Off the top of my head I would say it's second (possibly first) in North America,

Extremely distant second, even if you draw the edge of North America clear down to the isthmus, which is not usual. It's kind of like saying Gaelic is the second (possibly first) most widely spoken language in Britain. And among North-American web developers (this is, you'll remember, a *beta* release of a web browser), the second language might actually be French, though it's difficult to be sure.

> and certainly first in South America.

Perhaps, but South America is not known for its large number of web developers.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jonadab]

There's nothing particularly African American about pronouncing "ask" as "ax". It's just basic sloppiness, that's all. Yeah, they do that stuff in the 'hood, but they also do it in the boondocks where the population is five nines caucasian -- in rural northern Morrow county, for example. For those of you not from Ohio: Northmor is as hick as it gets. 4H is the number one extra-curricular activity, way bigger than sports. School doesn't start up in the fall until after the county fair. They have a drive-your-tractor-to-school day. Flannel plaid is always in style. "Libary" has only one r. And they "axe" each other questions.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jonadab]

Almost anything you say in Klingon can sound like swearing to people who don't know the language, especially if you say it with the right tone and vigor.

My favorite Klingon phrase is "cho- itchu" (probably misspelled badly, but that's roughly how it's pronounced), which loosely translates as "beam me up" or, more literally, "energize". In one of the movies, Kirk picks up this phrase from a Klingon chap (Kahn, IIRC) and then repeats it later for tactical reasons. I like it for its sound, and for the meanings it can imply in other contexts.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[jonadab]

I rather doubt that. Spanish is a relatively easy language to translate into from English, orders of magnitude easier than Japanese. I think the list of languages for the beta was chosen deliberately, and Japanese and German were chosen at least partly because they're very widely used on the internet. (English, of course, is always included because Microsoft is headquartered in the US, though it probably would be chosen anyway for other reasons.)

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Yvan256]

I see. In my mind, 3 years ago would have meant something like Opera 5.2 or something. I guess I was wrong about the version.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[duffbeer703]

Note that I didn't say "Mexicans are incapable of using computers". I said there were more daily computer users than in several Latin American nations combined.

For various reasons, per capita incomes are lower in Latin America, and computers are expensive. The per capita GDP in Venezuela is $12,000US.... computers are a luxury item at that category.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Mad Merlin]

Linux (with KDE) has both system wide mouse gestures and system wide spellchecking. Both have been around for many years now.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Linux (with KDE) has both system wide mouse gestures and system wide spellchecking. Both have been around for many years now.

Sadly, I've never found a Linux desktop to be usable without a combination of Gnome and KDE apps and the spellchecking and mouse gestures only work in KDE apps. Also, as far as both spell checking and gestures are concerned, I've never found a way to use them for applications where the developers did not specifically include them. Assigning a gesture or using spell checking in Konsole, for example, does not seem to be a task doable for a normal user.

Note, I gave up on Kubuntu years ago because of numerous stability problems, so things might have changed. If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Re:Shows what competion can do.

[Keeper Of Keys]

Keep on calling it "OPEN SORES" and you'll keep on getting modded Flamebait.

I'm sure many people here would agree with you that Opera are responsible for a lot of recent browser innovation. Personally I prefer to use Firefox because of its open architecture - ie its massive array of Add-Ons, mostly built by third party devs. I'm not sure whether Opera's extension API is as easy to use, or even if it's open at all, but it sure doesn't get used by anything like that many people. That's one clear benefit of open source. Also you have other browsers, like Flock, derived from the Firefox source code. Impossible to do this with Opera. But still, Opera is a good browser, and a much better choice than IE.

My original point was, though, that bigging up OS is not spreading FUD. But, just to keep you happy, here's some FUD about Opera:

What if the company went bust tomorrow, without revealing their source code? No more security patches, so once an existing security flaw is discovered, the browser would be open to attack with no defence possible. Of course it's not very big on the desktop, and there are alternatives, but this would be very serious for mobile devices whose web browsing capabilities are based around Opera.

Agh, fed the troll enough.

Standards-complient or not?

[tomandlu]

I assume yes. Call me naive, but I suspect MS know that they have more to lose by breaking web standards. Basically, they can't get away with that sh*t anymore - at least as far as the web goes. The average user is probably no wiser, but there are enough special interest groups to keep an eye on them in this area.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[ByOhTek]

languages change over time, word shift meaning. New words come in, old words go out.

If you want to complain about this, let me ask you, do you ever use the word 'nice'? Check the entomology on it and revert to using in it's original form only please.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Khuffie]

According to Ars Technica, sites with proper HTML information will display in standards mode, and sites without will not. There's a button at the bottom that allows you to switch between the two. I have to say, I like IE8. It won't make me switch from Opera, but it's much speedier to use than IE7, and I'll probably find myself using it instead of Firefox whenever I come across a website that doesn't work in Opera. (Which is rare, and whenever that happens and I launch Firefox, it prompts me if I want to update, which gets annoying).

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[ShieldW0lf]

Developers, Developers, Developers.

Developers have moved on. IE is one of those things you test for once you've finished your work in Firefox.

This private browsing thing, if it wasn't a closed source application from a group that has a history of co-operating with US intelligence gathering organizations, might be vaguely interesting.

But the circumstances being what they are, it strikes me as a way to help the overstaffed NSA by red flagging your most sensitive items for their attention.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Metasquares]

I was going to ask what the root of the word "nice" had to do with the study of insects, but I guess that proves your point. :)

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[ByOhTek]

DAMNIT

I didn't mean entomology, I meant etymology...

But, using both the original and current meaning, that was a nice error...

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, entomology is the study of insects, the word you wanted was etymology

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[ByOhTek]

yes.

Now give me coffee.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[wwahammy]

It passes the ACID 2 test on its default settings. I'm using it right now in fact (I like the IE RSS reader) and it actually renders Slashdot correctly. IE7 has been a disaster for the last few months on Slashdot. Not sure what changed but it didn't work at all.

Is it compliant with every single standard Firefox is? No. CSS Selectors I know is an area that still isn't up the standard. It is a lot closer than IE7 is though.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[JasterBobaMereel]

So IE8 is less broken, less CPU/Memory hungry, and more "standards compliant" than IE7 .... but if it is still slow, power hungry, and breaks pages then it's not for me thank you ...

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[steelfood]

For one thing, it's really small. And sometimes it's creepy and sometimes it's cute.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Oligonicella]

Uh, Websters --

2. manufactured or produced in accordance with a specified body of rules (usu. used in combination): Energy Star-compliant computers.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Sobrique]

But if you were a web designer who wanted to make the most people able to access their site, they'd start with IE - firefox has to be installed, IE comes with it. Therefore the least technically literate users out there (e.g. the ones that are less likely to handle crap HTML rendering) will use IE.

Your average firefox user has at least has to go to a _little_ effort to install it. `

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[bigstrat2003]

Compliant means "disposed to comply, yielding"...

Hmm. So, then, using your definition of compliant, standards-compliant means "disposed to comply to standards, yielding to standards". Seems like the term is pretty legitimate to me, and you're just bitching for no damn reason.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[AlexMax2742]

Does it fix IE7's broke-as-shit handling of links when zoomed in? I hated using IE7 on other computers because I would click on a link and it wouldn't work unless I moved my mouse right until it turned into a finger pointer.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[FishWithAHammer]

Developers have moved on. IE is one of those things you test for once you've finished your work in Firefox.

Nonsense. IE remains the majority browser. Developers who want to actually produce a product that works correctly for the majority of users target IE first (because Firefox usually does the right thing when dealing with IE-isms, and IE-isms are easier to undo to target Firefox than vice versa).

This private browsing thing, if it wasn't a closed source application from a group that has a history of co-operating with US intelligence gathering organizations, might be vaguely interesting.

But the circumstances being what they are, it strikes me as a way to help the overstaffed NSA by red flagging your most sensitive items for their attention.

FUD FUD FUD FUD, FUD FUD FUD FUD, FUD-UD-UD-UD-UD-UDDDDD...FUD!

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[ShieldW0lf]

Nonsense. IE remains the majority browser. Developers who want to actually produce a product that works correctly for the majority of users target IE first (because Firefox usually does the right thing when dealing with IE-isms, and IE-isms are easier to undo to target Firefox than vice versa).

No, developers use Firefox to do their development. Why? Because of extensions like Web Developer and Firebug and YSlow and Selenium and Firecookie and FirePHP and Venkman. To name a few.

The fact that Firefox is also highly standards compliant is a bonus.

After you've used all these tools to get your application working properly, that's when you check it out in IE and see if there are any problems that need further attention.

As for the whole trustworthiness angle, well, call it FUD if you want. It's easy enough to submit code for independent critical review. When organizations don't choose to do so, the uncertainty and doubt that remains is real and intentionally created. Personally, I don't use MS products any more for anything outside of testing my web apps in IE, and have no intention of ever doing so again. I do not choose to trust them.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Schnoogs]

Is there a mod point for a Tin Foil Hat?

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[FishWithAHammer]

Of those extensions, the only one I use is Web Developer; the rest don't provide significant benefits. And IE7 has virtually the same thing.

There are almost certainly third-party extensions to handle the rest of that functionality (though why you'd want to be using PHP is a valid question; even setting aside ASP.NET, which kicks all manner of ass, there are better open-source tools).

As for the whole trustworthiness angle, well, call it FUD if you want. It's easy enough to submit code for independent critical review. When organizations don't choose to do so, the uncertainty and doubt that remains is real and intentionally created. Personally, I don't use MS products any more for anything outside of testing my web apps in IE, and have no intention of ever doing so again. I do not choose to trust them.

Paranoia is unhealthy. Therapy will help.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Fred_A]

But if you were a web designer who wanted to make the most people able to access their site, they'd start with IE - firefox has to be installed, IE comes with it.

What ? Firefox comes with IE nowadays ? Do distribution packagers remove it or what ? I never get IE with my Firefox !

I knew I should have stayed with Gentoo, there probably was a "USE ie" somewhere I missed at the time...

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[ShieldW0lf]

Of those extensions, the only one I use is Web Developer; the rest don't provide significant benefits. And IE7 has virtually the same thing.

It's not my fault you don't delve deeply into the subtlties of what you're working with to need these tools.

even setting aside ASP.NET, which kicks all manner of ass

Now we know why you don't delve into these tools. I've built world class apps with ASP.NET, and the stuff it spits out, it's enough to make you cringe. It's fast to develop with, if you don't know what you're doing and don't care about doing things right. But if you already know how to do things right, and you're working on a project that's going to see enough traffic that you have to do them right, .NET makes things far more difficult, because you need to undo what it does by default and force it to operate outside of it's core paradigm.

Paging through recordsets is a great example. Just fetch the entire data set to the middle tier and handle paging there... what a stupid idea. Were they reading the MySQL documentation or something? Doing it properly within the .NET model was harder than it was with Classic ASP.

I'll stick to PHP, Java and Postgres, thanks...

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Blakey Rat]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Standards are a non-issue in web development.

Saying that Microsoft (or Mozilla, or anybody else) should spend more time getting all the web standards right is like saying that Chrysler should make it their number 1 priority to make life easy for mechanics. Standards are used by web developers only; users don't know, or care, whether a particular site is standards-compliant or not. And web developers need to test their site on all browsers they intend to support regardless of the standards situation.

The majority of browser development time should be spent on features that benefits ALL users, not just developers.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[kericr]

In addition, comparing the IE toolbar to Firebug is like comparing the luxury qualities of a Kia Rio to an M3. They're not even in the same league.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[dmn]

Nonsense. IE remains the majority browser. Developers who want to actually produce a product that works correctly for the majority of users target IE first (because Firefox usually does the right thing when dealing with IE-isms, and IE-isms are easier to undo to target Firefox than vice versa).

Not true. I and other webdevelopers I know write standards-compliant code first (testing in FF, Safari, or Opera) and when everything works ok in those, they test it in IE. That's the propper order - write correct code first and THEN do the hackery IE requires. Do it otherwise and you sacrifice quality.

No, developers use Firefox to do their development. Why? Because of extensions like Web Developer and Firebug and YSlow and Selenium and Firecookie and FirePHP and Venkman. To name a few.

The fact that Firefox is also highly standards compliant is a bonus.

It's not a bonus. It's a basic prerequisite to make a standards-compliant website.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Sun.Jedi]

from the pet-peeve-of-mine dept...

If all you standardsstandardsstandards people wanted to fix the problem, you'd code to standard, and let MS worry about IEx incompatibilities.

But instead, people actually test IEx, and fix sites for IEx. Hypocritical, if you ask me. MS just increased your workload because you fix the non-standard for them. What incentive will they ever have to change?

This post is compliant.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[lahvak]

I didn't mean entomology, I meant etymology...

Don't worry!

Languages change over time, word shift meaning.

In a few years, who know what will "entomology" mean.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[RealGrouchy]

Aw, what a nice comment.

- RG>

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[brentonboy]

Nonsense. IE remains the majority browser. Developers who want to actually produce a product that works correctly for the majority of users target IE first (because Firefox usually does the right thing when dealing with IE-isms, and IE-isms are easier to undo to target Firefox than vice versa).

That is only true of new, inexperienced web developers. Any web developer worth his salt knows that you need to develop in a standards compliant browser, and then fix the IE bugs. Otherwise you are coding for a buggy browser, and you have to un-hack the hacks you inadvertently wrote to make it look good in IE, which is twice as much work to do. Web developer extensions like Firebug and Web Developer toolbar are the bonuses.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Fallingcow]

Precisely.

We develop in FF for the tools, and because we know that there's about a 99% chance that a good-looking page in FF will also be a good-looking page in Opera, Safari, Konqueror, etc.

Sure, I could develop in, say, IE7, but there's a good chance I'd then have to fix the site for those other browsers, and I'd still have to fix it for IE6 (screw anything earlier; I know some super-high-traffic sites still need to support IE5, but jesus, that's just too much to worry about)

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Fallingcow]

Does "standards mode" comply with standards this time?

Doesn't in IE7, though I'll admit that it's much better than IE6. I can't wait till the user base for that POS drops low enough that I can stop supporting it.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[ByOhTek]

You know what, screw this stuff. I'm just gonna fast forward a few thousand/millon years...

Ogun tugle morf korblit anizag norple.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Poingggg]

Saying that Microsoft (or Mozilla, or anybody else) should spend more time getting all the web standards right is like saying that Chrysler should make it their number 1 priority to make life easy for mechanics.

Uhh...no. It would be more like saying that Chrysler should use standard metric or imperial screws, bolds and nuts, standard fittings for the lights, standard tires (tyres?) and so on, and not bolds, fittings etc that only fit Chrysler cars and are only sold by Chrysler. What they build out of those is totally their own business.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Sandbags]

Also, "sophisticated" used to mean "corrupted" so a nice, sophisticated man vying for a political office should be a real eye opener! No wonder we're in the shit we're in.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Sandbags]

Ah, give it some time. The guys here at slashdot will soon enough change their code so it renders just a poorly in IE 8 as in 7, to ensure that those not up to speed with the rest of us have at least one more barrier to overcome before being considdered passible company.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[cbhacking]

Holy shit... it's actually faster than FF3 for Slashdot on my machine. Good scroll speed, good render time, and the AJAX comment posting system - even that period between when you click "Preview" and when it actually is ready to post - is instantaneous.

Still only gets 21/100 on Acid 3, but that's better than any previous IE version, including the beta 1.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[cbhacking]

IE8 (or as an add-on to IE7, much like the extensions you mention) includes Developer Tools (look under Tools in the command bar, or press F12). It has a JavaScript debugger, tools for examining the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript source, a profiler, validation tools, and handy stuff like drawing outlines around individual elements or elements of a given class.

While not providing as much functionality as all the extensions you mention rolled together, it is nonetheless quite nice and excellent for examining pages or dealing with client-side scripts. The fact that it's built in is a nice bonus.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[jaminJay]

...whenever... I launch Firefox, it prompts me if I want to update, which gets annoying.

Funny, the exact same thing happens every time I launch Opera to check my CSS works in it. (Opera has another .000000001 release which is different to yours...). But, I suppose Firefox would, too, if it weren't automatically updated by PackageKit. NoScript is the only thing I know that wants to update every other time you start...

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[shutdown -p now]

No, developers use Firefox to do their development. Why? Because of extensions like Web Developer and Firebug and YSlow and Selenium and Firecookie and FirePHP and Venkman. To name a few.

FYI, IE7 has a plugin system as well, and it also has some very good developer plugins.

Also, you have to use IE to debug JavaScript using VS, and VS2008 SP1 JavaScript debugger (and code editor) is the best I've seen so far. Granted, I would imagine that only ASP.NET developers use it, though, and they are only third in terms of numbers after PHP and Java.

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[Tubal-Cain]

Acid3 only made it to 12 on my machine, before it wanted to install an ActiveX plugin (from MS, not webstandards.org).

Re:Standards-complient or not?

[cbhacking]

Run, not install (MSXML is already installed on the system, but default settings in IE7 and up don't run most ActiveX without permission). It will actually continue just fine if you don't allow it to run MSXML, though there's a test which occurs at about that time that takes 4 or 5 seconds to get through (on my machine) - which gives the impression that the page has finished. Wait a bit and it should reach 21, with or without the ActiveX control.

Excellent feature...

[HetMes]

..that will definitely be craved by many Slashdot users, and not because of the gift shopping or use of public terminals. Question is how long it will take before Firefox sees its market share diminish because of this feature, and, consequently, how long it will take Firefox to include it in an update.

Re:Excellent feature...

[bigstrat2003]

Excellent feature that will definitely be craved by many Slashdot users, and not because of the gift shopping or use of public terminals.

Nah, we have no girlfriends or wives to hide our porn browsing from. We wear our pr0n history like a badge of honor.

Re:Excellent feature...

[garett_spencley]

Nah, we have no girlfriends or wives to hide our porn browsing from. We wear our pr0n history like a badge of honor.

Yes it's true. Those among us fortunate to have found a wife have also had the foresight to seek an open minded one to whom we can still show off our pr0n history like a badge of honor.

Re:Excellent feature...

[pizzach]

..that will definitely be craved by many Slashdot users, and not because of the gift shopping or use of public terminals. Question is how long it will take before Firefox sees its market share diminish because of this feature, and, consequently, how long it will take Firefox to include it in an update.

Considering that private browsing appears to already be included with 3.1 and the betas were around Sept 9th the last time I checked, I don't think the Moz folks are quaking in their boots yet. The feature is likely to hit both browsers roughtly at the same time.

http://ostatic.com/168982-blog/are-you-ready-for-firefox-3-1

Re:Excellent feature...

[Koiu Lpoi]

I do, and it's called Stealther.

Re:Excellent feature...

[atraintocry]

As others have said: it's actually a feature that existed in extensions for a while, too. I guess what's new here is the idea that it needs to be included with the browser. But it's kind of useful, and FF3 is snappier on the whole, so I can't complain too much (this time)

Re:Excellent feature...

[pizzach]

I don't know much about the extension. The feature was originally planned for FF3 so there is a good change they sliced it off as an extension for now, which would explain why it has been around for a bit.

Re:Excellent feature...

[Yfrwlf]

What makes you think a single feature can change a competitor's market share from increasing to decreasing? And when that feature is available in the competing software as an extension? Guess we'll see. :)

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[tomandlu]

You want MS to provide a linux version so that you can either state your intent to never install it, or so that you can sh*t on it? I'm sure they'll get right on that...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Anonymous Coward]

It runs on Linux under Wine or any number of Virtual Machines, for those not too clueless to know about them.

Browser privacy

[LiquidCoooled]

I wonder how the browser privacy feature will work regarding external content from sites:

flash files store preferences outside of explorers' reach.
java applets get placed outside of the cache.
movies files play outside of ie.
pdfs might open outside.
word documents listed in word recent files list.

theres many more programs and protocols which would leave tracks.

people expecting privacy mode to actually keep things private are going to be in for a BIG shock.

good luck

Re:Browser privacy

[morgan_greywolf]

Use Opera Portable. It obliterates (erases AND overwrites) any and all signs of your activity when you exit. And it's had that feature for several years. Perfect for visiting internet cafes or libraries.

Re:Browser privacy

[GeckoAddict]

I wouldn't count on this new feature to do much of anything... an article from FoxNews says the following scary line:

Although casual users cannot see the previous user's search history, authorities such as the police will be able to access it if necessary.

Kind of makes it seem like it's still stored somewhere, and while I don't know how the data is stored, I can't imagine it will take too long to figure out how to view the history of others.
Also interesting is that people at MS apparently nicknamed it 'Porn Mode'.

Re:Browser privacy

[blueg3]

If the police can reliably access it, then it takes only a slightly non-casual user to access it.

I much prefer the "guest account" feature of Mac OS X, where data only exists until logout.

Re:Browser privacy

[Tim C]

If police can reliably access it, chances are they're going to do it by subpoenaing the search engine's logs.

Note that the article specifically talks about search history, not browsing history.

Re:Browser privacy

[SanityInAnarchy]

Perfect for visiting internet cafes or libraries.

Only if you're not particularly paranoid. Let's look at this again:

It obliterates (erases AND overwrites) any and all signs of your activity when you exit.

That implies both that you actually exit, and that you're actually running an unmodified version of Opera Portable. It also assumes that the host filesystem is actually overwriting the same blocks... and a few other things.

It also implies that you haven't already been pwned by something as simple as a keylogger.

So, better than nothing, but you've got to figure that whatever you do on a public terminal is public knowledge. Any attempt to prevent that is playing an arms race that you will lose.

Re:Browser privacy

[sootman]

Also interesting is that people at MS apparently nicknamed it 'Porn Mode'.

Those crafty Microsoftians, always innovating! Only 3 years behind this time... I think that's a new record! *rolls eyes*

Re:Browser privacy

[phozz bare]

Also interesting is that people at MS apparently nicknamed it 'Porn Mode'.

No, no, no.

"Now you can shop for that special gift with confidence knowing your family won't accidentally find out."

This mode is not intended for porn. Please move along.

Re:Browser privacy

[DavidD_CA]

They're referring to IP address tracking at the ISP and web host level (and perhaps the user's router). Not logs on the browser.

I don't have a link, but if you find the IE8 blog you'll see about 3 pages on what exactly the "Porn Mode" does. Pretty spiffy.

Re:Browser privacy

[cbhacking]

Forensically cleaning storage (without destroying it) is certainly possible, but requires considerably more effort to do right than simply unlinking some temp files from the master file table. Given enough usage, my guess is that the data will become sufficiently overwritten to be unrecoverable, but that could take quite some time.

Note that after overwriting the data even once, I believe it takes physical access to the disk (not just the computer, but the actual disk inside of it) to do any recovery. It also require tools your average spouse/parent/burglar/script kiddie is not going to have.

On the other hand, if you've got something that you want to hide from authorities with serious data retrieval tools, you should be using a fully encrypted volume.

Re:Browser privacy

[zuperduperman]

I had the same question.

It's hard to figure out exact details, however it looks like the In Private blocking will in fact completely block 3rd party content once it has appeared on too many pages. So - yes, the movies, flash, pdfs, java applets etc etc will be completely blocked once they tick up over a dozen or so appearances as 3rd party content and your concern is addressed. This will stop them using trivial things like single pixel transparent gifs to set cookies etc, and to that extent it will work.

However what I can't figure out is what makes anybody think the advertising industry won't just work their way around this by randomizing the URLs of the tracking content (trivial with url rewriting for example). Even if they have to allocate a zillion separate domains and correlate the data across them it's going to be pretty simple to circumvent it. Once the circumventions are in place, it will actually be harder for the end user to see if they are being tracked or not than it was before, and the simple things I do today (like block all cookies from some domains) wont' work any more.

Re:Browser privacy

[zobier]

That's so dumb though:

Honey, what's this "Porn Mode" option in your browser?

As if you wouldn't call it something boring and geeky like "Advanced Options".

Extensions are bad?

[Cryophallion]

and brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for

You say that like it is a bad thing. I prefer the use of extensions for my browser, instead of the bloatware that tends to happen. What if I don't care about privacy? I don't need that installed then. I like that I can choose the features I want, instead of having everything thrown in there.

Also, extensions have a great benefit with regards to updates. they can be updated at any time, and therefore don't have to wait on a new browser update for tweaking things and adding functionality. They also allow me to leave an extension that I don't want to update as is while still being able to update the browser (and possibly its security).

This is not to say that Firefox is not getting large, or that microsoft is not trying to assist people who don't have the savvy to look for extensions. I'm just saying extensions have a lot of benefits, and can be a very important tool.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[houghi]

What Firefox could do is add the most used extensions in by default. That way tech savy people can still do whatever they like, while people who do not know how to get extentions, still will be able to have the functionality.

Best of both worlds. And if bandwith download is an issue for you, then perhaps you should not download Firefox in the first place.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[mdwh2]

It's not that extensions are bad, it's just more of a hassle if the functionality is not included as standard.

It's one reason I can't be bothered to try switching from Opera. Sure, I've downloaded Firefox, but I don't have to time to try to hunt down all the extensions to replicate Opera's standard functionality, and wonder if each extension is the one I want.

This is even more of an issue if you are trying to persuade a random non-geek user to switch from IE - you can't say "Go to this link", instead you have to say "Go here, then install it, then go here, here and here, and install all those things". For now, Firefox has done well because its standard features are still better than IE (and the extra standard features of Opera do not seem to be known by as many people). But you can't expect an average user to grapple with trying to hunt down extensions, just to replicate what'll be standard behaviour in IE.

As for bloatware, you need to compare real world filesizes. Last time I checked, Opera was still smaller than Firefox (even without any extensions), though I haven't checked the current sizes.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[nmg196]

> You say that like it is a bad thing.

It *is* a bad thing. Usually built in features work - extensions in my experience, often don't and can easily be incompatible with each other.

I've only got a handful of extensions (5) installed and Firefox 3 crashes about 12 times a week according to the logs. According to the same logs, IE has only crashed twice EVER since I built the machine 6 months ago and I use it almost as often (I'm a web developer).

I think it's the extension-heavy approach which makes Firefox the least stable piece of software I've ever used. I doubt it crashes if you don't install any extensions. More basic features should be built in in my opinion - so you don't need to install an extension to get an extremely rudimentary feature like a close button on each tab.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Cryophallion]

Interesting. Let's take a slightly deeper look, by looking at the most popular add-ons, and see if most non-savvy people would want them:

1.Ad-block plus - Users might like it, but people running the sites and companies would absolutely hate it. Get ready for a huge backlash on enabling this one in the base package.

2. DownloadHelper - Again, users may like it, but the people running the video sites would be fuming. As would people who do simple paid-for web tutorials, who would have everyone able to get their stuff extremely easily. Once again, good size backlash. This also has features that may need to be updated more frequently, such as when embedding code changes or something on the popular sites changes.

3. No-Script - I don't know if this would really help most non-savvy users, as they wouldn't understand why many more popular sites won't work that well, not to mention all the ajax-y things they'd miss.

4. Download-them-all - May be a good thing to implement (along with Download Status bar, a personal favorite). I'm not sure how many people would use its benefits though, but this one is a serious contender.

5. Flashgot (See Download Helper)

6. Firebug - No real use to non-savvy people.

7. Fast-video Download - See Download Helper

8. Cooliris - Cool, but no real functionality. Of course, Compiz, Widgets, Apples, etc all live off of cool, but I don't think this should be standard, especially since it is windows only.

9. IE Tab - Very nice for people who still stubbornly make IE specific sites, but still windows only.

10. Colorful tabs - cute, but not really functional. Might be a nice option though.

So, of the top 10, only one could really have a good argument made for it being in the base package. I actually think Mozilla does a pretty good job finding the middle ground of stuff to keep in the base, and stuff to have as extensions, and that helps keep the energy where they think it should be, instead of focusing on little segments.

I might add that I like extensions also since they can add new functionality before a new version comes out.

And if bandwith download is an issue for you, then perhaps you should not download Firefox in the first place.

Isn't Firefox smaller in download size than IE?

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Cryophallion]

Out of curiosity, what extensions are you using? I have around 7 or 8 depending on computer, and I've had no crashes. As always, people's problems vary, but I'm curious as to what may be crashing you.

As for the most popular extensions, such as downloadhelper, firebug, etc, those tend to be pretty darn reliable, which may be due to many bug reports, the open source concept of helping out with fixes, or because people tend to use things that work, but I have had very few problems.

On the other hand, I've had VERY bad luck with active-X "extensions" in IE, and even when not allowing ActiveX, I crash more with IE.

On another note, is it the sites you are working on that tend to crash, or basic browsing? Maybe IE is more forgiving of code you are still working on and may have forgotten a curly brace or two?

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Cryophallion]

I agree, it is a balancing act. That's why my last line states that Firefox is getting larger, because it is larger than Opera. I just tend to think Firefox has so far done a pretty good job of figuring out what it needs to focus one, and what can be left to the community.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Rynor]

I also only use a few extensions, but as far as I know they haven't caused a single crash yet.

Most of the crashes I experience are due to Flash, and even that doesn't come close to crashing 12 times a week.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[R2.0]

"I think it's the extension-heavy approach which makes Firefox the least stable piece of software I've ever used. I doubt it crashes if you don't install any extensions."

You are aware that you could simply test it yourself, instead of "I think" and "I doubt"? How do you know it's not one of the extensions that are buggy? Just uninstall the extensions and see if Firefox runs well. If it does, then add them back one at a time until you get instability.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[ianare]

FF 3 has gone some way to addressing the extension finding problem : you can now search for extensions right from the add-ons panel. It also has the most popular extensions showing by default.
Then, if you install some you can restart FF without losing your tabs. Pretty neat.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Beezlebub33]

I don't think that Firefox should do this. I think that some third party should do this. I don't know what the rules currently are for security in terms of downloads / updates, but it would make sense for people to make bundles and provide them. I'd download the 'CryoFox' version, for example, because I'd know that your site provides the bundle that I want and it's less work for me to have to update all those things myself.

There is also the issue of compatibility / redundancy between extensions. Having a third party do the integration / testing work makes sense.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Cryophallion]

My point was that the most popular ones really shouldn't be bundled, in response to the houghi comment.

As for your idea, some problems will exist:

1. Where is the listing for where you can get each package? How often is this listing updated?

2. You have to sort through each package to find the one that has the 5 extensions you want.

3. You have to make sure it is a reliable source.

Or you can simply go to tools, add-ons, and quickly look for a few extensions that will do what you are looking for, and no more (Maybe the add-on manager should be more obvious to newcomers, like being of the main splash page?). You can also disable each one, which may not work with a packaged version.

There are also too many different combinations for packages, and it would take forever to find the right one. Even if there was a helper application, that you would choose the extensions, and have it select the meta-manager for you, you'd still have to already know what extensions you wanted. I think they current solution is the most flexible.

However, I know ubuntu has an add-on for greater inter-op with to OS, so something like that may be a good idea.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Captain Centropyge]

You say that like it is a bad thing. I prefer the use of extensions for my browser, instead of the bloatware that tends to happen. What if I don't care about privacy? I don't need that installed then. I like that I can choose the features I want, instead of having everything thrown in there.

THIS.

I like not having to download a large installer for Firefox. Has it grown? Sure. But it's not humongous like IE's. I'll add my own functionality when I need it. That's why extensions are great.

What might be helpful is for Firefox to add a feature to automatically download and install some of the most popular extensions during installation of the browser. That would automate some of the searching for extensions, while still keeping Firefox modular.

On a side note... anyone else having trouble getting to the beta downloads? I keep getting pages saying that download wasn't found.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Cryophallion]

Off-topic, but what does THIS stand for? I can't find it anywhere

Re:Extensions are bad?

[hab136]

9. IE Tab - Very nice for people who still stubbornly make IE specific sites, but still windows only.

I'd love a cross-platform version that could embed Safari on OS X, or Opera on Linux for example. Better yet, user-definable alternate browser. If embedding is not possible, simply launching in an external window would be nice.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Abcd1234]

It's not that extensions are bad, it's just more of a hassle if the functionality is not included as standard.

So if they include features (eg, an RSS reader), Firefox is bloated. If they eliminate features in lieu of add-ons, it's a hassle.

They really can't win, can they?

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Captain Centropyge]

It basically means "What he said." So, when someone posts something, and you want to say the exact same thing, you can reply and say "THIS" to his/her post, indicating you agree with it entirely.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Abcd1234]

Except that Opera provides all of these things without the bloat.

And yet, Firefox 3 uses less memory than all the other browsers, including Opera. You were saying?

Re:Extensions are bad?

[blueZ3]

So, "me too" then, but with one less letter? That'll be useful on /. for sure

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Captain Centropyge]

I was confused when I first saw it, too. Makes plenty of sense now, though.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[theaceoffire]

"But you can't expect an average user to grapple with trying to hunt down extensions, just to replicate what'll be standard behaviour in IE."

Go to "Tools", "Addons", and "Get Addons". It suggests various extensions, and lets you search/install them from within the browser.

It is far easier than what it used to be, and if you don't find what you need you have a link that takes you to the right page at the bottom.

^_^ Its just like having a mini-repository like Aptitude... and it is a big step forward in my opinion.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Beat The Odds]

I've only got a handful of extensions (5) installed and Firefox 3 crashes about 12 times a week according to the logs. According to the same logs, IE has only crashed twice EVER since I built the machine 6 months ago and I use it almost as often (I'm a web developer).

I'm using ten (10) extensions with Firefox 3 and it has *NEVER* crashed. It's not the concept of the extensions that is the problem, it's most likely that some of the extensions suck.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[theaceoffire]

extensions in my experience, often don't and can easily be incompatible with each other.

They normally "don't work" only if they are incompatible with each other. If you have 3 programs designed to give you mouse gestures, I would expect issues as well honestly.

Firefox 3 crashes about 12 times a week according to the logs

That is not normal. Backup your bookmarks, etc, and remake your profile (Move it to your desktop so Firefox thinks you don't have one). Firefox 3 has never crashed for me with one exception: The Flash plugin (on linux). >.

install an extension to get close button on each tab.

That is there by default on every fresh install of Firefox 3.

Your problems seem to be that you have redundant/old plugins... so lets try an experiment. Go to the following web site, and download firefox 3 portable.
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
Install it to your desktop (Or thumb drive, or whatever), and then see whether or not it has the functionality you want *before* adding plugins.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[coryking]

They normally "don't work" only if they are incompatible with each other. If you have 3 programs designed to give you mouse gestures, I would expect issues as well honestly.

This suggests that firefox needs to take a less generic approach to addins. They could instead move toward a service provider type system. You'd be able to select from a list of "mouse gesture providers", "bookmark providers" or "auto-form fill providers".

They already do this in a way... what do you think themes are? Last I checked you could only use a single theme at a time, why can't they make it so you only use one "decorate each webpage with annoying icons and popups (cooliris)" addin?

Re:Extensions are bad?

[LiquidFire_HK]

Maybe you have some odd troublemaking extension, but I haven't had a single crash on this machine since I installed FF3 and about 10 extensions a couple of weeks ago, and I don't remember ever having a crash that I could suspect an extension for. In my experience plug-ins are the biggest cause of crashes (on Win32 and Linux anyway), specifically Java and QuickTime, though Flash likes to do it too once in a while.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[TheDarkMaster]

On this days of invasive, agressive and malicious ads, ad-block is a "must have" extension.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[nneonneo]

Firefox actually did this a while ago for college students, making a version they called "Firefox Campus Edition": http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2007/08/firefox-campus-edition-for-cool-college-students/

Basically, it was a full Firefox install with three add-ons.

Anyway, an Idea just hit me: what about making Firefox metapackages? For example, a "privacy/paranoia" metapackage incorporating ABP, NoScript, perhaps Torbutton, etc., a "webdev" metapackage with Firebug, Web Developer, YSlow, ..., and so on.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[nneonneo]

The only problem is the fact that the API for embedding browsers differs wildly; for IE, you include and activate an OLE control, for Safari, you would include a WebKit frame, and I have no idea how you'd do it with Opera. While doable, it would probably require very separate approaches, and that suggests having different extensions for each browser.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[nneonneo]

I have 12 extensions, of which only Firebug has ever crashed on me (1.20 betas tended to cause Firefox's cycle collector to go into a hang, but the final version appears to have fixed that).

In all honesty, Firefox is a lot more stable than IE and Opera -- I have never *ever* had Firefox 3 crash outright (I've only gotten hangs, and those were due to Firebug); I have managed to cause both IE and Opera to die with "... has encountered a problem and needs to close ..." errors (IE when browsing GMail, Opera when browsing GMail through a proxy).

Final thought: I visited http://crashie.com/ on IE7 yesterday (OS: XP SP2), and it managed to completely hang my dual-core processor while using only one core (as verified by Process Explorer when it finally got enough CPU time to start). With ~30% idle, and memory usage still at normal levels (i.e. no pagefile thrashing), I am at a loss to explain how my system could nearly be brought down due to IE's crash (Process Explorer was eventually successful in killing it). Maybe someone here has a clue?

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Rockoon]

It is how much resources a product *requires*, not uses, that is relevant.

Opera is winning this race, with a recommended spec similar to that of FF3 (64MB ram for both on P2 era machines) but requiring only 60% of the disk space that FF3 does (30 meg vs 52 meg.)

Opera is doing this with all the features that FF3 requires extensions for, putting Opera SQUARELY in the lead if you are worried about bloat. The only thing Opera really lacks, as already mentioned, is decent performance on heavily-scripted over-engineered web pages.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[RealGrouchy]

8. Cooliris - Cool, but no real functionality. Of course, Compiz, Widgets, Apples, etc all live off of cool, but I don't think this should be standard, especially since it is windows only.

I wasn't familiar with this one, so I looked it up.

Apparently it pops up a preview of a URL when you hover over a link.

LiveJournal does this (I'm not registered to LJ, but I check out a couple of LJ sites) and I absolutely HATE it.

What if I'm checking out an LJ page at work (okay, mistake #1) and someone has a link to goatse or worse, kiddie porn? If the page pre-loads the link, or if I'm unlucky enough to pause my mouse over it, that shit (presumably) gets downloaded across the network to my computer.

Long story short, I agree with parent that this is suitable as an extension (or optional) for those who want it.

- RG>

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Kjella]

You are aware that you could simply test it yourself, instead of "I think" and "I doubt"? How do you know it's not one of the extensions that are buggy? Just uninstall the extensions and see if Firefox runs well. If it does, then add them back one at a time until you get instability.

If it crashes 12 times a week and he's a web developer that probably means he's in a browser 40 hours/week since translates to a crash every 3-4 hours. How long would it take to get any reliable statistics on that? That's days, days with much lower producivity if you're depending on what the extensions do to do your work. For me, the opera plugins are less than stable (I kill all operapluginwrappers on a regular basis with a single command calling a script) so it's not worth my trouble to track it down. I can still bitch about it though, because the culpit is almost certainly flash.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Fallingcow]

Is there some way to script addon installs? Maybe a meta-addon that installs a bunch of others?

I'd love to be able to make "developer" and "basic" install scripts, so I could just run them on a new machine to get either my development loadout (firebug, webdev toolbar, fireftp, etc.) or my basic extensions that I always install (adblock and the like).

The extensions auto-update, so it seems like this would be possible.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[steelfood]

Maybe there should be some kind of option in the install to include these extensions, and some command line switch to specify only the desirable ones. That way, it's easy for people to select and install popular extensions and easy for sys admins to exclude them.

Oh wait, there's already a page in the install for extensions, they just don't have any of the popular 3rd party ones. Maybe they should make use of it...

As for file size bloat, perhaps selected extensions can be separately downloaded after being selected.

Finally, to address the idea of Firefox bloat in general, there's a really good reason I'm not using FF3, and it has nothing to do with extension compatibility. This kind of install might just make turning some of the bloatware in FF3 into extensions more viable.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Abcd1234]

It is how much resources a product *requires*, not uses, that is relevant.

What?? That's exactly the *opposite* of what actually matters. Why on earth would you care if Firefox uses a paltry 22MB extra disk space if it's runtime performance is superior? Honestly, that's absolutely ridiculous. Grasping at straws much?

Besides, 22MB? You really care about 22MB in a world of near-terabyte hard disks? Really??

Re:Extensions are bad?

[IICV]

Is one of the extensions you have installed FlashBlock? I was having lots of problems with Firefox 3 behaving badly (pegging my CPU, outright crashing, etc) until I installed that.

Firefox hasn't crashed since, and as a bonus I don't get random banner ads talking to me without warning.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[atamido]

10. Colorful tabs - cute, but not really functional. Might be a nice option though.

Excuse me? Colorful tabs is extremely functional. If I have several tabs whose titles are the same, I can quickly find the one I need by it's color. Optionally you can have tabs for a given domain always be the same color. It helps a lot with quick tab recognition.

Another extension that should be offered by default is Operator. It scrubs pages for microformats and provides quick links to use the information (automatically create a vCard for import into your address book, automatically map a location, etc).

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Jorophose]

Have you checked about:config for the close buttons? I'm pretty sure the "feature" is still available. ("tabs" have always been crappier than real MDI)

Re:Extensions are bad?

[lennier]

Why no Flashblock?

It's the only Firefox add-in I actually use all the time. Can't stand autorunning Flash ads (or even Youtube videos). Adblock is too aggressive for me, but Flashblock is just perfect. One click and I see an animation, otherwise my sanity is preserved.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[TedRiot]

I for one really don't care about the install size. 22MB is nothing nowadays.

I have been giving Opera a chance for a while again now, but on my machine newest Opera is considerably slower and eats more memory than FF3.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[PhoenixAtlantios]

Context Search, Extended Status Bar and Distrust are small additions that could make a pretty large difference. Context Search is pretty much the same as the accelerators (allowing you to choose which installed search engine to use when searching the highlighted word) and Distrust is very similar to the privacy mode. I guess Extended Status Bar would be iffy, but the ability to see how long pages take to load could be useful to users (i.e. they could remember it for next time more easily).

Those ones are popular because they make huge noticeable changes (in most cases), but I'd argue that the best candidates for inclusion are the smaller ones that are more focused in their goals.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Rockoon]

Um, helllllllooooo? Is this thing on? Opera works in 64 megs of RAM. FF3 works in 64 megs of RAM. Opera does so with features that FF3 requires extensions, and thus, MORE MEMORY. FF3 does not work in 64 megs of RAM with the same feature set. Period.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Rockoon]

Opera *requires* LESS memory for the same feature set, but is happy to *USE* more. There is nothing wrong with using free memory.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[shutdown -p now]

It also doesn't help much that useful third-party extensions are sometimes abandoned, and that extensions usually break for a new major release.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Abcd1234]

Ah, I see, you completely ignored the article I posted. So be it. *shrug*

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Tubal-Cain]

Maybe they should take current features (RSS, spell-check, history, JavaScript compatibility, update, maybe even tabs) and turn those into plugins included with the base install. All enabled by default, of course.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Tubal-Cain]

Maybe there should be an official set of "Made by Mozilla" extensions.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[nmg196]

I'm using:
Adblock Plus
British English Dictionary
Check4Change (but is disabled)
Firebug 1.2.0
Free Download Manager 1.3.2 (but I've eliminated that from my enquiries!)
Google Toolbar 3.1.20080605W
PicLens 1.8
Tab Mix Plus 0.3.6
Web Developer 1.1.6

None of those are particularly unusual plugins apart from Check4Change (disabled ATM).
They will all have thousands of users each.

Usually Firefox crashes on exit (suggesting perhaps, the session manager or perhaps a plugin's cleanup code) or when navigating to a new site. It doesn't usually crash on my own sites - mainly on content heavy portal type sites (possibly containing Flash). However I find any Flash blockers quite often cause LOTS of Javascript errors or crashes in their own right, so please don't suggest blocking all Flash.

Re:Extensions are bad?

[Rockoon]

I read the article...

..it didnt say anything about how much memory each browser *requires* .. nothing at all. It went on and on about how much each browser used in the specific case of a computer with more than enough memory, and quite honestly, it didnt even do a good job of measuring resources since he just yanked a single value from a .net performance monitor, which, ironically, isnt recommended for what he is trying to measure.

But hey.. you made up your mind before ever reading the article, and certainly made up your mind before reading what I had to say, and completely ignored certain details such as the correct usage of the word 'required', and why the correct usage might be important in the context of comparing software.

I am happy to let a browser use up 4 gigs of free memory, as long as it still runs when only 64 megs are free. Firefox + all the extensions that bring it up to par with Opera will *NEVER* run in 64 megs of memory.. but Opera does.

Press the button and protect your privacy ....

[Cyberurchin]

> and browser privacy, a feature that didn't make

Yeah, but the user has to turn it on .... Press the button, enter "InPrivateBrowsing" and your privacy is protected .... Kind of silly. Shouldn't such a feature be activated in the first place? And then, when the application requires the long-term cookies or you want a history, you turn off certain parts of it?

Re:Press the button and protect your privacy ....

[Apple Acolyte]

If private browsing were on by default, then everyone other than /. geeks would think their browsers were dysfunctional for not saving login cookies and whatnot.

Re:Press the button and protect your privacy ....

[somersault]

Considering a lot of people will just be wanting to browse at work or whatever and be able to easily find things in the history, I don't see why it should be on by default. Isn't 'browser privacy' basically just a way of hiding your pr0n-browsing history?

Re:Press the button and protect your privacy ....

[Cyberurchin]

So the bottom line is: if the system protects the user's privacy and asks before revealing personal information, then the average user thinks that it's broken?

I tend to agree but it also shows that there is a fundamental flaw in the design of the system. Or at least something is wrong with the priorities of the designer .... or the users?

Re:Press the button and protect your privacy ....

[bigstrat2003]

I tend to agree but it also shows that there is a fundamental flaw in the design of the system. Or at least something is wrong with the priorities of the designer .... or the users?

Depends on if you value privacy or not. I certainly don't, and go to no effort to keep things private. So, even as a tech-savvy user, I would consider the functionality you describe to be "broken". Of course, I'm not super-paranoid like most geeks are.

Re:Press the button and protect your privacy ....

[atraintocry]

I wouldn't even go that far. Caching is useful for speeding up page loads. Cookies are necessary for persistent sessions. It's not like the stuff is the work of the devil. People ask a site to serve them files, and then get pissed off when it actually happens. That's not paranoia, it's not being able to make up your damn mind.

Re:Press the button and protect your privacy ....

[shutdown -p now]

Isn't 'browser privacy' basically just a way of hiding your pr0n-browsing history?

No, no, no! How could you even think such a dirty thing! It's so that you can shop for that special gift with confidence knowing your family won't accidentally find out or use a shared computer without leaving a trace.

What is really worrying is...

[Pvt_Ryan]

timesonline.co.uk Writes:

Once the setting is chosen, others using the same computer will not be able to see which sites have been accessed. Other browsers have similar functions, but this one is far more prominent. Although casual users cannot see the previous user's search history, authorities such as the police will be able to access it if necessary.

So basically the data still exists, just people who nothing will not be able to see it, I knew we were wrong in all those security model that try and keep the experts out. It's really Joe "average" Blogs we should have been protecting against all this time.. DOH!!!

I'll definitely be surrendering Firefox for IE now..

Re:What is really worrying is...

[LiquidCoooled]

I believe they are talking about the logs kept by the ISP rather than anything stored on the machine itself.

Its currently the same situation for users who delete their own history, its gone from the local machine, but that does not mean it was not logged elsewhere.

Re:What is really worrying is...

[Pvt_Ryan]

I am just going by the way its written, though to be fair it is a journalist writting it so....

Mind you I wouldn't be supprised if it was just moved to a hidden dir just in case on the slight offchance you (or the police) wanted to find it again.

Re:What is really worrying is...

[cerberusss]

its gone from the local machine, but that does not mean it was not logged elsewhere.

I'm currently writing a Firefox extension to do just that. I.e. when you click Menu -> Extra -> Clean Up Private Data in Firefox, this extension will add a checkbox to the list:

"Open Project For Bidding On Elance.com To Let Blackhats Erase Private Data From Remote Machines You Have Visited"

Re:What is really worrying is...

[utnapistim]

Oh, relax ... if casual users cannot see it you are safe.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Re:What is really worrying is...

[Grim Leaper]

I'm currently writing a Firefox extension to do just that. I.e. when you click Menu -> Extra -> Clean Up Private Data in Firefox, this extension will add a checkbox to the list:

"Open Project For Bidding On Elance.com To Let Blackhats Erase Private Data From Remote Machines You Have Visited"

Good idea, but don't forget to "Open Project for another Black Hat to Verify That the Remote Machines' Logs Have Been Cleaned".

Then all you have to do is solve the problem of Eraser Black Hats colluding with the Log-checker Black Hats, taking the money to do nothing...

Re:What is really worrying is...

[nerd-persona]

ISP logs cannot be relied upon unless a correlation can be made to a specific computer. There are too many plausible explanations that could result in certain sites showing up in IP logs tied to a person's IP(wireless router hacked, virus, running a TOR node, etc...). Therefor, in order to ensure that the logs were made by person X the authorities would have to tie the logs to a specific system. This means that it is likely that IE8 will keep the records on the specific system and will only reveal how to access those logs to the authorities.

Of course this will be broken/discovered soon after IE8 is released, so there's probably not much to worry about.

Re:What is really worrying is...

[cbhacking]

Forensic data retrieval tools can pull files off your hard drive that you (thouhgt) you deleted months ago, or possibly longer, depsneding on how often a particular block gets overwritten. Of course, it needs physical disk access and expensive equipment, so Joe Average cerainly is NOT going to be getting to it - and that's all this feature is designed to protect against.

It keeps your spouse from knowing you bought a special gift for your anniversary. It keeps your dad from seeing the site a friend told you about at school (actually, Vista's parental controls may be able to prevent InPrivate mode). It keeps your female friend who comes over to visit from seeing the most common site you visit whose URL starts with an 'x'. All in all, it seems a smart and well-thought-up product. They should make it a start menu entry rather than just something you start after opening the browser (heck, if it is a command line switch you could make that the default mode), but it still seems pretty good.

Secure browsing is on a lot of browsers nowadays

[Jerry Smith]

Safari for OSX nowadays has an option for "private mode": under the File menu it can be selected, and from then on 'recording' has stopped. The older history and cache remains, so it's not as suspicious as a complete history-wipe.

It's good that this specific userfriendliness is implemented throughout multiple platforms. For let's not forget: SOMEONE has to think of the children :o)

indeed.

[apodyopsis]

It's a definite improvement over previous versions, and brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for.

That may be true. But given the speed that developments and innovations get put into FF and the general convenience of the plugin system I think I'll stage with the Fox. If there is anything amazingly good and useful you can be sure we'll all have it very soon indeed.

Re:Microsoft Does Not Deserve Another Chance

[Bashae]

You don't have to go back if you don't want to, but there are many people still using IE, and it would be easier to write websites if every single bit of JS or CSS didn't have to have a workaround for it. If IE8 brings us one step closer to that dream, then I welcome it with open arms! Even if I'm not ever going to use it.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[morgan_greywolf]

You want MS to provide a linux version so that you can either state your intent to never install it, or so that you can sh*t on it? I'm sure they'll get right on that...

No need to wait for MS to do that. I'm sure this will be in ies4linux eventually, thanks to Sérgio. Want it sooner? Donate time or money to either ies4linux or to Wine. Or both.

I have to agree with the Post above me

[Erie Ed]

and brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for

You say that like it is a bad thing. I prefer the use of extensions for my browser, instead of the bloatware that tends to happen. What if I don't care about privacy? I don't need that installed then. I like that I can choose the features I want, instead of having everything thrown in there.

Also, extensions have a great benefit with regards to updates. they can be updated at any time, and therefore don't have to wait on a new browser update for tweaking things and adding functionality. They also allow me to leave an extension that I don't want to update as is while still being able to update the browser (and possibly its security).

This is not to say that Firefox is not getting large, or that microsoft is not trying to assist people who don't have the savvy to look for extensions. I'm just saying extensions have a lot of benefits, and can be a very important tool.

This is one of the very many reasons I love using firefox because if i want something i can get it, if i don't then i don't have to worry about it bogging down my system. I love firefox because of this and will continue to use firefox. Now when I'm at work we use IE exclusevly so I'm really hoping that IE8 brings more to the table.

Re:I have to agree with the Post above me

[cparker15]

You could always use Firefox Portable. Other than the fact that it's portable, I haven't noticed any difference between it and the full install.

Re:Crap...

[somersault]

And the thing is, he doesn't have any incentive to. If good reviews start coming back then maybe he will. But as far as Microsoft products are concerned, better to just leave them to rot and let others do the testing, rather than wasting time on what will still be a buggy product once it is released. Yes, I'm a little bitter. I don't let XP upgrade to IE 7. I don't like the interface and it still 'feels' wrong. Probably because as someone pointed out above, it is even slower than IE 6 (which I liked okay).

Pointless anecdote: the other day one of my users was having a problem accessing his shared drives, the machine was complaining about a lack of resources. He did have a few applications open, but nothing crazy, and the task manager claimed that he had plenty of free RAM. I scanned the apps that were open and suggested he tried closing IE as I know that IE and explorer probably use the same components. He closed it, and his shared drives were working again. I don't want to install software that is going to affect the underlying OS in such a fundamental way, especially if it's only in beta.

Besides, the new features are not worth it for me - I get better functionality out of Firefox 3 with a couple of plugins. I agree that we need to keep competition in areas where we want products to improve, but I've given up on MS products for now. I'm not going to help them with their testing until they make a better effort with their internal testing. Handing out wristbands isn't much of an incentive.

Thoughts

[Max Romantschuk]

New versions of IE is a Good Thing... Competition is good with something like browsers.

For the average Joe having features which normally require extensions just be there is probably a good thing. Perhaps Firefox should have the option to enabling a set of officially sanctioned extensions while installing? Bloating is not the solution, but checking the "enable feature X" checkbox beats searching for the actually good ones...

Private browsing is a two-sided thing. It's a good feature, but sort of pointless if you actually want to store bookmarks of things like your favorite naughty sites... I run two Firefox profiles personally. Unfortunately it's a bit difficult to set up, but I get the best of both worlds.

Re:Thoughts

[Chapter80]

Many will disagree, but I feel the solution to this is to have "distributions", much like the distros of Linux.

Imagine being able to download from the official Firefox site such distributions as:

• Firefox Standard
• Firefox Lite
• Firefox for developers
• Firefox with Taco's favorite extensions
• Firefox for teens
• etc.

Re:Thoughts

[dubz]

Bloating is not the solution, but checking the "enable feature X" checkbox beats searching for the actually good ones...

I believe all they need to do for that is to have a list of say the top 10 most popular extensions listed in the Get Add-Ons Tab (Tools > Add-ons), instead of a list of random recommended extensions.

Re:Thoughts

[nevurthls]

firefox lite, aka K-meleon exists, thank you very much

Re:Thoughts

[smartr]

One could do this without merging the plugins as part of the core browser. I'd compare Firefox 3 plugin system to Netbeans 6 as being functionally and cosmetically identical. Netbeans 6 does have different distributions, but they're all actually the same Netbeans just with different plugins and bundled software... It certainly would make life nicer for administrators, and I fail to see why people would disagree if it was done correctly...

Re:Thoughts

[Fallingcow]

As I posted higher up, some kind of scripted "extension pack" installers would be nice, especially if they were easy to make/customize.

They already auto-update extensions, so this is probably doable. Even if it were an extension itself, this would be nice; install FF->install extension->browse to site where I've store the script->click link->hit OK

Re:Thoughts

[Rossjman1]

That would be a great way to overwhelm the average user. Even more so than the 6 editions of Vista.

Re:I tested it

[MyLongNickName]

Why? Did you find a gaping security hole?

Crash recovery...

[HappySmileMan]

Sounds like a great feature, I can't try IE8 since I'm on Linux, but from the descriptions I've read of it, it seems like they're doing something right this time instead of just jacking up the release number.

I can't believe I'm actually sitting here hoping that Firefox will copy a feature from IE. Good game, Microsoft.

Re:Crash recovery...

[hellwig]

Implementing a feature Opera has had for years, now that's what I call innovation.

I'll be pleased with IE crash recovery if IE crashing doesn't bring down Exporer with it. If my window manager still has to restart just because my internet browser crashes, then MS can keep IE8. Does anyone know if IE is getting more and less tied-up into the windows kernel? I would hope with Vista's kernel security IE8 is nearly a stand-alone product now days.

Re:Crash recovery...

[Dude McDude]

Implementing a feature Opera has had for years, now that's what I call innovation.

Opera doesn't recover tabs. If a webpage crashes it takes Opera down with it. IE8's crash handling gracefully closes/reopens the offending tab without having to close the browser.

Re:Crash recovery...

[learningtree]

Firefox already has crash recovery feature, albeit through an addon.

You can use the "Session Manager" addon in Firefox.
It save and restores all the browser windows, either when you exit or when the browser crashes.

Here is the link to it.

Re:Crash recovery...

[Tim C]

I would hope with Vista's kernel security IE8 is nearly a stand-alone product now days.

IE7 was a standalone product. Lots of other apps use mshtml.dll (the standard Windows HTML rendering engine, as used by IE) but that does not mean that IE is any less standalone. Since at least IE7 if you type an http:/// URL in the address bar in Windows Explorer, an IE process is spawned to handle it instead of WE handling it itself.

Besides that, IE was never integrated into the kernel. It was integrated into Explorer, which provides the desktop environment, but that is most certainly not the same thing. I'm all for bashing MS, but let's keep it to things they've actually done.

Re:Crash recovery...

[hellwig]

Can I remove IE8 without reverting to IE7 on Vista or IE6 on XP? If not, than IE is still tied to the OS (not the kernel, sorry), and the problem isn't solved. I just remember upgrading to IE7, and when I uninstalled it, it went back to IE6.

Re:Crash recovery...

[LiquidFire_HK]

You don't need an add-on, Firefox has that feature built-in.

However, that's not the same as the feature talked about here - which is that if something in a webpage causes the browser to crash, it won't - the tab will simply close and reopen. Which is faster than a complete reload of the browser.

Re:Crash recovery...

[Blakey Rat]

Implementing a feature Opera has had for years, now that's what I call innovation.

Opera doesn't have that feature; if Flash plug-in kills an Opera tab, the whole browser dies. If Flash kills an IE8 tab, only that tab dies and IE8 will re-create it automatically. Your other tabs are completely unaffected. Apples -> oranges.

I'll be pleased with IE crash recovery if IE crashing doesn't bring down Exporer with it.

It doesn't now; maybe you should upgrade off of IE5?

If my window manager still has to restart just because my internet browser crashes, then MS can keep IE8.

It doesn't for IE8. It also doesn't for IE7 and IE6. Seriously, could you possible be more out-of-date?

Does anyone know if IE is getting more and less tied-up into the windows kernel?

IE was never "tied-up into the Windows kernel", it was "tied-up with Windows Explorer." Not even close to the same thing. In any case, IE7 runs as a normal application, the same as any other. In Vista, it actually runs in a security sandbox as well, so if anything it has a lot less power to screw with your system than the average off-the-shelf program.

I would hope with Vista's kernel security IE8 is nearly a stand-alone product now days.

IE7 is, so I don't know why you think IE8 wouldn't be.

Oh yeah! Because you're a Slashdot shill who's dogging a product you've never even used, or probably even seen. Your last experience was with IE5, so you're just stretching to find random reasons to hate Microsoft. You could save a lot of time and typing by just writing "[Ignorant Anti-Microsoft Rant]" next time.

Re:Crash recovery...

[Blakey Rat]

Well, Microsoft has the same problem as everybody else. If they don't force upgrades, they get dragged over the coals for being insecure. If they do force upgrades, people complain that they can't just uninstall it and go back to the old version. Firefox is going through the exact same problem with the transition from FF2 to FF3.

My guess is that they'll do the same thing with IE8 that they did with IE7, that is, if you're an early adopter you'll get the chance to downgrade, but sooner or later it'll get marked a mandatory update and then it's either stop doing OS updates or stop using IE (if you really hate it that much.)

You also have to remember that the HTML renderer DLL is used by thousands of other applications, so there's really no practical way to "uninstall" it. (OS X and presumably Linux is the same way; you can "uninstall" Safari easily, but you can't remove OS X's HTML library because too many other applications rely on it.) Again, you have to be fair in your criticism; these are hard problems that *all* OSes face, not just Microsoft.

Re:Crash recovery...

[Ash-Fox]

Implementing a feature Opera has had for years, now that's what I call innovation.

It's never worked for me. Whenever Opera has crashed, more than the tab that caused the crash, crashed - the entire browser crashed.

Re:Crash recovery...

[cbhacking]

Yeah, this was my first really impressive thing I saw with IE8, aside from passing Acid2. First, individual tabs can crash without bringing down the whole browser (something Firefox would do REALLY well to copy). Second, if (or, in the case of beta1, WHEN) the browser did entirely crash, it re-loaded instantly with all tabs. If one of the tabs caused it to crash again immediately (which I found one site that would cause this) it would try one more time, and on the third recovery would not load the offending page with a message stating that the page in that tab was causing the browser to crash and has not been reloaded for that reason. Very well implemented, and the whole process doesn't take very long at all.

Re:Crash recovery...

[magus_melchior]

We might want to trawl through the USPTO pending patent database for that feature. Not that software patents are at all wise, of course, but we don't want to give Microsoft's legal department ammunition.

Re:Crash recovery...

[shutdown -p now]

Apparently, people are still missing the point. This "recovery" feature in IE8 is not at all like the present Firefox and Opera solutions which restore your session after restart. Instead, IE8 runs every tab in a separate process (downloading, rendering, scripting - all of it), so if something goes wrong in one tab to the point of crash, it will only crash that tab, leaving others working.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[tomandlu]

Curious - the reply has an earlier timestamp than the parent.

Re:Secure browsing is on a lot of browsers nowaday

[bestinshow]

Apparently the IE private mode has that, and in addition tries to intercept cross-site tracking via third parties (the single-pixel trick, amongst others).

It won't stop things that happen off of the clients computer - ISP logs, server-side-implemented cross-site tracking, etc.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Gavagai80]

Lots of linux users would like to have IE, because we need to test websites in it. I have the wine versions of IE6 and IE7, but they're extremely slow and mostly broken, so a version from Microsoft would be great. And if it turned out to be the better browser, of course, I'd use it regularly.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Gavagai80]

For generously forgiving values of "runs" (wine) or curious definitions of what it means to run on an OS (virtual machines).

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[amnezick]

not over here

maybe you're experiencing some quantum communications side effects

Intruder

[Bromskloss]

at work (MS)

AHA! Get him, guys!

Re:Intruder

[Bromskloss]

at work (MS)

AHA! Get him, guys!

Oh, that goes well with my sig... But there are limits!

Reboot

[QuietLagoon]

Do you still have to reboot after installing the IE8 application?

Re:Reboot

[Dude McDude]

I was prompted to reboot once it was installed.

Re:Reboot

[QuietLagoon]

I was prompted to reboot once it was installed.
.

Then IE8 is still too deeply in bed with the underlying OS, requiring extraordinary security mesaures in order to remain secure.

There is no reason why a browser application should require a reboot of the OS.

Re:Reboot

[wbo]

I believe the problem is not that IE8 is embedded into the underlying OS, instead the reason for the reboot is probably so the IE common browser controls can be updated. Many applications use these controls because it is easier than developing your own HTML rendering engine from scratch. A reboot ensures that these controls can be updated without crashing any applications that may be currently using them. This also avoids the problem of replacing files that are currently in use under Windows.

Re:Reboot

[phayes]

The IE8 is still to deeply embedded into the base OS. The architecture should be such that the installer would show a list of the running apps that use these "common browser controls", wait for them to be closed, then proceed once no running applications are using them. As GP said, if you need to reboot just to upgrade the browser then there is something wrong with the architecture.

Re:Reboot

[QuietLagoon]

I believe the problem is not that IE8 is embedded into the underlying OS, instead the reason for the reboot is probably so the IE common browser controls can be updated. Many applications use these controls because it is easier than developing your own HTML rendering engine from scratch.
.

OK, so if what you are saying is correct then, when I update the IE application in Windows, that update loads up files that can make other applications fail if those files are buggy. Good thing, then, that Microsoft doesn't write buggy, insecure code.

What a wonderful architecture Windows is.

Honestly...

[Miladinoski]

It looks good it has really nice features, too bad I can't try it because of my chosen platform 'cause I really want to see all the features it offers (and no it comes in no consideration to install a whole OS just to try a browser).
I think Microsoft should at least consider offering IE on other platforms than Windows or maybe support IEs4Linux or Wine with devs or by donations (which is hardly to believe to happen). Microsoft will only have good props from doing that by enabling web-devs to test in other browsers without having to install yet another software to install yet another software.

InPrivate

[wilsonthecat]

They should just rename the InPrivate feature to "ImBrowsingPorn" although that's probably not as marketing friendly.

i disagree.

[nimbius]

when i see "automatic crash recovery" i cant help but think "perpetual browser spawn."

or worse, automatic crash recovery is another vector for cache clearing and exploit. what happens if i know your browser can be forced to load my page twice?

I dont mean to sound trollish, but knowing microsoft we're just keeping up with the joneses (namely Firefox 3.) if we really wanted to improve things, we wouldnt make the browser nearly inextricably integrated with the operating system. Its a marketing decision that microsoft will pay the price for over and over.

Re:The question remains....

[spoilsportmotors]

Or for that matter 5.5. The answer - from a webdevs point of view - is practically never, which is really unfortunate.

Re:Crap...

[daveime]

So not like Firefox 2 then, which has upgraded itself no less than 16 times on my PC here ? Firefox pushes out beta stuff too, then try to cover it with automatic patches. But they're OSS, so that makes it okay ...

Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds...

[Assmasher]

...later that the link option "Open in New Window" doesn't appear to function anymore. Well done Microsoft.

but IE7 is doing just fine on privacy

[amnezick]

I'm on vista (game addiction .. but I can quit anytime I want) and I use firefox (minefield actually) but when going "wiiild" and don't want "youporn" to pop up when my IE-fan girlfriend wants to actually type "youtube" I use "Tools"->"Delete browsing history" ... and there you go: browsing history gone.

Is Microsoft trying to hurt Google?

[startling]

Is Microsoft going to leverage this new InPorn mode so that Doubleclick and Google's effectiveness is hit?

Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate

[Jumperalex]

What I'm really curious to see, and I can only assume it will be there, is if they also include the ability to LOCK-OUT the InPrivate feature. Many corporate (and especially government) IT/legal departments excplicitly WANT your browsing to be tracked. Sure I can go in and delete stuff manually (except when I am not given permissions to access that folder ... which I'm not) but right now all of our standard desktop configurations prevent you from clicking the "clear private data" button.

So not only are the advertisers (as I've read elsewhere) possibly not going to like this feature, but many corp/gov types won't install it until/unless they can excplicitly prevent its use.

Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate

[Hanners1979]

I'd fully expect all of that those kind of settings to be available via Group Policy, you've been able to configure most of IE's major settings across your network that way for some time now.

Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate

[Jellybob]

Any IT department that *really* wants your browsing history is going to route any traffic on port 80 through a proxy, so they can get reports on what you've been doing from one central location, instead of having to trawl through every user's history. The InPrivate feature isn't going to stop that being possible, so IT departments are fine.

Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate

[hab136]

many corp/gov types won't install it until/unless they can excplicitly prevent its use.

They don't have to do anything to the desktop - they can just look at their proxy/firewall/router logs. Your choice of browser does nothing to stop corporate tracking/filtering.

Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate

[Software]

If they want to track your browsing, they'll install a proxy server on the network, and force all traffic through that. Any IT department that depends on disabling the Clear Private Data button is asking for trouble. Disabling the button can be done in conjunction with the proxy server, of course.

Beta download site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/worldwide-sites.aspx

Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate

[Blakey Rat]

One of the reasons IE is used/required by large companies is because virtually everything in it is configurable via Group Policy. I'd be extremely surprised if this InPrivate feature isn't.

If Firefox did more integration with Windows, it would be able to garner a lot more users in the corporate market.

Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate

[waded]

Regardless of whether disabling InPrivate is the best way to ensure you can track browsing within an organization, yes, InPrivate can be "configured and controlled via Group Policy." (It is confirmed by the IE8 team in the comments on the blog entry announcing the feature http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/08/25/ie8-and-privacy.aspx)

Re:Lots of IT/Legal Depts. won't like InPrivate

[atraintocry]

Absolutely.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

You want MS to provide a linux version so that you can either state your intent to never install it, or so that you can sh*t on it? I'm sure they'll get right on that...

That's short sighted.

I would try IE8 if it ran on my platform of choice, which happens to be Kubuntu. If IE won't run on it, I won't try it. IE8 might be the best browser since Amaya, but if it won't run on my system, I won't try it.

Not all Linux users hate Microsoft or are FOSS zealots. Most of us just love Linux. We are open to trying MS products, and when MS creates a better product than Linux||Firefox then we will use it. I only wish that MS Office 2007 would run on Linux, I would pay for it and use it in a heartbeat. But I am not about to use MS's bloated, insecure operating system to get it.

Automatic crash recovery sounds interesting

[hcdejong]

but does it also prevent tabs from hogging resources (e.g. in Firefox, where an applet loading in one tab can lock the entire application).

Re:Automatic crash recovery sounds interesting

[blueZ3]

Yep, that's my one beef with FF.

I use FF for basic browsing (without many extensions) and I mostly think it's great. Rarely crashes, renders most sites fine, etc.

But I really, really don't like the apparently single-threadedness. Each tab should be its own thread, IMO, so that when one tab is busy with some random java applet, the others are still getting enough CPU slices to actually be usable.

Another time you get this behavior is when you open multiple tabs one right after the other. The tab you are viewing slows to a crawl while content is loaded in the other tabs.

I'm not saying this is better in Opera/IE/Safari/Lynx, but I'd really like to see this fixed.

Re:Automatic crash recovery sounds interesting

[cbhacking]

Actually, that was one of the things that drove me back to IE - it really is better at keeping each tab alive without making the current tab unusable. I'm not sure if it does some funky stuff with thread priorities or whatnot, but I can (and have) run down the Slashdot main page, middle-clickign every link that looks vaguely interesting, and ended up with 14 tabs loading in the background (and with D2, IE7 loads Slashdot articles quite slowly - though it's fast with IE8 beta 2). The main tab remains responsive, and I can watch as up to two tabs at a time (on my dual-core machine) finish loading along the tab bar. If I switch to a not-yet-loaded tab, it will come up as quickly as if I had clicked the link on the main page and opened it in the same tab.

Re:Automatic crash recovery sounds interesting

[shutdown -p now]

But I really, really don't like the apparently single-threadedness. Each tab should be its own thread, IMO, so that when one tab is busy with some random java applet, the others are still getting enough CPU slices to actually be usable.

One of the major new features in IE8 (at least as far as MS is concerned) is that every tab is in a separate process (not just thread). The most obvious benefit is what they call "crash recovery" - because a crash in one tab will only crash the process for that tab, and not for the others - but it should also solve the "locking plugin" problem, and, in theory, could add another layer of security (dunno if they actually did that though). Of course, this comes at the cost of higher resource usage - processes are more expensive than threads. But I guess the difference would be hard to spot on any modern PC.

By the way, while this process-per-tab mode is on by default, it can be disabled if desired.

Screencast of IE8 (beta1) vs Firefox 3

[ianOz]

A few days back I recorded a short screencast showing IE8 and FF3 in action: http://showmedo.com/videos/video?name=3150000&fromSeriesID=315

Topics covered include Firefox's improved security record, tabs and Awesome Bar (note that the screencast is biased to FF), IE's plugins and a friendly plea to users of IE6 to upgrade.

Help! I've been dellusioned for so long

[omuls are tasty]

It says

Download now All Systems and Languages"

So Ubuntu is not a system! And Serbian is not a language!

On topic, how is their ACID score coming along?

Re:Help! I've been dellusioned for so long

[nneonneo]

Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3. Between beta1 and beta2, they made a 3 point improvement.

ActiveX per user

[robmv]

MS do a few step forward and later, turn 180 degrees run and jump, now IE8 will allow user installable ActiveX, being a non administrator user will not stop bad code to install on your system. From the CNET review

ActiveX components will be installed per user, which eliminates the need for everyone to have administrator privileges

Hopefully they add a way to disable this, like Firefox has the "xpinstall.enabled" preference

Running multiple versions of IE

[Jason Levine]

Now if they would only give us some way of running multiple versions of IE side by side. There are still a lot of people using IE6, so I need to test sites against that. But I can't if I upgrade to IE7. And if I upgrade to IE8, I can't test against IE7 or IE6. We need a standalone version of IE6 for web developers to use for website testing. The time limited VM that they provide is a start, but I don't want to boot up an entire VM of Windows just to test one page.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[Dude McDude]

And if I upgrade to IE8, I can't test against IE7 or IE6.

You should be able to test against IE7 using IE8's compatibility mode

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[Jason Levine]

That still leaves out IE6. My company hasn't pushed out the IE7 upgrade yet (one of our third-party web apps doesn't work with IE7 yet), so most of our internal users are running IE6. Meanwhile, about half of our IE-using external website users have moved to IE7. I can't upgrade my PC to IE7 or I won't be able to test our internal pages with IE6, but I can't continue to run IE6 indefinitely since more and more external users are running IE7.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[Anonymous Coward]

You're looking for IE Tester.
It does pretty much what you describe, and even goes back to IE5.5.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[coryking]

VMWare is your friend. Yeah you gotta boot up the image first, but you can get a base image of windows installed and then take snapshot images of IE6, IE7, IE6 + XP SP2, etc. Once you are done for the day, you can roll the image back to the snapshot and in the morning boot into a virgin install of whatever OS/SP/Browser combo you choose.

And for that matter, I'd consider anybody insane to install a beta version of IE8 on anything *but* a virtual machine.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[dubz]

Umm. There are (hacked) stand-alone versions of IE5 and IE6 available. I've been using them for testing. I can't remember where I downloaded them from, but I'm sure Google knows.

As for IE7, I think Firefox's IE Tab extension can do that. Also, I'm not sure but I heard there's an option in IE8 to render using the IE7 engine?

I'm sure other posters can help with more (and useful) information.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[wastedlife]

Damn, beat me to it. The downside is that IE6's developer toolbar won't work with this. So you may still need a VM for IE 6 if you use that.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[lawndart]

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

Multiple IE works for me, as long as you aren't on Vista. I have all the IE versions back to 5 running.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[Afty0r]

You probably want something like MultipleIE:
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

I'm able to run IE 4.01, 5.01, 5.5, 6.0 and 7 all at the same time...

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[byron036]

I was looking for these VHD images this morning and could no longer find them. The hits I get from Microsoft's search results page are 404s. Do you happen to have a link?

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[eddy the lip]

Everyone's posting this, but you've got the current high-score ;) I've used Multiple IE, and it mostly works, but I've run into a few issues. One is the recent forced-upgrade to Vista, which Multiple IE doesn't run on (yet), so I can't use it on my main dev box. I still have an XP machine around, but I've come across some weird issues there as well. One has either something to do with cookies or forwarding, which makes even logging in to some online apps impossible. Testing against IE6 on a virtual image of XP there's no such problem. Cost me a morning of headaches yesterday, though, before I gave up trying to fix it and re-installed the image from MS (stupid time limited image.) I applaud TredoSoft for the effort, but those edge cases can be a bitch.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[Bogtha]

No, using IE8's compatibility mode means you are testing against IE8's compatibility mode. Sure, in theory it will behave identically to IE7, but testing is not a theoretical exercise, you need to know how IE7 actually behaves.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[shutdown -p now]

No, using IE8's compatibility mode means you are testing against IE8's compatibility mode. Sure, in theory it will behave identically to IE7, but testing is not a theoretical exercise, you need to know how IE7 actually behaves.

So true. In fact, IE7 compat mode in IE8 beta 1 broke SharePoint - it's one of the announced fixes in beta 2.

Re:Running multiple versions of IE

[Dude McDude]

I can't vouch for the following piece of software (it could be utter s**t), but when I when I read the description it reminded me of your post. http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Internet_Explorer_Collection/1217189605/1

Extensions = good, not bad

[fireman sam]

"and brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for"

That is why I like firefox. Because of the use of extensions I can have a browser that does what I want it to do, not what some marketing monkey wants a browser to do.

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[Ma8thew]

I think that's why they call it a beta.

Re:Is Microsoft trying to hurt Google? Yes

[walterbyrd]

Msie, apparently, has a firefox like drop-down box of search engines, and wikipedia, etc. But the msie drop-down menu does not include google. Ouuu what a burn! Also, if you highlight a street address, msie will take you to msft maps, not google maps.

Just one more reason to use firefox instead of msie. BTW: according to the same article, firefox installed base is up 6% to 19% while msie fell 6% to 73% of the installed base, or something like that.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/08/27/microsoft-google-browsers-cx_vmb_0827ie.html?feed=rss_technology

Okaaaaaaaaayy...

[ChrisMP1]

Now you can shop for that special gift with confidence knowing your family won't accidentally find out.

Yeah, that's what "InPrivate Browsing" is gonna be used for.

Re:Okaaaaaaaaayy...

[wastedlife]

Perhaps non-techie people really have this as a concern.
Obviously, this could be used for other purposes.
Really, though, blocking cookies would make online shopping difficult.
Not many online stores use sessions instead of cookies for things like a cart.

Re:Okaaaaaaaaayy...

[phayes]

Buying sex toys?

Because it has to be said...

[Digital End]

Opera > Firefox > IE

Though its nice to see a few people saying IE is getting closer.

My wife uses firefox... and I never quite undershood how any firefox user thinks it's normal that you'd have to get extentions to do so many simple tasks. Maybe I'm thinking of it the wrong way, but I know my browser does everything hers does, and I only have one addon... and that's for stumbleupon.

I love when firefox gets updated, and she says "Well we just got (x new feature)". And I can reply, "About time, I've been using that for a year now."

Re:Crap...

[somersault]

I didn't say I had a problem with Betas.

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[Dude McDude]

Right-click on link>Open in new window...? Works as intended for me.

Excellent!

[g0dsp33d]

In other news, a team of developers is rushing to co-release a beta version of a distributed computing mail server running on this platform.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[antimatter15]

Don't Firefox, Mozilla, Epiphany, and Galeon all use the Gecko rendering engine? What's the point if they all render the exact same? I understand that as a web developer, it would be useful to test on Opera, Safari, IE and Firefox, but not on the same rendering engine

Loop de loop?

[I cant believe its n]

If one or more of your tabs do crash, your tabs are automatically reloaded and you are returned to whatever page you were on before the crash.

Sounds like a loop to me, unless the crash happened due to random memory corruption in IE? I could be missing some common error that can happend to browsers so please correct me and I'll learn something.
---
When I made the switch to FF, initially I just prefered the look and feel of the browser. First thing I liked about it, was that the adress field was pre selected when you started it. In IE you had to use the mouse. This was just a small difference, but when you have loads of these little differences, where someone has really taken their time with the details researching what comes natural to the user, at least it was clear to me that FF was the way to go.

How about you?

Re:Loop de loop?

[coryking]

If one or more of your tabs do crash, your tabs are automatically reloaded and you are returned to whatever page you were on before the crash.

If they do crash recovery like the Office applications do, before loading up after the crash they'd probably pop up a dialog that says "Dear sir, your tab entitled 'Slashdot Horse Porn' has crashed, do you want me to try loading 'Slashdot Horse Porn' again?

I'll even take jab at Firefox and mention this is probably easier to do on IE7/8 because they run each tab in a separate thread.

Re:Loop de loop?

[I cant believe its n]

"Dear sir, your tab entitled 'Slashdot Horse Porn' has crashed, do you want me to try loading 'Slashdot Horse Porn' again?

I know the answer to that and like I said... A loop :-)

Re:Loop de loop?

[nneonneo]

It crashes again, then you press "no", thus breaking the loop. Most normal people wouldn't keep hitting "yes" if it causes their browser to continually present that dialog. (an xkcd comic involving lightning bolts and buttons comes to mind)

new features not in Firefox ..

[rs232]

"New features include .. automatic crash recovery .. and browser privacy, a feature that didn't make Firefox 3"

What's tools->clear private data .. 'Always clear my private data when I close Firefox'

and .. why does Firefox prompt me with:

Firefix - Restore Previous Session

Your last Firefox session closed unexpectedly. YOu can restore the tabs and windows from your previous sessions, or start a new session if you think the problem was related to a page you were viewing.

| Restore Session | | Start New Session |

Re:new features not in Firefox ..

[Churla]

First when it says "a feature" instead of "features" that means only the last one listed (browser privacy) didn't make it into FF3.

Browser Privacy is different from "clear private data when Firefox closes" in that apparently it protects you WHILE you are browsing. It also blocks out many tracking pixels (those 1x1 images which many companies use to track use).

I'm curious as to if that level of "private browsing" will make it into a full FF release as I believe Firefox's largest supporter (Google) wouldn't want it in. Can they use that leverage to stop it? and will they?

Re:new features not in Firefox ..

[Tim C]

If you had followed the link, you would see the following for crash recovery:

"If a website or add-on causes a tab to crash in Internet Explorer 8, only that tab is affected. The browser itself remains stable and other tabs remain unaffected"

That's not the same as Firefox's session recovery.

Re:new features not in Firefox ..

[et764]

Your last Firefox session closed unexpectedly. YOu can restore the tabs and windows from your previous sessions, or start a new session if you think the problem was related to a page you were viewing.

Ahh, you haven't actually seen IE8's automatic crash recovery feature then. Each of the tabs are isolated from each other, so if one tab crashes it doesn't take down the whole browser. The tab just goes away and then pops back up with a message saying IE recovered the tab. It's definitely not the same thing as "Restore Previous Session."

Re: new features not in Firefox ..

[rs232]

'Browser Privacy is different from "clear private data when Firefox closes" in that apparently it protects you WHILE you are browsing'

Appariently the protection consists of a white/black of selected sites that the browser deems unsafe. Do these subscription feeds require a fee.

"Depending on your web browsing activity and sites visited, the amount of time it can take before such content is automatically blocked can vary widely. However, at any time, you can customize which third-party content is blocked or allowed though subscribing to InPrivate allow and block feeds"

privoxy noscript FoxTor ..

"I'm curious as to if that level of "private browsing" will make it into a full FF release as I believe Firefox's largest supporter (Google) wouldn't want it in. Can they use that leverage to stop it? and will they?"

I wonder will "private browsing" work with Hotmail, or will their be exceptions burried within the app. Besides, it's irrelevent as I have full control over my computer, not Mozilla or Google .. or Microsoft :)

Re:new features not in Firefox ..

[Blakey Rat]

Welcome uninformed poster! You may want to spend a few minutes using IE8 before making claims about it, otherwise you'll look like a total tool when all your points are proven wrong!

What's tools->clear private data .. 'Always clear my private data when I close Firefox'

InPrivate can be turned on and off during a session; while it's on, your history/"private data" isn't logged, but in addition IE will also block tracking pixels. The IE8 feature is more equivalent to the "private browsing" feature in Safari, which can also be turned on/off at will, but Safari won't block tracking pixels.

The Firefox feature you mention is really nothing like it. And in any case, IE7 already has "always clear private data". (Although it's kind of a pain to use, hidden away in the "privacy" tab.)

and .. why does Firefox prompt me with:

Firefix - Restore Previous Session

Your last Firefox session closed unexpectedly. YOu can restore the tabs and windows from your previous sessions, or start a new session if you think the problem was related to a page you were viewing.

Because IE can do it PER-TAB. If Flash (for example) crashes an IE tab, IE can restart browsing on that tab without affecting the other tabs of your browser. Firefox can't do this.

I'm not saying that IE8 is going to be the best thing ever and angels will descend from the heavens to crown it in gold, I'm just saying that before you start criticizing the article, you might want to spend a few minutes determining whether you're full of crap or not.

Re:new features not in Firefox ..

[anaesthetica]

I think this is one of the most exciting features, on a purely geeky level. I can't profess to know how Microsoft engineered this, but it reminds me of the move that operating systems made to protected memory. We used to have to deal with situations in which one application's crash would take down the entire operating system and all other applications with it (Mac OS 9, I'm looking at you).

Now that the web browser metaphor has changed from "windows reading static documents" to "tabbed window with multiple web applications," the similarity to an operating system has become much clearer. A crash in one tab (application) can take down the entire browser (operating system). IE8 seems to be moving toward a protected memory model, which is a major step forward in rethinking how the browser's handling of web pages (i.e. web applications) is engineered.

I'm a Mac user and Firefox user, but I have to give credit where credit is due and say that, on the technical side of things, Microsoft is the one pushing the envelope on this score and getting the geeky things right.

Re:new features not in Firefox ..

[et764]

I can't profess to know how Microsoft engineered this

Here's a blog post from the IE team that describes how the feature works, if you're interested in more. Basically, it creates a couple different processes, which are all separate from the main UI frame. This means one process can crash, bringing down all the tabs in that process, but the rest are unaffected.

I agree, I think it's a pretty exciting feature. It almost makes crashing your browser an enjoyable experience. (I managed to crash a tab when I installed the Adobe SVG plugin to see if I could get another point or two on the Acid3 test).

One negative side effect of this is that there is some overhead in creating new processes. This will probably lead to Slashdot complaining about how much memory IE uses and how bloated it is, but personally, I find the reliability gains worth it. Another positive side effect though is that it isolates the Javascript interpreters from each other, which keeps one misbehaving page from locking up the whole browser.

Re: new features not in Firefox ..

[Your.Master]

No, they are simple RSS regex subscriptions. I think some people are getting confused by the word "subscription". It's like the programming version of subscription, not the magazine-purchasing version.

Re:new features not in Firefox ..

[cbhacking]

First, does the "always clear my private data" feature allow it to, for example, NOT clear my Slashdot cookie? IE8's InPrivate clears THAT SESSION'S data, not just every temporary file the browser has.

Second, does it allow you to open multiple browser windows, one that is private and will be erased, and another that is normal? I typically have a browser session open for days if not weeks, and given that Firefox doesn't actually *end* until the very last Firefox window is closed, I rather doubt you'd be able to "privatize" one session without being forced to close the other as well.

As for the session restore, IE8 reloads automatically and instantly if it crashes (there's a separate process running that detects if the browser process dies), and if there's a specific page in the browser that is making it crash, it will attempt a few times to reload, and on the third try will stop attempting to load the offending tab (with a message explaining the problem).

Re:new features not in Firefox ..

[Tubal-Cain]

It also blocks out many tracking pixels (those 1x1 images which many companies use to track use).

I could be wrong, but doesn't FF's "Block third party cookies" option do just this?

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[Digero]

Congratulations, you found a bug in beta software.

I soooo want to try this out...

[edmicman]

...but a newly inherited website (thank you, mergers!) *barely* works on IE7.....they recommend IE6 for everything (oh, and it uses client-side vbscript so its navigation doesn't work in anything but IE). Maybe I'll try a virtual machine or something.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[tyler.lee]

Once IE8 has an official release, I wouldn't think it would be to long before there is an IE8 tab plug-in.

Re: your wifes browser .. :)

[rs232]

"I never quite undershood how any firefox user thinks it's normal that you'd have to get extentions to do so many simple tasks .."

Yea, selecting 'Tools->add-ons->Get Extensions' is so much more complicated .. :)

'I love when firefox gets updated, and she says "Well we just got (x new feature)". And I can reply, "About time, I've been using that for a year now."'

What 'features' are you refering to that have been around now for a year, apart from 'automatic crash recovery' and 'browser privacy' ?

Personally, I never needed to discuss browser 'features' across the breakfast table . .:)

So what?

[Viol8]

The number of hindi speakers is probably 4 times that.

They don't release to the largest markets but the most useful ones for testing.

Besides , lets be honest - the spanish speaking world isn't exactly renowned for its cutting edge expanding IT industry.

Re:So what?

[MagusSlurpy]

Que?

Re:So what?

[jrumney]

The number of hindi speakers is probably 4 times that.

It's about 1.1 times that actually, there's almost the same gap between Hindi and Spanish as there is between native Spanish and English speakers. Mandarin on the other hand has almost as many speakers as those three combined.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't mind parent post, he's from Barcelona.

Re:So what?

[dordoka]

Spaniard here... your latest statement doesnt add a lot to your reasoning, I agree with the second one though.

Re:So what?

[Viol8]

Given the population of India is over a billion and Hindi is the national language you're well out. Almost all indians speak it as a 2nd language.

Re:So what?

[trdrstv]

Given the population of India is over a billion and Hindi is the national language you're well out. Almost all indians speak it as a 2nd language.

Hindi is one of 2 National languages. English is the other.

Re:So what?

[Warll]

Um, no: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India#Official_languages

Re:So what?

[jrumney]

Hindi is not the national language, it is a national language, one of several including English. And considering that around a third of India's population is illiterate, second languages are not as widely spoken as you would think.

Re:So what?

[Taxman415a]

It depends on how you count them of course. If mutual intelligibility were the only criteria Hindi's numbers would be much higher, up to about twice the number of native English and Spanish speakers. Numbers are hard to come by but you'd include lots of speakers of what are considered separate languages like Panjabi but where mutual intelligability is very high. They are considered separate languages for historical and literature related reasons. Chinese languages are the opposite. In many areas they are considered the same language for cultural homogineity reasons but they are mutually unintelligible.

Re:So what?

[trdrstv]

India is home to two major linguistic families: Indo-Aryan (spoken by about 74% of the population) and Dravidian (spoken by about 24%). Other languages spoken in India come from the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman linguistic families. Hindi, with the largest number of speakers,[100] is the official language of the union.[101] English, which is extensively used in business and administration, has the status of a 'subsidiary official language.'[6] The constitution also recognises in particular 21 other languages that are either abundantly spoken or have classical status. The number of dialects in India is as high as 1,652.[102]

India Demographics

Re:So what?

[Warll]

From my first link: `India does not have the concept of a single "national language".

Re:So what?

[Viol8]

Umm , literacy is reading. Whats that got to do with speaking?

Re:So what?

[jrumney]

Someone who is illiterate is likely to be uneducated in general. Only 10 of India's 23 states use Hindi as an official language, even fewer use it for everyday communication, so there is little opportunity for the uneducated to pick it up.

Re:So what?

[jonadab]

> Given the population of India is over a billion and Hindi is the national language

It's one of a dozen or so national languages. (India is a complicated place, both linguistically and politically.)

> Almost all indians speak it as a 2nd language.

It would be more accurate to say that almost everyone who speaks Hindi speaks it as a second or third language. India is linguistically like rural sub-Saharan Africa, in that nearly everyone's first language is an obscure local dialect, so then many of them have to learn a "major language" (such as Hindi or Tamil or one of the others) in order to be able to talk to people from a few miles away.

Hindi is probably the single most widely spoken language in India (the only other possible contender being English), but more than a fifth of the population (mostly in the southern part) speaks Dravidian languages, and Hindi is only one of several Sanskrit-derived languages (spoken in the northern part of the country), and not everyone speaks a major language at all -- there are many people who just speak the local dialects.

Re:So what?

[Viol8]

Bollywood mate.

Re:So what?

[jrumney]

Kollywood mate.

Re: applet crashes Firefox ..

[rs232]

"in Firefox, where an applet loading in one tab can lock the entire application"

Interesting, is this reported on the Bugzilla site ?

Just guessing, but...

[AnomaliesAndrew]

A large portion of Spanish speakers (e.g. Latin America) live in extreme poverty, so I doubt they'll all be downloading IE8 Beta anytime soon.

What should be compared is how many German speakers with internet access and their own PC vs. how many Spanish speakers with internet access and their own PC.

Re:Just guessing, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

A large portion of Spanish speakers (e.g. Latin America) live in extreme poverty, so I doubt they'll all be downloading IE8 Beta anytime soon.

But, it's free!

Re:Just guessing, but...

[mcrbids]

A large portion of Spanish speakers (e.g. Latin America) live in extreme poverty, so I doubt they'll all be downloading IE8 Beta anytime soon.

Of course they will! IT'S FREE.

Love it.

[BlueBoxSW.com]

Hit the nail on the head.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Tim C]

I thought that IEtab used the native MSHTML.dll, and thus would still require IE (and presumably Windows)

Opera's standard functionality ..

[rs232]

"I don't have to time to try to hunt down all the extensions to replicate Opera's standard functionality"

What functionality would that be, and why don't you just click on Tools->Add-ons->Get Extensions ?

Re:Opera's standard functionality ..

[mdwh2]

What functionality would that be

It used to be the case that Firefox lost all its tabs everytime you restarted the browser, unless you installed an extension to fix it - I don't know if that's in there as standard now (it should be, in my opinion, as this behaviour is the whole point of having tabs; without it, it's just a browser with several windows).

and why don't you just click on Tools->Add-ons->Get Extensions ?

I covered this in my post. It's not just "click on this", it's search and find all the extensions that you hope replicate the functionality that's standard in other browsers. And explain that to your random non-geek friend, when it'd be much easier to say "Install this".

I'll Stick With Firefox 3

[nickwaits]

Upgrading from IE7 to IE8 is going to be like polishing a turd. I run Firefox 3 with two plugins: Noscript IE Tab Oh yeah and Woot Watcher.

Re:I'll Stick With Firefox 3

[Ash-Fox]

I run Firefox 3 with two plugins

Those are not plugins.

Firefox vs IE

[ilovesymbian]

Since Firefox came out, I've never gone back. I recently tried IE7 and it was crappy. IE8 beta is also not that great or fast compared to Firefox. I'm sticking with Firefox.

MS wouldn't have gone all this way without pressure from open-source. Its upto you to make a choice.

Re:Firefox vs IE

[Ash-Fox]

Its upto you to make a choice.

Dumb blonde verses rich and powerful guy.

I choose the guy.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Saint Gerbil]

While I do see your point you don't represent a sizeable enough market of linux users, probally 1 in 100 ?

Have they closed down ActiveX?

[argent]

The only thing worth asking is this: is the plugin model still based on ActiveX and "security zones".

If so, IE is still not acceptable for use with any site that is not completely trusted.

Dear Mods: It's spelled "Funny" :)

[Penguinisto]

The Stealther extension for Firefox already does the privacy thing, and has done so for longer than IE 8.

(Speakin' of which, I wonder if the old Anonym.OS live cd is still useable...)

/P
 

Re:Dear Mods: It's spelled "Funny" :)

[SanityInAnarchy]

The point of Firefox, from the beginning, was to split this kind of functionality off into extensions, so that users can pick and choose what features they need, without being forced to accept bloat.

(Yes, ironically Firefox was an attempt to make a browser-only, bloat-free version of Mozilla. People sometimes talk, now, of doing the same to Firefox...)

Given that, I would call this:

brings a lot to the table that Firefox requires extensions for.

That's Firefox's strength, not a weakness.

Re:Dear Mods: It's spelled "Funny" :)

[atraintocry]

Amen, brother. Every time some "great" new feature makes its way in, I do some quiet mumbling about how I'd rather have this in an extension, so I don't have to install it. It's inevitable that as FF gains marketshare they're going to expand the feature-set. Doesn't mean we can't gripe about it though.

Nice thing about standards compliance, even from Microsoft (maybe especially from Microsoft) is that it lowers the barrier to entry...I could at some point shift to a leaner browser and be confident that the rendering will be close.

Re:Dear Mods: It's spelled "Funny" :)

[shutdown -p now]

IE7+ also has a plugin ("add-on") system for extensibility.

Thing is though, most casual users don't know about plugins, and they don't care. They want stuff to "just work", with as little research and configuration done on their side as possible. MS has apparently decided that "private surfing" is something basic enough to be provided out of the box. I actually agree with this - having it as a prominent button in the UI helps convince people that privacy is imporant. I bet a similar integrated feature will appear in Firefox and Opera very soon now.

Re:Dear Mods: It's spelled "Funny" :)

[SanityInAnarchy]

Thing is though, most casual users don't know about plugins, and they don't care.

That's unlikely.

Most users who install Firefox inevitably learn about Adblock Plus, which is trivial to install. But it would be insane to suggest that Adblock Plus (with all the filtersets) should be included with Firefox.

I actually agree with this - having it as a prominent button in the UI helps convince people that privacy is imporant.

Well, at a price -- people use cookies for convenience, too.

I bet a similar integrated feature will appear in Firefox and Opera very soon now.

I hope not. I would almost certainly never use it. If I need privacy that badly, I'll use a livecd.

So please don't bloat my already-bloated "lightweight" browser with yet another feature I didn't ask for, and won't use.

FYI, about the update thing

[Abcd1234]

Which is rare, and whenever that happens and I launch Firefox, it prompts me if I want to update, which gets annoying

I'm not trying to convince you to use Firefox or anything (frankly, I couldn't care less what browser you use), but just FYI, you can turn update checking off (or, at least, Firefox claims you can)... Tools->Options->Advanced->Update, uncheck whatever you like (probably all of them).

Compatibilty Mode

[Saint Gerbil]

Oddly doesnt work on MS websites.

Where's the Beef?

[LifesABeach]

Like a little old lady once said starring at a travesty of a hamburger. I know we're talking Beta, but lets put IE8 up against FF, Opera, and Safari, on windows and Linux using a "Benjamin Franklin List". Does IE8 work with WINE? Will I see the Microsoft Marketing Department dancing around this camp fire? I guess next week I'll find out, when I test it myself. Lets consider standards, does IE8 use SVG 1.1? HTML 5.0? CSS 2.0? XML 2.0? XSLT 2.0? I don't want to hear an excuse; just Yes or No. As a software developer, turning features on and off is part of the software testing process; for IE8 features, can I test my software accordingly? And I am not referring to Bill Gates' definition of a "Feature". So far, the advertised new stuff from IE8 are NOT show stoppers; eh. If IE8 could say "Yes" to the above standards, then I will sit up an start listening to the Hype.

Now according to fox its the browser of Perverts

[h2okies]

"Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 to Include 'Porn Mode'" lovely...

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[FishWithAHammer]

Most of us just love Linux.

Like hell. There's a very common saying, and it's pretty damn true: "BSD users use BSD because they love Unix. Linux users use Linux because they hate Windows."

Go look at Ubuntu Forums or Linux Questions or any of the other community sites; it's a huge whack of Microsoft hate (often leading them to convince themselves that what they're using is better than it actually is, but hey, that's part of the open-source gig these days).

Do Work

[Fynd]

I'm primarily a Firefox user, and I've been using IE8 at work (MS) for the past few weeks.

I'll give the editor 5 bucks if they change that to "M$".

Hopefully

[Holi]

Hopefully they fixed FTP handling, which the broke horribly in IE 7.
I pretty much have to log in twice to get ftp to work in windows explorer.

Re:Hopefully

[shutdown -p now]

FTP always sucked big time in IE (and all other Web browsers, for that matter). A dedicated FTP client is still the way to go.

Dang

[LWATCDR]

When I first went to the download page it looked terrible. I thought they had written an IE only page! Then I fired up Opera and it looked fine.
Did a refresh on Firefox and it was fine!
I hate it when Microsoft doesn't give me a reason to crab about them!
Wait I just went to grab silverlight! Cool they don't support FF3 those bastards!!!!
Anyway it is worth trying out just to see how well it works.

Still not 100% complient with CSS2

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't get CSS generated content images right. That's four years old and all other modern browsers can do it. Bah.

Re:Still not 100% complient with CSS2

[Bogtha]

Actually, generated content is over a decade old.

Re:Still not 100% complient with CSS2

[shutdown -p now]

Actually, IE8 can do generated content. It can't handle this particular page you've linked to because it uses double-colon in CSS, i.e. "blockquote::before" and "blockquote::after". I'm actually not sure what it is supposed to mean, but if you save it and replace it with single colon, "blockquote:before" and "blockquote:after", then IE8 will render it fine (so long as it's in "compliant" mode - so you need a proper DOCTYPE declaration).

Can someone explain what is the difference between ":before" and "::before"?

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Ctrl-Z]

Wouldn't that only work if the version for Linux worked exactly the same as the version for Windows? Who is going to certify that?

Private browsing = covering pornography traces

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess IE8 is going to be the masturbator's choice for web browsing ... yes, I am posting this anonymously ... >.>

common tasks?

[msu320]

New features include accelerators, which provide instant context menu access for a number of common tasks; automatic crash recovery

its good to know what the common tasks are...

Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8..

[GuyverDH]

Installed it.

Kept google as search engine.
declined accelerators
declined web screening

turned off view of favorites, menu bar.

click favorite button that appears next to tabs, crash...

repeat the experiment...

uninstalled IE8 3 minutes after installing...

Re:Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8..

[Harold Halloway]

Yep, mine too. Just got all kind of API errors resulting in a trip to the Task Manager to get rid of it all. I know this is a beta but isn't it supposed to work a little bit?

Re:Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8..

[Anonymous Coward]

I had that problem too. Went into the Add-Ins manager and removed all three of the Google Toolbar addins -- that seemed to fix the problem.

Re:Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8..

[GuyverDH]

I never install any toolbar add-ins... so at least in my case, that's not the issue...

Re:Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8..

[pbhj]

It uninstalls? ... I thought MS usually tried to break uninstall to help you avoid the mistake of going back to older stuff that works better.

[/bitchy]

Seriously though I didn't look hard but I couldn't find the info in the install notes, etc., about whether it uninstalled, nor did it warn at any point that it would overwrite IE7. I was assuming that the current beta would be a standalone install that I could add to my multiple-IEs virtualbox machine.

Re:Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8..

[GuyverDH]

it writes over IE7, then when uninstalled, restores it.

Re:Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8..

[icsx]

Wait, they call them add-ins instead of add-ons? Talk about hilarity. "We cant use the add-on word! Mozilla created it!"

Re:Hmmm - clicking favorites crashes IE8..

[GuyverDH]

GAH!!!!

You caught me repeating what the poster used instead of using the correct term...

Where's the edit post feature (with onion skin ability to read what was edited)???

Re:Crap...

[SanityInAnarchy]

I don't let XP upgrade to IE 7. I don't like the interface and it still 'feels' wrong. Probably because as someone pointed out above, it is even slower than IE 6 (which I liked okay).

Which makes you part of the problem -- part of the reason I, as a web developer, have to ensure our website works on IE6.

IE7 is a lot of things -- among them, it's more standards-compliant.

I get better functionality out of Firefox 3 with a couple of plugins.

So do I -- which is why, on XP, I do upgrade IE, and then barely use it outside of a Firefox IETab.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[coryking]

Your post has a flaw.

What's the point if they all render the exact same?

if they all render the exact same?

render the exact same

Rule number one of web development is that no browser renders anything exactly the same. Not even the same version on the same platform.

Re:Does it have viewing options?

[coryking]

Sadly, no. They decided to create some proprietary "GUI" thing so "lusers" could click and drool with a mouse. But I agree, if Microsoft really wanted to embrace standards, they'd do well to ditch the whole GUI thing and go back to the command line. Once typing "win" at the dos prompt became "legacy", they really jumped the shark, didn't they?

And for that matter, RMS needs to really hound the firefox guys to support Info documentation, doesn't he? Maybe then he could finally get firefox to run inside emacs where it belongs.

Ouch

[coryking]

Buddy, I stopped caring about IE5.5 years ago and wish IE6 would finally die. If IE5.5 is still a target for whatever you are doing... I feel your pain and I'll buy you a shot of good iWhiskey.

the f word

[vajorie]

Give it a spin, submit feedback, and help keep all browser makers on their toes by facing each other's competition.

markets don't work like that

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[coryking]

BSD users use BSD because they love Unix.

Which is the best part of BSD. I love unix and I love windows. Nobody cares if I submit new freebsd ports and happen to use a text editor in windows to create the Makefile and Outlook to mail the attachment to the port maintainers :-)

If you tried that on Linux, you'd probably be flamed to a crisp.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[trogdor8667]

Personally, I'd kill for IE8 to come back to the Mac. My company's payroll/benefits website requires IE6 or IE7 to login. So, right now, I have to fire up VMWare or find a PC to check my pay stub. I'd prefer my company simply fix the site to work with Safari or Firefox or Opera or ANY browser, but I know thats unlikely to happen, and a Mac version is more likely.

Re:Crap...

[somersault]

I'm not part of your problem, because I've used Firefox for all my web browsing since before the IE7 beta was available ;) I now only use Windows in a virtual machine so that I can run Outlook and Delphi.

As I mentioned in the GP post, I've actually seen IE7 cause issues with the rest of Windows, which is yet another reason for me not to upgrade it. I sincerely hope Microsoft improve upon things with IE8, but I still haven't seen any good (in my opinion of course) Microsoft products outside of Windows Server, the Exchange/Outlook/DirectPUSH to Windows Mobile combo (though Windows Mobile itself is appalingly slow and glitchy looking), and Visual Studio.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Insanity Defense]

They used to provide a Unix version and a Mac version of IE. Why did they stop? If they did it once before why can't they do it again?

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[coryking]

Because if you are a web developer you need to test your sites on various browsers to check that they display properly.

And if you are a professional web developer who uses Linux (or Mac) for your platform, you will have purchased the proper tools. In this case, you'd own a copy of VMWare Workstation and run windows inside of it for testing.

Ideally, you should be able to just follow the web standards and be confident that there is no problem

Ideally there would be a reference implementation you could use. HTML has no such beast and even if you coded to "teh magic standards", it would look different across each browser. You call this a feature, I call it the biggest flaw in the whole damn web development universe. Despite the heated rhetoric of the semantic web peanut gallery, most web developers want their web applications to look and function the same no matter what the platform. Following the standards might ensure cross platform functionality, but it sure as hell doesn't ensure cross platform "lookability".

Curiously, an advantage of using Linux is that you can test various versions of IE at the same time, which you cannot do in Windows

Only if you are too cheap to purchase the right tools. Hell, you don't even need to purchase them... VMWare Server is free!

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[tyrax]

I just replied to your comment by opening the link in a new window. So, your wrong

Missing the Point

[nickswitzer]

I think everyone is missing a big thing here. Regardless of who is coming up with what features first (such as no one cares that FF had tabs first, just that now they both have it) but the fact that FF will probably figure out what features would be good to implement out of IE8, and most likely implement it faster being open source (or at least have an add-on). The fact that Microsoft takes forever, and that they do not have independent developers and freelance people able to tweak their code b/c they are not open source, they are always going to be behind. Unless they have features that are not released to the public in order to get a jump on Mozilla.

Download doesn't work

[voltheir]

How opportune. No matter which version of IE8 beta I try to download, I get a 404. (Or more accurately, a search page with no results). What gives?

Re:Download doesn't work

[Ash-Fox]

What is your ISP, out of curiosity?

We've always been at war with Eastasia

[blueZ3]

Linux does not exist. Serbian does not exist.

Or perhaps

Many sink down to the underworld, but few return to the sunlit lands?

I'll Wait

[DeanFox]

Thank you but I'll wait for FireFox's implementation of privacy browsing that won't store my history for the authorities to retrieve. If I'm not doing anything wrong they have no reason to watch me. If I am, I'm under no obligation to make it easier for them.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

Did you write to your IT department and tell them that?

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

Like hell. There's a very common saying, and it's pretty damn true: "BSD users use BSD because they love Unix. Linux users use Linux because they hate Windows."

Go look at Ubuntu Forums or Linux Questions or any of the other community sites; it's a huge whack of Microsoft hate (often leading them to convince themselves that what they're using is better than it actually is, but hey, that's part of the open-source gig these days).

I will admit that the MS refugees are a large, vocal part of the Linux community. You can usually identify them because they post "Linux suxorz because it doesn't worx like winders". But you will find the informative, knowledgeable posts on the forums you mention outnumber them by far, and those are from people who use Linux because Linux suits their needs best.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

While I do see your point you don't represent a sizeable enough market of linux users, probally 1 in 100 ?

Don't exaggerate. No less than 1 in 98, I'm sure.

Subject

[Legion303]

"that Firefox requires extensions for."

Firefox was designed as a lightweight browser that blah blah, fuck this, I'm not feeding the troll. Mark this down as redundant.

Question

[PPH]

Is the CDC aware of this?

Hmm...

[KingAlanI]

...The crash recovery feature in FF is one of the things I've loved about FF. Sure, M$ is behind the curve, but glad to see it in at all. It was mentioned that some of this stuff in FF requires extensions; that may be a good thing: It keeps the browser less bloated for those people who don't need the feature. Granted, for technophobes, or people in security-freak offices, etc., it's good to have the stuff built in

UI question

[93 Escort Wagon]

Did they move the menus - File, Edit, etc. - back to a sane location? Or perhaps they show up in the middle of the rendered page now?

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Afty0r]

You should be testing IE in the environment in which your site visitors will be running it - on Windows.

Testing Safari on Windows is very different to testing Safari on MacOSX - if your objective is to catch issues before the public would see them, you need to test browser Y on OS Z - not just browser Y on any old OS.

If Microsoft *did* release IE for Linux, that is ANOTHER browser/OS combination I would have to test for.

Restart after install?

[leprkhn]

why on earth should i have to restart my computer after installing a goddamn web browser? isn't that a bit much? i mean... how tied into my system IS this thing?

Re:Restart after install?

[phozz bare]

Far more than you can possibly imagine, my son.

Beta Release?

[failedlogic]

Beta Release ..... Final Version, what's the difference? This is Microsoft afterall! I have been a proud (but unregistered) Beta Tester for Microsoft for many, many, many years!

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[pizzach]

I only wish that MS Office 2007 would run on Linux, I would pay for it and use it in a heartbeat. But I am not about to use MS's bloated, insecure operating system to get it.

Lock in. PWND.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[trogdor8667]

I am in the IT department, but a different area. It's not something the web devs are overly concerned with.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Nick Ives]

Not even the same version on the same platform.

Wouldn't that be the same programme? So you're saying if you open it up n different times it'll render it n different ways??

Not always true

[Nick Ives]

I'd gladly pay MS £30 for a set of working Direct X libraries for Linux. That's about how much a Windows OEM license is; I just hate having to reboot for modern games!

I moved to Linux about 11yrs ago because I really hated Windows. I've been using Debian for 8yrs and now that I've spent (read:wasted :P) all that time getting it working exactly how I want it with all the apps I love I just can't bear to use Windows anymore. It's a pain!

Now that I've been using GNU/Linux for so long I've turned into a total True Believer so I'd never use MS (or Apple for that matter) apps / tools but I don't care about games being proprietary. I'd view it as akin to paying money for a console and I own several of those.

Re:Crap...

[phayes]

So, because I use applications that are not compatible with Microsoft's current non-standards compliant flavor of the week, I am part of the problem?

You have a seriously warped world view there SanityInAnarchy. The problem is that MS's deeply buggy IE6 was out there unmodified for so long that many applications came to depend on it's bugs to function, then when they finally update it, they do so in an incompatible once again non-compliant manner.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

Lock in. PWND.

MSO2007SP1 supports odf.

And while I do not dispute the validity of your statement, I would rather be locked into a superior product by file format than be locked into an inferior product by ideology. At least file formats can be reverse engineered.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

You sure seem concerned. Write to them, or at least talk to them if you are in their department.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[atraintocry]

Despite the heated rhetoric of the semantic web peanut gallery, most web developers want their web applications to look and function the same no matter what the platform.

They do, naturally, but trying to jam a square peg in a round hole usually takes a little time. The web was not initially designed to be an application platform, or to render like a piece of paper. How do you do italics on a screen reader? What use is a three-column layout on a pda or phone?

Also, consider how much more advanced a markup-based approach was than something like telnet.

Some people remember back when the goal was really semantics over strict presentation. Honestly, it was only a few years ago. But this system for platform-independent information sharing is struggling to keep pace with the cries of "I gots to have my flash".

You're right, things have changed, the web is much more powerful now, and in the end that's what really matters. But I think you're too hard on the academics. It's going to be an uphill battle as HTML and the associated technologies are updated to match what people want to use them for. Honestly, I think the more semantic HTML stays, the better. The code can stay in a script or on the server. The presentation can stay in the style sheet. That way, the information is still there...there's no reason in 2008 for a page to not degrade gracefully.

Re:Firefox3 on Windows is a piece of crap

[nneonneo]

I have used Firefox since it was called Phoenix and had a 0.x version number. Phoenix and Firebird were really great browsers, but they lacked support for a number of websites (can't blame them, it was beta). Firefox 1.5 was perhaps the best release prior to FF3, but GMail basically killed FF1.5 for me (it's funny, but GMail seems to be the app that is best at exposing JS implementation bugs!). FF2 was a train-wreck in terms of performance; it wasn't a bad browser, but it wasn't great, either. Safari and Opera thoroughly trounced FF2 for performance and stability. However, Mozilla got very serious about performance for FF3, and, for me, stability is 100% (I have had weeks of uptime with Firefox 3, with continual usage). I didn't even clear my profile for FF3; the profile I'm using was actually copied off my old computer and upgraded from 0.8 gradually up to version 3. I have to say that I am very pleased with what Mozilla has done, but again, Your Mileage May Vary.

Not the same.

[pavon]

This is not the same. First it allows you to configure settings for normal browsing and private browsing and switch between them easily. In Firefox there are about 7 different settings and two plugins that I change when I'm trying to cover my tracks, and it gets very cumbersome to do so manually. So much so that I usually just have two browsers installed - one configured for private browsing and one configured for normal browsing.

Secondly, the privacy features go beyond what Firefox(+plugins) and Safari can do. It doesn't depend on blacklists/whitelists but instead looks at the behavior of third-party content. If it notices that it is tracking you over more than a handful of sites it starts blocking that content.

And as other folks have pointed out, the crash recovery is per-tab.

My two biggest feature requests with Firefox have been the ability to thwart tracking without blocking all advertisements, and to not have the entire browser lockup when one tab is loading (FF3 seems better at this but it still happens). IE8 addresses both of those, and if I ran windows I would definitely be downloading the Beta right now to check it out.

Re:You forgot one

[Cryophallion]

The poster I was replying to said that Mozilla should think about bundling some of the more popular extensions.

I thought I'd look and see which of the top 10 most popular (according to the extension site) had an argument for addition.

My list was not meant to be exhaustive, just a test of whether the top ones had cases, hence the reason I did not list pencil. I was just testing the hypothesis, since it was an interesting concept.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[jonbryce]

Back in the days when ie mac was around, it probably wouldn't have worked on your payroll website anyway, as it didn't support vbscript or activex (and had better support for html4 than the windows version).

It's beta 2

[defiant74205]

I feel I should point out there was a publicly available beta 1 for IE8...

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[FishWithAHammer]

Seriously, for about a year now I've been seeing your posts around Slashdot; they're always the ones -- accurately -- modded down because you're acting like a spoilt child. Posting some petulant anti-Linux rubbish.

That's funny, seeing what I do for a living involves writing software for Linux. But go on with being full of shit, it's entertaining.

Re:Firefox3 on Windows is a piece of crap

[Tenebrousedge]

So, Firefox 3 on your system runs badly. Obviously a lack of QA. Perhaps the devs should have used your computer for testing?

Maybe, just maybe, you are in a small minority group that is experiencing these issues. Maybe--just a hypothetical, here--this issue is related to some other piece of software on your computer. I'm sure that you can think of some way to test that.

Also, you should read the Restore Session dialog box more carefully. "Your last Firefox session closed unexpectedly. You can restore the tabs and windows from your previous session, or start a new session if you think the problem was related to a page you were viewing."

Seriously, how can you look at all of this problematic behavior and think that it is the application's fault? You just get to do whatever you want, and blame anyone but yourself? It couldn't be anything you're doing. Okay, well, let's apply Ockham's Razor to this situation. Which requires the fewest assumptions?

A) The problems with Firefox are widespread. People continue to download and use Firefox despite these bugs, which the developers make no effort to fix. There are also no Slashdot articles about how buggy Firefox is because Slashdot is so friendly to open source software and such stories are--what? Actively suppressed by the editors, no doubt.

B) You are the only one having these problems, and they are your fault. There are no news stories about Firefox crashing because they don't exist.

I know which one was shorter to write.

Solution: take some responsibility, and fix your own goddamn problems.

"Awesome bar"

[motang]

Wow...even IE has incorporated the "awesome bar!" That is by far one of the most beloved features in FF 3.0 for me.

Those who can't speak

[poticlin]

My co-worker is trying to resurect her PC. After installing IE8, WinXP froze. It's the first time I hear that person curse on MS. Thank you IE...

Re:Those who can't speak

[J_Doh!]

It's a beta version. Production machines beware.

Hmmm might be a problem here

[Onyma]

Crash recovery

If one or more of your tabs do crash, your tabs are automatically reloaded and you are returned to whatever page you were on before the crash.

So if you come across a page that crashes IE8 every time, when you reload IE it will reload that page and crash it again leaving the typical user unable to restart IE :)

local privacy

[BBird]

this privacy feature (as exists in safari) maybe misleading. afaik it only stops local logging + cookies. Your IP and ISP+others logging will continue.

Re:Shows what competion can do. Mod above down

[puto]

Well having been to all Mexico, Venezuela, and even lived in Colombia for 5 years(dual citizen with US where I was born) I did not run across too many peopke who spoke Portuguese. i can name a couple off hand, but only because I worked in a language department at a local uni.

Not all latin americans have everyday access, although it is getting more common. They do have a large amount of internet cafes. But many run Linux. And the ones that do not will not upgrade. If it ain't broke do not fix it.

Portgues es epanol mal hablado.

Puto

"Compatibility Mode" eh?

[Panaqqa]

It looks like Google's search results will only display properly in this "compatibility mode". Funny, that.

Re:Shows what competion can do. Mod above down

[pcolaman]

I wasn't talking about Mexico, Venezuela, or Columbia. I was talking about Brazil. And in Brazil, they primarily speak Portuguese, not Spanish.

Re:Firefox3 on Windows is a piece of crap

[atraintocry]

I saw the betas and early RCs crash a couple of times. But running the 3.0 release on my MBP, I have not seen it crash once. I will typically leave it open for days, sometimes putting the computer to sleep, sometimes not. I have extensions, I have plugins, I open large numbers of tabs.

For whatever reason, I *have* seen FF3 crash on Windows. I don't know what's different there but I'm not willing to lay the blame entirely on the FF team since it runs fine on my Mac.

Re:Is Microsoft trying to hurt Google? Yes

[atraintocry]

The raw installed base numbers (honestly, I don't know how they'd even get those besides a phone survey or something) don't tell the whole story. My site gets just about half IE and half FF, and it's not a site for a tech crowd. I see most people saying the same thing, which leads me to believe that, even though the installed base is probably lower, the Firefox users are browsing more heavily.

Also, how would the installed base of IE go down? I doubt that there's enough people manually removing 6 to make a dent in those numbers.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Gavagai80]

Yep, IEtab has never worked on linux(/mac/solaris/bsd).

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Gavagai80]

Depends on how complex your designs are and how paranoid you are. I've never been unable to see a reported IE issue in wine's IE -- and Konqueror has always been close enough to Safari to work for testing, even though khtml and webkit are different. Certainly never seen any difference between linux and windows firefox or opera either.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[FishWithAHammer]

I guess you do, yeah.

Privacy Feature

[eiskalteschatten]

I have no idea why everyone is so obsessed with the new "privacy feature" in IE8. It's been around in Safari for years and extensions for Firefox have provided that functionality....

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[poached]

They can't either. Their whole anti-trust argument was that the ie browser is somehow interwoven into the operating system somehow and couldn't be separated. If they provided IE for linux it would obviously prove that it was bullshit, which we all know was.

Re:Shows what competion can do. Mod above down

[Chutulu]

em Portugal diz-se que para falar Espanhol basta pôr batatas quentes na boca e começar a falar....

in Portugal we say that in order to speak Spanish you just have to put hot potatoes in your mouth and start speaking...

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[atamido]

So, your wrong

No, you're wrong.

What's this "MS"?

[spitzak]

For the first time the letter pair "MS" has appeared in a story summary. That is not readable, for me it either reads "Miss" or "Multiple Sclerosis". It also is the postal abbreviation for Mississippi, means "manuscript", and even as a company name it is the stock symbol for Morgan Stanley, who also own "MS.com".

I know that a lot of people hate the abbreviation "M$", but the solution is NOT to put "MS" in, but to put in the spelled-out "Microsoft".

Let's stop this nonsense now. Writing "MS" is not some kind of stand against "M$". I'm sorry that "M$" hurts your feelings and makes you cry, but you lose. If you want to fight it, write out "Microsoft".

Missed the point

[glitch23]

automatic crash recovery, which prevents a single page's failures from taking down your entire browser;

You'd think they would make the browser capable of not being corrupt to the point of crashing due to malformed source code for a webpage. How about being proactive and not allow it to crash in the first place instead of implementing crash recovery (a la Office crash recovery) which can be imperfect as well? They have a long history of this though: safe mode for Windows anyone?

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Keeper Of Keys]

Relativistic, surely?

Re:Shows what competion can do. Mod above down

[jesterzog]

They do have a large amount of internet cafes. But many run Linux.

I find this very interesting because when we went further south through Chile, Peru and Bolivia last year we saw lots of Internet Cafe's, and they were nearly all running Windows. (For perspective though, we didn't leave the main tourist trails except in Chile.) Many of them didn't look like terribly secure installations, and there was about a 50/50 split of users between tourists and locals. The locals were nearly all school-aged children who seemed to be there 100% for gaming. The only non-Windows platform we found for 2 months was a Backpackers' accomodation in Puerto Varas (southern'ish Chile) which was run by a German guy, and he'd set up a Linux box which I think was running Suse.

Re:Crap...

[SanityInAnarchy]

So, because I use applications that are not compatible with Microsoft's current non-standards compliant flavor of the week, I am part of the problem?

If said applications are compatible with Microsoft's former non-standards-compliant flavor-of-the-week, yes.

Someone enlighten me, please

[omz]

WTF is Internet Explorer? It is like Firefox? does it run on Linux ( Eee PC 4G Surf)? Thank you very much

Re:You forgot one

[zobier]

I believe that Pencil (2D drawing and animation) and the Pencil Firefox add-on (GUI prototyping tool) are different applications. Both seem pretty cool though.

Privacy browsing for FF is here ALREADY

[tandr]

oh, forcristsake, people... Firefox cannot copy IE8 just because it has this feature as an add-on for long time already.

You can download Stealther from
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1306

have fun

Search for Microsoft in the suggested sites menu

[p.gogarty]

I'm supprised noone else spotted this

Open the new Suggested Sites menu.
The default search is for Microsoft Corporation
Number 5 in the list of returned sites is Apple

Screenshot

Re:Firefox3 on Windows is a piece of crap

[Frankie70]

Solution: take some responsibility, and fix your own goddamn problems.

My solution was easier. Download IE7 & use it.

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[icsx]

As in, broken?

Re:Crap...

[phayes]

Instead of slavishly following MS's lead as you suggest, we would all be better off ignoring all MS's new incompatible web implementations. It's too late for IE6, but IE7's particular flavor will die a quick death as soon as IE8 is added to windows update, then IE8 will be replaced with IE9 relatively quickly, etc. This will go on as long as MS keeps coming out with non-standard compliant browsers. You are part of the problem. By counseling people to support a gratuitously non-standard browser you are fragmenting the web.

You're either a MS troll or you're missing an "In" prefix on your /. tag.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

Like you, I prefer (and use) Linux. I would not install an MS operating system at all. However, at the application level I use the best tool for the job.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

While I don't doubt your belief in the validity of your expressed preference, I question its sanity. What you don't explain is why you have let yourself become locked-in to the expensive inferior product, and why you are avoiding having soverignity over your own data and control of your own machine through not using the zero cost open superior product.

I perceive it as being locked in to the expensive, superior product. And I reign sovereignty over my machine because I do avoid MS's control-freak operating system. However, I still believe in the best tool for the job, and MSO 2007 is a terrific tool. I still love Open Office, and use it regularly, and I praise the developers of that program. Open Office 2.4 is leaps and bounds beyond MSO = 2003. However, MSO 2007 really is better.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[dotancohen]

I don't find MSO 2007 to be bloated at all from the user's standpoint. Quite the opposite, I find the Ribbon streamline the workflow considerably, while providing more legible icons and most screen real estate for the document. The code may be bloated, but disk space is cheap. I don't know how heavy it is on RAM because I've only ever used it on the university machines, and I don't know what the hardware is.

MS Vista is bloated beyond all hope. Hell, we considered XP SP2 to be bloated before that pig which is Vista came about.

Re: your wifes browser .. :)

[Digital End]

What 'features' are you refering to that have been around now for a year

Tab browsing (1994)
Page zoom (1994)
Saving sessions (1996)
Browser based pop up blocking (2000)
Deleting private data (2000)
Mouse gestures (2000)
Bit torrent support (2005)
Speed Dial (2007)

That's the first ones I could come up with, but it should still be enough to get the point across :)

In all fairness, they are getting faster at copying features, so a year isn't exactly accurate now days... and the people who make add ons are even faster at copying new features. So as long as you remember to check for new addons every day, and the people who make them aren't trying to install malware/spyware with your addons, you can keep up with opera just fine.

And Firefox now has the same benifit that IE had going for it... since it became 'cool' to have firefox it's kind of become a 'standard' and pages are designed for it. It's a nice middle ground between IE and Opera. Personally though, I use opera, and on pages that are securely designed to only work on IE/Firefox (one bank I know and a secure log in on my college site which won't work in firefox either), I just open up IE on my second monitor and get thru it.

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[shutdown -p now]

Works for me for all of a dozen random links on /. that I've just tried.

Re:Is Microsoft trying to hurt Google? Yes

[shutdown -p now]

Msie, apparently, has a firefox like drop-down box of search engines, and wikipedia, etc. But the msie drop-down menu does not include google. Ouuu what a burn! Also, if you highlight a street address, msie will take you to msft maps, not google maps.

Out of the box, it will indeed only give links to services Microsoft provides - Live Search, Maps, Encarta etc. However, in that very context menu, there is an item called "Find More Accelerators". If you click on it, you'll find it all - Google, Wikipedia, etc - and of course you can remove all the MS stuff. My accelerator menu now consists of "Search with Google", "Define with Wikipedia", and "Send with GMail". Also, I had Google as my default search provider in IE7, and IE8 picked that on installation and kept it.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[HuguesT]

Why? Have to actually tried ?

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[HuguesT]

I they provided a version for either O/S I would definitely install it, if only for web design testing. I'm tired of rebooting or running IE in a VM (wasting 100s of MB of memory in the process).

Microsoft had a version of IE for OS/X and used to have one for Solaris, so it's not impossible.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[HuguesT]

What's up with the flamebait moderation? This is a serious query. I have had enough of virtualising, trying to run Wine or rebooting just to test a web site.

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[HuguesT]

Under OS/X at least MS have the expertise to do that. They make Office of OS/X don't you know ?

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[sakasune]

...Want it sooner? Donate time or money to either ies4linux or to Wine. Or both.

Ok I bought a box of wine and got drunk last night. I can haz IE8 for linux now?

Re:Crap...

[Tubal-Cain]

...which has upgraded itself no less than 16 times on my PC here ?

Tools>>Options>>Advanced>>Update.
Uncheck all that apply.

Re:Crap...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Instead of slavishly following MS's lead as you suggest, we would all be better off ignoring all MS's new incompatible web implementations.

So we're better off using their old ones?

By counseling people to support a gratuitously non-standard browser

Where have I done so?

No, I counsel people that, if they must have IE installed at all, or if they must use it at all, it would be better to have a more recent version. Given the choice between IE6 and IE7, are you actually encouraging people to choose IE6?

I also counsel people to download Firefox, Safari, Opera, or anything but IE, given the choice. But there isn't always that choice -- it's still the sanest way to get Windows Updates on XP, if you want to pick and choose, for example.

You're either a MS troll

Because if I was an MS troll, I would totally use "non-standards-compliant flavor-of-the-week" to refer to their browser (even if it was your term). Instead of, maybe, defending said browser.

I'm writing this in Konqueror, on Ubuntu, from work, where I write Ruby on Rails. Doesn't that just scream "MS troll" to you?

Re:Oh, I'd like a version

[Mad Merlin]

Not even the same version on the same platform.

Wouldn't that be the same programme? So you're saying if you open it up n different times it'll render it n different ways??

Yes, but that's primarily an IE feature.

Re:Crap...

[phayes]

So we're better off using their old ones?

Old one, singular, yes. It is better to keep/support just one non-standard that already has widespread de facto support & move all new development to standards compliancy than it is to keep adding variants every time MS comes out with yet another half baked browser which complicates the code, adds to the dev cost & diminishes the resources available to move to standards compliant HTML.

Where have I done so?

Here. You called someone who refuses to update to IE7 part of the problem. NO. It's the smart move.

When given the choice, use a standards compliant browser. When forced to, because the web site only works with IE, use IE6 because it is by far the most widely supported. You do know that IE7 breaks many sites that were coded for IE6, right?

...or anything but IE, given the choice. But there isn't always that choice

When would this be, pray tell? Even on completely locked down corporate PCs, Portable Firefox makes avoiding IE possible. Yes, Firefox is not acid2 compliant. I haven't been forced to code around Firefox's incompatibilities. I have been forced to code around IE6's & a few nitwits who upgraded to IE7 wanted to me to adapt to it's different yet still non-compatible idiosyncrasies.

Because if I was an MS troll

There was another choice...

Re:Crap...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Assume for a moment that Microsoft is actually trying to move in the direction of standards-compliance.

By not adopting it, you send Microsoft the message that no one cares -- or worse, that they can't possibly get it right, and may as well not try.

yet another half baked browser which complicates the code, adds to the dev cost & diminishes the resources available to move to standards compliant HTML.

I'm not sure a browser exists that doesn't have bugs in its adherence to that standard.

I'm not suggesting we expend tremendous resources to support IE7, either. What I'm suggesting is that if, as a developer, I choose to ignore IE6 and support IE7, it's going to take far less effort, given that I'm already going to be supporting browsers that mostly get it right, like Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.

Given that, why would I want anyone to make my job harder?

You called someone who refuses to update to IE7 part of the problem.

And in what way is that counseling them to "support" it? Certainly not moreso than they already "support" IE6.

You do know that IE7 breaks many sites that were coded for IE6, right?

None of the ones I need, fortunately. But by deliberately using a browser that doesn't work with those sites, I'm hopefully helping to encourage the admins to move towards standards compliance.

When would this be, pray tell? Even on completely locked down corporate PCs, Portable Firefox makes avoiding IE possible.

Well, you said it yourself. The choice isn't that you can't install Firefox, it's that some websites won't actually work on Firefox.

Another example would be places that embed the IE engine via ActiveX -- Steam, for instance, or many EA games.

The most common example, for me, is a simple Windows Update on XP. I can do that from an IETab, but that's the same problem -- it'll be using the IE rendering engine.

Re:Crap...

[phayes]

Assume for a moment that Microsoft is actually trying to move in the direction of standards-compliance.

No. By displaying a broken page icon when showing a standards compliant page, Microsoft once again shows that it wants to push people into continuing to use non-standard, broken HTML. I would be quite happy with MS discontinuing development of IE since they cannot stop pushing broken HTML. Notice the thundering absence of complaints since they abandoned IE on the Mac. Old code could continue to use the broken MS software. In time, everything new would adapt to mozilla or a common interface that Mozilla/Opera/Apple/??? would devise.

IE7 is a abortion that is breaks both IE6 code & standards compliant code. Being "closer" to compliant just means that devs have to goo through all their code to insert special cases yet again, so you lie when you say that you do not want to expend "tremendous ressources" to support IE7. No. Do it once & abandon MS"s crap in the latrine where it lies.

Websites that do not work with firefox ALL work with IE6. IE7 brings nothing to the table.

Because you do not have to maintain a website that is broken by IE7, you choose to ignore the massive cost of maintaining a third incompatible browser. Given how obtuse you are, you're either an idiot, or, as I surmised earlier, an troll. Either way, you clearly have nothing of value to contribute. Plonk!

Re:Crap...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Notice the thundering absence of complaints since they abandoned IE on the Mac.

Notice that nothing actually depended on IE for the Mac -- and that new Macs actually ship with an alternative. (This has barely begun to happen on PCs.)

Being "closer" to compliant just means that devs have to goo through all their code to insert special cases yet again

Unless, y'know, it just works this time, or close enough that you slap a "Get Firefox" banner on the site and call it a day.

Whereas with IE6, your page would actually become completely unusable.

Because you do not have to maintain a website that is broken by IE7, you choose to ignore the massive cost of maintaining a third incompatible browser.

Give me something I can sink my teeth into, then. What, specifically, is causing you more grief in IE7 than it does in IE6?

Regarding your link, apparently Intranet sites are incompatible by default. Do you run an intranet? Do you know of anyone who both runs an intranet and is incapable of overriding that default, site-wide?

Given how obtuse you are, you're either an idiot, or, as I surmised earlier, an troll.

There's a similar problem with politics today -- the assumption that everyone who disagrees with you is wrong, and that they are therefore either ignorant or evil. I like Obama, and he's probably got my vote, but in his speech at the DNC, he said something very like this: "I don't think John McCain doesn't care. I think he doesn't know."

I trust I've already made a significant case that I'm not an astroturfer, and you haven't pursued that further. And if I may be so bold, I'm too well spoken to be a complete idiot, or a troll. (I could have rickrolled you three posts ago and been done with it, and it's unlikely anyone but you is reading this -- a troll would've quit, don't you think?)

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[Assmasher]

No, I'm not wrong. It does not work on 4 machines in my office which have Vista Ultimate 32-bit on them and previously had IE7. It also does not work on a machine at home running the same version of Vista and previously containing IE7 as well. So, perhaps, instead of ASSuming that I'm wrong you might - perhaps - realize that there are probably differences between our configurations. Maybe, of course, if you'd take the time to be less than a sanctimonious twat.

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[Assmasher]

What OS and what version of IE did you have previously installed? (Nothing happens on my Vista 32-bit Ultimate machines that had IE7 on them before I installed this.) Luckily it uninstalls nicely.

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[Assmasher]

That makes a lot of sense. The second beta of the eighth version version of a product doesn't have one of its most basic features enabled, arguably one of the simplest features to account for. LOL...

Re:Took it for a whirl and discovered, 30 seconds.

[shutdown -p now]

Win2003 Enterprise (my developer desktop at work) and Vista Ultimate (home desktop), both having IE7. Neither ever had IE8 b1 installed on them before, if that helps.