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Internet Explorer 8 Delayed Until 2009

Barence writes "Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 8 will not be officially released until 2009. According to a blog posting on the Internet Explorer 8 development site, a release candidate of the browser will be released in the first quarter of next year, to be followed by a final release at an unspecified date. This news comes on the same day that Google is considering bundling its Chrome browser with new PCs. Will the IE delay and Google's tactics help to steer users in Chrome's direction?"

7 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Re:how by ionix5891 · · Score: 2, Informative

    google are a marketing company they dont have to get it "right" technically, they just have to make it appear that they got it right

  2. Re:Ummm.... by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Informative

    I would say IE8.

    Internet Explorer tends to be released slightly before the OS is. Remember integrated browser. That means in order to make sure all the new features of the OS are completely integrated they need to make sure the browser works first.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  3. Re:I may dump Firefox. by mR.bRiGhTsId3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Some plugins are still in beta/alpha/eat your babies revision. They make you register to download those, so you can't bitch at them when it gobbles up all your bookmarks or something.

  4. Avoiding the issue by markdowling · · Score: 5, Informative

    Firefox has been asked for years for better corporate deployment support. The answer was some wiki pages and a Client Customisation Kit which is currently listed as supporting FF2.

    Firefox still ships as an .exe, not a Mozilla branded MSI, despite one being requested in January 2004 (bug 231062). Despite being listed as P1 for FF3 there's no sign of it yet.

    There is an MSI linked from Mozilla pages, but it is not a Mozilla MSI. With all respect to Frontmotion for the work they have done, if I'm bringing an MSI inside my firewall it has to say Mozilla on it.

    Reaching IE's integration level would be beyond most companies but Firefox's level barely reaches baby steps.

    (incidentally for those who wish to mod me down "cuz that post hatez teh firefox", this is being posted with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4)

  5. Re:how by lukas84 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ehm, what exactly needs to be "centrally managed" about a friggin' Web-Browser?

    For example, which extensions may or may not be installed. Or what the homepage is set to. Or, disabling the Phishing Filter or enabling the Lookup-Portion of the Phishing Filter. Enable certain privacy settings by default, or disable them.

    Firefox can auto-detect the proxy server to use and updates itself over the intertubes.

    A feature which requires local administrative privileges, which is not the case in a corporate IT environment.

    What more do you need in your "corporate environment"?

    Lot's. You've obviously never worked in one, which is perfectly fine. But don't attack me just because you don't understand a large part of the global IT economy.

  6. Re:how by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

    What more do you need in your "corporate environment"?

    Considerably more than auto detecting the proxy server and updating - you really seem to be missing the point.

    Some very good examples are default Favourites, very helpful in a lot of corporations (have you ever got the shit job of having to add a new favourite to a thousand PCs?), default Homepage, again very helpful, default popup blocker and security settings for known good websites that you have no control over but need to use, and local browser security settings for when you don't want your employees from setting their own proxy server or otherwise mess with the browser setup.

    In short, everything you need to be applied to every one (or a majority) of your desktops - you can either have your PC setup bods do it manually, or you can just ghost a new machine and let the central management server do it. I know which I would rather do.

    From the sound of it, you haven't had to deal with an corporate environment with more than a dozen or so desktops. Believe me, central management becomes extremely handy when you are dealing with a thousand desktops in multiple locations (or even 100 in one).

    On the other hand, Firefox does have an Active Directory GPO template available for doing many of the things corporate admins require.

  7. Re:how by lukas84 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Firefox can do it. That wasn't the point. The point was central management.