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A First Look At Internet Explorer 8 RC1
bogaboga writes "TG Daily reports that Microsoft quietly released the first update to its IE8 beta 2 to its closest partners last week. This new version only scores a dismal 12/100 on the Acid 3 test, though the score improves significantly if one leaves the [browser] window open for at least a minute. It is marked as 'Release Candidate 1.'"
damn he hoped me. but really if m$ cant get their users to update/upgrade whats the point of a new version?
Does it fix this?
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
Is a release candidate still considered a beta? I was always under the impression that release candidates were past the "beta" moniker and were part of the next phase of deployment. But I'm an admin, not a programmer, and really have no clue when it comes to that kind of stuff.
Coincidentally, I just watched Blade Runner on my Sony Superbeta hi-fi, still looks fantastic after all these years. Suck it, Blu-ray.
As someone who does both web security and some web design, I couldn't be happier.
Yes, IE 8 still sucks, but it sucks less then IE 7, which sucks less then IE 6.
IE 8 has some decent rendering improvements, a built in XSS filter, and lots of other changes.
In standards compliance it still sucks versus all the compition, but as long as it helps kill off IE 6, I'm happy.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Does anybody really love IE anymore. There are so many more secure open source browsers that using the Microsoft utility that came with the computer seems like it cannot possibly be the best choice
As a web designer it really pisses me off to see Microsoft continuing to write their own standards and not follow the conventions set forth so that web pages could look the same across browsers. Passing the acid test should be mandatory and doing so would likely save millions if not billions in lost productivity time between broken websites and the extra hours of work web designers have to put in to work around IE's bugs.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
By the time IE 10 comes out, it will look like what Netscape 2.0 looks like to today's market. Even today, users hanging on to IE are reminiscent of the die hard users of Netscape 4. Netscape 4 was awful in comparison to IE5, but since it was the only viable alternative to IE, it hung around for quite a while. Life got a lot better when the Internet purged NS4, and it will get a lot better when it purges Internet Explorer.
The only difference between the Netscape 4 debacle and Internet Explorer is that Netscape didn't have the resources to develop a better browser. They ended up needing to spin off browser development, thus resulting in Firefox in the long term. Microsoft has no such constraints. They have nearly everything they need to make IE a better browser, but they don't want to give up their stranglehold on the web.
Well too damn bad. It's only a matter of time before IE loses its majority market share. The more the IE percentages drop, the faster the uptake of alternative browsers.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Being that M$ tied their browser to their OS to avoid a court judgment of having an illegal monopoly the main reason they're in this pickle in the first place? You can't nimbly fix bugs or create features if what you do on that level ends up crashing your OS on another level.
Seems to me they've screwed themselves in the long run. They avoided having to removed Internet Explorer from Windows, but now their browser sucks on ice, is bloated, slow and filled with bugs that affect the OS. All of this could have been avoided (not to mention the continued $ hemorrhage of having to pay programmers to work on this) had they just concentrated on a decent OS and let others create the browsers. Instead they have (and still) pig-headedly insist on taking over or competing with every bit of software that touches their computers.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Poorly written HTML should NOT crash a browser.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
Of course it was. Show me any mature product that isn't.
But i cannot imagine any circumstances where the best strategy is to scrap and replace everything.
This isn't about purity of codebase, which is what the OSS adopters you mentioned concerned themselves with.
This is about a commerical software company who chose to cease shipping their flagship product while they redeveloped it.
If they had to do it, they should've maintained and upgraded the NS4 base with 4.x releases while the new product was in development.
It's not that anybody loves Internet Explorer. It's just that nobody outside of geekdom loves any browser at all. Arguing over browser popularity is like arguing over gas station popularity. Most people don't care, and don't see any real difference. They're just going to the first one they see.
Nothing should crash anything.
Sure, if you didn't sign up for the course in the first place.
Sometimes I think that the only real definition of "geekdom" is "a solid understanding of cause and effect".
That's why when they get a compromised system or otherwise suffer, I don't see them as victims even though I'd rather they not get compromised and I'd rather they not suffer.
They are making a trade-off and are taking a risk of experiencing security flaws for the sake of convenience as the browser is already installed and knowledge of its quality and security history is not needed to use it. They have set their priorities and made their choices and now they experience the results. Really, what rational person (technical or non-technical) expects to have good results when operating an extremely complex machine that they don't understand? Is there anywhere else in life where you can take the very first option to come along without ever looking at your other options and then consider yourself to have made a good choice? That the average person can routinely use a computer this way and have everything work out as well as it does is amazing, but rather than appreciate this we instead scratch our heads and wonder why certain problems (like botnets) just aren't going away.
Maybe this makes me unusual, but I am happy with both Linux and FireFox even if both of them never become anything like mainstream. They are actively developed and have enough of a userbase to ensure this for some time to come, they do what I need them to do, and they run the way I want them to run. I can't say with any certainty that I'd derive any direct benefit from the sort of ubiquity that Windows and IE currently enjoy and I see a certain risk of stagnation if that ever did happen.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I like IE because I'm a curmudgeon and like things the way they were. IE doesn't impose great changes on me each version. In fact, if Mosaic didn't crash so often, I'd use it.
Now, get off my lawn.
Add some common stuff from CSS2 and 3 and I'd be relatively happy with it:
border-radius
multiple background images
border images
good opacity support (on a par with FF, so I can specify background opacity and not force the same opacity on child objects).
CSS3 columns
There are some selector issues people want that would be great, too.
At the least, turn on some things that would allow js/css libraries to overcome the shortcomings they KNOW they're gonna leave in there. At least make a way for others to work around the limitations.
But, all those things would be *useful* and good for developers, so we know what's gonna happen, don't we?