IE8 May Be End of the Line For Internet Explorer

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy reports on rumors that IE8 may be Internet Explorer's swan song: 'IE8 is the last version of the Internet Explorer Web browser,' Kennedy writes. 'It seems that Microsoft is preparing to throw in the towel on its Internet Explorer engine once and for all.' And what will replace it? Some are still claiming that Microsoft will go with WebKit, which is used by Safari and Chrome. The WebKit story, Kennedy contends, could be a feint and that Microsoft will instead adopt Gazelle, Microsoft Research's brand-new engine that thinks like an OS. 'This new engine will supposedly be more secure than Firefox or even Chrome, making copious use of sandboxing to keep its myriad plug-ins isolated and the overall browser process model protected.'" The sticking point will be what Microsoft does about compatibility for ActiveX apps.

Comments

Misleading headline, and ActiveX

[Raindance]

1. Headline should read, IE8 May Be End of the Line for Internet Explorer Engine .

2. I don't see any reason why ActiveX apps couldn't be sandboxed like anything else. Granted, it has deep hooks into the OS-- but if nothing else, given how beefy computers are going to be by the time IE9 comes out, you could give each ActiveX app its own perfectly compatible virtual copy of XP+IE8 to run on, and just parse the result into IE9 format. Destroy the virtualized OS+browser when the app closes.

Moore's Law makes some problems easy, yay. :)

Re:Misleading headline, and ActiveX

[INeededALogin]

given how beefy computers are going to be by the time IE9 comes out

Moore's Law be damned. People have been using this excuse for years to write bloated, crappy software. How about for once we don't try to predict the future. Instead, lets write the code for todays hardware. People seem to forget that we have sold way more computers than people in the world... no reason to replace them all to run IE9.

Re:Misleading headline, and ActiveX

[east coast]

It is clear you do not understand why ActiveX must be married to the operating system.

Really? Because it's not clear that you do. Seriously, would it kill people to bring the issue to the surface in an intelligent manner that might benefit those of us who are outside the loop on this? I'm not asking for a thesis but rather a simple dialog that can be researched by people who are interested in learning more about the issue at hand.

Re:Misleading headline, and ActiveX

[BlackSnake112]

Needing information and having full control over the system are two different things. If all activex needs is the information, then let it have read only access. Now since most activex programs want a lot more then read only access, this will not work. The question is was it lazy programming that required full root/admin access in order to work or something else?

Some programmers feel that unless they have complete control they cannot get anything done. In development this is fine. Once in testing and production stages why do people insist that they still need to run as root/admin? Run as the least privileged level as you can.

Re:Misleading headline, and ActiveX

[sqlrob]

You can do the same thing with a signed Java Applet. OMG! Java is tightly integrated to the OS!

Re:Misleading headline, and ActiveX

[hairyfeet]

I hate to break the news to you, but the INTRANETS of many major corps as well as a ton of SMBs are filled with ActiveX crap. Insurance companies, parts shops, companies large and small have those damned ActiveX pages, often in mission critical roles. Could it be fixed? With a shitload of money and some retraining,yes. Are they going to spend that kind of cash in this economy? Not a chance in hell. Like it or not IE is a requirement for many businesses. And that of course doesn't even bring up the lack of GPO integration of any browsers other than IE, which is the deal killer with most admins I talk to. No GPO integration? No Sale.

Please kill ActiveX

[Thornburg]

The sticking point will be what Microsoft does about compatibility for ActiveX apps.

KILL IT!!!

Seriously. Since IE8 does it, people will just keep using that for the next decade...

If they don't kill ActiveX after IE8, we'll be stuck with it even longer than that. Since it's going to take 10 years to actually die, please start the process now, Microsoft.

ActiveX won't matter

[Midnight Thunder]

Given the compatibility issues that ActiveX has in IE8, then it probably won't matter what Microsoft will do in the future. In all reality no site should be depending on ActiveX. If it breaks without it, then fix the site.

Re:ActiveX won't matter

[vux984]

Given the compatibility issues that ActiveX has in IE8, then it probably won't matter what Microsoft will do in the future. In all reality no site should be depending on ActiveX.

No external public facing site should rely on activeX. There is really nothing wrong with internal enterprise apps using it.

If it breaks without it, then fix the site.

You mean build the enterprise intranet application from scratch? When its working perfectly fine exactly the way it is? That will be a pretty tough sell.

Re:ActiveX won't matter

[markdavis]

> No external public facing site should rely on activeX. There is really nothing wrong with internal enterprise apps using it.

Um, yes there most certainly is a MAJOR problem with internal enterprise apps using it. It means that everyone is chained to running MS-Windows and IE *only* on the desktops and every possible device that connects to that internal enterprise application. Just because you might not have a choice with what is running on the server doesn't necessarily mean you want to have no choice for the client.

Perhaps a company might want some additional choice.

WebKit?!

[rbanffy]

"Some are still claiming that Microsoft will go with WebKit"

Microsoft will never allow the browser that ships with Windows to become a commodity. They will go with Gazelle or whatever they develop that's as incompatible to official standards as possible while still being called a web browser engine.

Their goal is lock-in. A standards-based engine would negate that.

IE8 may be end of the line for Trident

[Shin-LaC]

The rendering engine. The browser itself will probably still be called Internet Explorer 9, no reason to throw away a strong brand. It will use a new layout engine with deep Silverlight integration.

Re:Coming full circle?

[RAMMS EIN]

``Funny how the vendor of one of the world's most insecure operating systems now considers that they're going to one-up the competition with the most secure browser / operating system?''

I wonder if Windows is still one of the world's most insecure operating systems. Microsoft have certainly been working hard to improve things, which is more than I can say for many other operating system vendors. Meanwhile, Linux user seem to be content pointing and laughing at Microsoft's efforts and pointing out that Linux is so much more secure.

I won't make any claims about which operating system is more secure than another operating system (because I think it is fundamentally impossible to measure, let alone to know), but if I see that Microsoft is introducing things like address space layout randomization and non-executable stacks, I have to wonder why those features aren't in other mainstream operating systems yet. OpenBSD has done a lot of pioneering work already, but when will we see the day that all of Debian is compiled with -fstack-protector and ships with PaX enabled?