Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 8 RC1
mikemuch writes "IE8 has left beta as of noon Pacific time today. The development team now considers the browser platform- and feature-complete, but won't say how long until it goes gold. PCMag.com got an early look and has posted a full review of Internet Explorer 8 RC1. The release candidate differs only slightly from Beta 2, most notably in tweaks to its InPrivate Browsing feature, aka porn mode. That feature has been decoupled with InPrivate Filtering, which blocks third-party content providers from creating profile of your browsing habits. RC1 also improves on performance, especially in startup time, but still trails Firefox and Chrome in JavaScript speed. Protection against the relatively new threat of 'clickjacking,' where a site tries to get you to press buttons underneath a sham frame page, has also been added — the first browser to include such protections. Versions for 32-bit and 64-bit Vista, as well as for 32-bit XP are available, but Windows 7, which will ship with IE8, is stuck with an older beta for now."
Yeah the obligatory complaint about those 30% or so that keep using 6 (according to my stats). Maybe with 8 out 7 will become the 6.
Yes, when Internet Explorer 8 is released, Microsoft will finally have implemented decent support for CSS 2, a specification published over a decade ago. I hope everybody here on Slashdot will join me in welcoming Microsoft to 1998. Truly, they deserve all the credit they are going to get for being so ahead of the curve. Keep innovating, Microsoft! Don't let those slow-coaches at the W3C hold you back!
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
If it weren't for Chrome and IE8's privacy mode, then that probably wouldn't be the top priority it is right now for Firefox 3.1. Competition is good in the browser market. They'd still be on IE6 if it weren't for the success of Firefox.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
There may be a number of good technical and use-oriented reasons not to bother with IE8. I don't know the details on it just yet. But it could be twice as good as the next browser and I still wouldn't use it. Not after what Microsoft did to us all with earlier versions. The standards compliance problems have been infuriating for developers. How much human effort has been wasted trying to cope with this? And the vulnerabilities have made popular computing a diseased seething mass. How many geeks have had to spend evenings or whole weekends taking care friends and family members' systems?
All of that and Microsoft let IE rot for how many years? Half a freakin' decade in the midst of humanity's glorious ascension into a networked era? It took competition forcefully wedging its way into IE's monopolistic stranglehold before Microsoft got off their asses to do anything.
Well, it's too late. Fuck off.
I'm no battered wife. I know that MS isn't "really a good husband, he just..." whatever. I'd rather other people not drag me into another round of this same neglected-until-it-matters-to-Microsoft bullshit. The fewer people who use IE, the better.
and that my friend should be the whole point. MSFT basically stopped all browser development for 5 years. Then Firefox came along and showed people that you could have a free browser that could do more than IE(Opera wasn't free but adware). MSFT lost marketshare and then started to fight back.
MFT is and always has been reactionary to change. If their products are good enough they don't get improved upon. If MSFT only had 60% marketshare I would be happy. as MSFT would be forced to fight to keep customers by improving software.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
This has been a very active couple of days for MS stories. Lots of big things happening between layoffs and beta releases.
Let's look at some facts though.
Windows marketshare is 90%.
IE's marketshare is 70%
Slashdot users run somwhere between 47% and 70% MS Windows based OS.(http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1516&aid=-1, http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=848&aid=-1)
In the last four days Slashdot has had 9 MS stories ( source: http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=109)
In the last four days Slashdot has has 97 stories posted ( source: http://slashdot.org/search.pl )
What percentage of stories about MS have run in the past four days?
9/97 = 0.092 * 100 = 9.2%
Facts hardly look as bad as you make them out to be.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
It doesn't even have to be 60%. It has to be whatever it takes for the majority of Web developers to move from IE-only policy to cross-browser policy. Judging by the look of the Web these days, with even Microsoft itself having to support at least Firefox and Safari apart from IE (check the official browser support tables for various MS web-base products!), the present 20% Firefox market share is already enough to trigger that.
You'd have had a point if, in 1998, there was any other browser, released or in beta, that had full CSS2 support. But there wasn't. In fact, the one that was closest to supporting it at that time was... IE.
as a web developer, im still having to deal with IE6 to ensure cross browser compatibility, and a little lost on the versioning now. how many shitface versions of ie out there that i have to test for x browser compatibility as of now ? 3 ? 5 ? 234,643 ? will it ever end ?
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