Slashdot Mirror


IE 8.1 Supports Firefox Plugins, Rendering Engine

KermodeBear writes in to note that according to Smashing Magazine, the newest version of Internet Explorer, codenamed "Eagle Eyes," supports Firefox plugins, the Gecko and Webkit rendering engines, and has scored a 71 / 100 on the Acid3 test. The article is pretty gee-whiz, and I don't entirely believe the claims that IE's JavaScript performance will trounce the others. (And note that the current Firefox, 3.0.8, scores 71 on Acid3, and Safari 3.1.2 hits 75.) No definitive date from Microsoft, but "sources" say that an IE 8.1 beta will be released in the summer.

283 comments

  1. April fools... by MK_CSGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nothing to see here, move along...

    1. Re:April fools... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Honestly, the pictures are clearly Photoshopped (look at the "Developers Tools" screenshot, they didn't even bother matching the font on the Firefox/Safari entries), the Javascript benchmarks have Chrome in second-to-last place with the IE6/7/8 beating out everyone else, and the Mixx picture is obviously a joke.

      Wait a second...

      "Posted by kdawson"

      Ah, now I see how this ended up on the front page.

    2. Re:April fools... by MrEricSir · · Score: 1

      And not even a good April Fool's at that. It's too obviously fake.

      --
      There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    3. Re:April fools... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      Yeah, kdawson's standards are as low as CBS News'.
       

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    4. Re:April fools... by commodore64_love · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      I don't know if the new IE's ability to use two different engines (IE and Firefox) is so great. I have Netscape 8 on my machine which has the same capability, and it does neither job well, and it is ridiculously slow (bloat).

      Plus it's now twice as vulnerable, since it has the built-in flaws of TWO programs/engines rather than just one.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  2. Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Breaking News: April Fools joke leaked on March 31st

    1. Re:Breaking News! by mickwd · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yep....unless someone other than IE8.1 has been scoring on Acid :D

    2. Re:Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      March 31st? I live in New Zealand, you insensitive clod!

    3. Re:Breaking News! by PhxBlue · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, to be fair, it's April 1 in Tokyo, Beijing, Sydney and Baghdad.

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
    4. Re:Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      But since Smashing Magazine is not an Australian website, you can take your bigotry elsewhere.

    5. Re:Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but when the article itself is dated 3/31 it is a bit early.

    6. Re:Breaking News! by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      Yes and if I was dim enough to believe it, the JavaScript performance alone would have been enough to tell me it's bullshit seeing where IE6 placed.

    7. Re:Breaking News! by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      He could be English seeing how it's only the 10pm on the 31st. :P

    8. Re:Breaking News! by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2, Informative

      THe problem is, there is only one thing on the list that actually didn't fool me - sure, the entire article put me into a 'whoa, MS actually got off their butt for 8.1? For real?', but the *only* feature out of that entire list that set off alarm bells was this:

      Server-side code decompiler

      If youâ(TM)ve ever wished to know how sites and web applications work, Eagle Eyes (the name is fitting in this context) will let you view the server-side source code of a web page. We didnâ(TM)t explore this feature much, but from basic tests, the server-side code decompiler was able to tell us how the Mixx promotional algorithm worked.

      Everything else was plausable.

    9. Re:Breaking News! by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

      It's ok. An Australian living in tomorrow travelled back in time to submit the article so it still counts.

    10. Re:Breaking News! by bughunter · · Score: 1

      Yea, last time I participated in an acid test, I went and saw Used Cars at a midnight movie. This is somehow reminiscent... only without Kurt Russell.

      --
      I can see the fnords!
    11. Re:Breaking News! by master5o1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I thought baghdad was on American time since the fall of Saddam?

      --
      signature is pants
    12. Re:Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given the speed at which stories emerge on Slashdot this one was probably created a week ago.

    13. Re:Breaking News! by PhxBlue · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Nope -- Baghdad is Zulu +3; or at least, it was when I was there from July of last year to this past January. And I highly doubt they've changed it since then.

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
    14. Re:Breaking News! by ThrowAwaySociety · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'd accept the "it's-April-1-here" argument, except that:

      1. The article is dated "By Jacob Gube, March 31st, 2009"
      2. The URL contains the string ".../2009/03/31/..."

    15. Re:Breaking News! by thomthom · · Score: 1

      To be unfair. The date of the post is 31. March.

    16. Re:Breaking News! by DaleCooper82 · · Score: 1

      whoosh

      --
      :: There is no light at the end of a tunnel. There is a tunnel after a tunnel : Thom Y. ::
    17. Re:Breaking News! by PhxBlue · · Score: 4, Funny

      In that case, would you go for the "Spanish Inquisition" argument? No one expects that.

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
    18. Re:Breaking News! by IdleTime · · Score: 1

      I'm running the development version of Firefox, Minefield 3.6a1pre, nightly builds and scores 96/100 on the ACID3 test.

      --
      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
    19. Re:Breaking News! by Cl1mh4224rd · · Score: 1

      Breaking News: April Fools joke leaked on March 31st

      Bah. This is just the evolution of online jouralism. In the same way that real-world media started pushing news out earlier and earlier, so too are online news sites adopting the trend in an attempt to get a jump on the competition. /sigh

      --
      People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
    20. Re:Breaking News! by RichardJenkins · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, they'll be a duplicate tomorrow.

    21. Re:Breaking News! by Malc · · Score: 1

      No, that depends on your locale settings. The date of the post is "01/04/09 6:28" for me (I'm in Melbourne, currently GMT+11).

      Smashing Media GmbH i.Gr is a German company, which means the story was posted at 31/3/09 21:28 CEST. Seems reasonable to post in the evening the day before.

    22. Re:Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two options:

      • Date 3/31; reveal 4/1.
      • Date 4/1; reveal 4/2.

      This is the former.

    23. Re:Breaking News! by thomthom · · Score: 1

      meh! I thought the posting date was fixed related to the poster's locale time. Oh well.

  3. little bit early on the 04/01 by dargon · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Yeah, little early guys, It's not yet April 1st here, in Europe sure, but since when has /. been Europe-centric :)

    1. Re:little bit early on the 04/01 by Camann · · Score: 1

      John Titor brought it back with him from tomorrow.

      --
      I can't believe you don't know what a Hasemalphaginnojinglanaporphomism is.
    2. Re:little bit early on the 04/01 by BenoitRen · · Score: 1

      I am in Europe, and it's not 1 April here yet either.

  4. Positive Response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know the response from slashdot will probably be negative, but come on. Competition is good. The better IE gets, the better your fanboyed browsers will get.

  5. clearification: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "IE 8.1 beta will be released in the summer. "
    Of what year?

    1. Re:clearification: by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      When Duke Nukem Forever comes out. Microsoft is waiting for the DNF rendering engine plugin to come out. :P

  6. Come on... by spacefight · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...it isn't April 1st yet :)

    1. Re:Come on... by compro01 · · Score: 2, Funny

      It is in not-soviet-anymore Russia.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    2. Re:Come on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Soviet Russia, April fools YOU!

    3. Re:Come on... by againjj · · Score: 1

      The article is date 2009-3-31.

    4. Re:Come on... by Smoke2Joints · · Score: 1

      it is on just over half of the planet.

    5. Re:Come on... by dissy · · Score: 1

      Yea but:

      Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 31, @04:28PM
      from the fruits-of-competition dept.

      Thou shalt not argue with slashdot time

    6. Re:Come on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On this topic, If I were an evil dictator of a militaristic nation, I would choose April 1st to begin my worldwide takeover.

      The world would laugh at the seemingly fake stories as it burns!

      MUAHAHAH!

    7. Re:Come on... by totally+bogus+dude · · Score: 1

      You do realise that the time shown is your local time, right? That's why there's no timezone there to qualify it.

      For me it says,

      Posted by kdawson on Wednesday April 01, @04:28AM
      from the fruits-of-competition dept.

      Also kdawson is a douchebag. Not for this article, but just in general.

    8. Re:Come on... by dissy · · Score: 1

      You do realise that the time shown is your local time, right? That's why there's no timezone there to qualify it.

      No, no sir I did not.

      Nevermind all of that then

      Also kdawson is a douchebag. Not for this article, but just in general.

      Indeed. This just adding to the douchbagary.

    9. Re:Come on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it really is, that's the bigger joke. omg ponies.

  7. Wow, if true. by CannonballHead · · Score: 3, Funny

    If it actually does do all that (support FF plugins, Gecko and Webkit [and I assume Trident], score competitively on Acid3 [I would assume that is at least some indication of being more standards compliant], good JS performance), that would be a pretty big Wow.

    1. Re:Wow, if true. by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      After reading the article, I'm inclined to say "April Fools" too. But it's not April 1st, so that would be Evil of them. :P

    2. Re:Wow, if true. by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      And Opera scores 85/100 on Acid3.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:Wow, if true. by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 1

      And Opera scores 85/100 on Acid3.

      I just see wonderfully amazingly colours when I do the acid test - woah man, that really is a buzz, I should do that more often.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    4. Re:Wow, if true. by Beyond+Opinion · · Score: 1

      The more often you do it, the less exciting it is.

    5. Re:Wow, if true. by NightRain · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Yep. Because it's not April 1st in your timezone, it can't be anywhere else in the world either...

    6. Re:Wow, if true. by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      The magazine's domain name was registered by a German, and it wasn't April Fools in Germany, either...

      Yeah, I'm going to tell my friends that my birthday is "today" even though it's "tomorrow" except for some people in some country that nobody I know nor anyone that's going to be celebrating my birthday, for the most part, live in.

      Good way to annoy friends. :)

    7. Re:Wow, if true. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah I'm so sure that the author posted it today because it's April 1st in Japan. Slashdot has a HUGE following in the far east, right?

      He couldn't possibly have been trying to "beat the rush" to get a little extra blog traffic... (Something that may be considered Evil or Lame.)

    8. Re:Wow, if true. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the screenshot shown there is actually a render of Firefox 3.0 for the Acid 3 test shopped in the IE interface

    9. Re:Wow, if true. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Firefox 3.1b3 scores 93 on Acid 3

    10. Re:Wow, if true. by Keeper+Of+Keys · · Score: 1

      But does it have server-side code decompiling?

    11. Re:Wow, if true. by NightRain · · Score: 1

      They have an international readership. It was April fools when I read it.

    12. Re:Wow, if true. by drquoz · · Score: 1

      Firefox 3.1 beta 3 scores 93/100.

  8. Tabloid? by csartanis · · Score: 1

    Wow, this article is pure satire. I dont think I saw one unaltered image in the bunch.

  9. "Eagle Eyes" by ilovegeorgebush · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dubbed "Eagle Eyes" because it has FireFOX in its sights.

    Evil bastards :(

    1. Re:"Eagle Eyes" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey, they adopt open sores. Shouldn't you guys be happy that M$ now relies on your free labour?

    2. Re:"Eagle Eyes" by Tolkien · · Score: 1

      This is like rock-paper-scissors. Fire torches Eagle. Firefox wins!

    3. Re:"Eagle Eyes" by SalaSSin · · Score: 1

      More like Pokemon, you mean...

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice - Grey's Law
    4. Re:"Eagle Eyes" by freejamesbrown · · Score: 1

      This will be included with Microsoft's Linux distribution! Extend and Embrace (the freely available open source code) !

    5. Re:"Eagle Eyes" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I herd u liek mudkipz?

  10. Awesome by Idiomatick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If it is all true. IE is finally done playing catchup and the general populace still using IE won't be behind. But so far IE doesn't really offer anything that FF doesn't. Chrome for example is missing a lot of things but it has stuff no one else does. All in all this can only cause good things to happen on the internet.

    1. Re:Awesome by The+Hooloovoo · · Score: 1

      Well, IE the engine would be done playing catchup.

      Plenty of IE users, on the other hand, are still banging around with IE 6. They weren't playing catch-up to begin with, because they're not even in the game.

    2. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ie provides better sandboxing than firefox or mozilla, one could argue they need it more than others, but it is definitely well ahead of the competition there, however most people don't notice or see that.

    3. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For a bunch of smart people, you guys are pretty stupid.

      None of it is true, did you bother to read anything? (stupid question, I know)

      From the article:

      Loaded with exclusive features such as a new JavaScript engine, support of WebSlices and full web standards support (CSS 3),

      So they publicly state that CSS 2 support is not a priority for IE 8 and not to expect it, then all of a sudden they implement all of CSS 2 and CSS 3 for a minor upgrade?

      some of the developers even claim that - in terms of performance - [Firefox extensions] work much better under IE 8.1 versus Firefox 3

      uhh.. right.

      Internet Explorer has always been the leader of executing client-side scripts,

      cmon now..

      but that didn't stop Microsoft from continuing its thirst for excellence by including a completely new JavaScript engine called JSE, which stands for JavaScript Speedy Engine.

      You hear that? You got conned by something called the "JavaScript Speedy Engine".

      Javascript performance comparison graph
      Note how Opera and Chrome are the worst performers, with IE6 tied with IE7 (over Firefox 3), with IE8 coming out on top of IE7. Also check the alt text on that image.

      In our exclusive interview with Mike Chelly, one of the senior developers of the IE development Team,...

      Mike Chelly:
      "One of our primary goals is to give developers an easier way to test and debug how their sites and web apps work in different browsers, from within one browser. [Pauses to answer a call from his iPhone] We know in...

      sigh

      If you've ever wished to know how sites and web applications work, Eagle Eyes (the name is fitting in this context) will let you view the server-side source code of a web page.

      If you've ever developed a PHP or ASP site, you would know that is patently impossible. You can't look at HTML output and get the PHP source. It's not technically possible. It's like trying to un-hash a hash, which could have an infinite number of origins.

      There are also several links on that page to other sites. If you hover over them you get some tooltips:

      Acid3 Test (The web page that IE dominated... with ease. While rendering 3D animation in another tab.)

      Gecko Layout Engine (Wikipedia entry on the layout engine that IE 8.1 pwns hardcore.)

      WebKit rendering engine (Wikipedia entry of another layout engine that IE 8.1 completely crushes.)

      GNU LPL [sic] (Wikipedia entry on code that Microsoft is allowed to steal.)

      Mixx (Some social media site that isn't Digg. Whatever.)

    4. Re:Awesome by Idiomatick · · Score: 1

      To be fair, I didn't read the article, neither did anyone else...

    5. Re:Awesome by francium+de+neobie · · Score: 1

      IE is finally done playing catchup... only on April Fool's Day.

    6. Re:Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh yeah that's assuming all the current IE users upgrade from IE 6.... >_>

  11. Wait...what? by thesolo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I smell bullshit.

    How on earth would IE 8, a browser with a UI not written in XUL, be able to "flawlessly" use a Firefox plugin like Tab Mix Plus? Unless IE 8.1 embeds all of Gecko, plus XUL, XPCom, the XPI to install the plugins, you couldn't install or run a plugin on it. And why on earth would Microsoft suddenly give in and embed other rendering engines? That's not something the dominant browser does, that's something that a low-share browser does to help with compatibility, ala Netscape 7.

    I don't buy it. Furthermore, the article is light on details, has some dubious screenshots, and was published just before April Fools' Day.

    P.S. If you want to use Firebug in non-Firefox browsers, then use the Lite version. It works great in IE.

    1. Re:Wait...what? by lseltzer · · Score: 1

      I agree, I think they're just trying to get ahead on the April Fools rush.

      I mean they actually have a screen shot.

    2. Re:Wait...what? by Lord+Ender · · Score: 1

      Check your calendar, then look at a globe.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    3. Re:Wait...what? by felipekk · · Score: 1

      Just to help the April fool's leaked joke, it says Firefox plugins, which are a totally different thing compared to Firefox extensions.

    4. Re:Wait...what? by Rendoggle · · Score: 1

      Boring point: there's a difference between firefox plugins (e.g. Flash, Quicktime, Java, etc.) and Firefox add-ons, which are written in XUL (Firebug, Foxmarks, AdBlockPlus, etc.).

    5. Re:Wait...what? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      I don't buy it. Furthermore, the article is light on details, has some dubious screenshots, and was published just before April Fools' Day.

      It also says that IE 8.1 will have a server-side code decompiler. With a screenshot of "decompiled" PHP. Just in case it wasn't yet obvious for someone...

    6. Re:Wait...what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they have a XUL API that interfaces with the native widgets?

      It's a great idea IMO.

    7. Re:Wait...what? by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      (It is April 1st here already)

      If MS was a company which is bound to real economy rules, they would at least admit the HTML rendering needs open source and a real community and open source the MSHTML engine (with their own terms if they like).

      If a company insisted on maintaining and coding a failure for that long, they would be out of business now. It would be like Apple releasing MACOS (not X) with "improved graphics and multifinder support" in 2009. If they didn't admit MacOS isn't really working, even iPod wouldn't save them.

      As they are a monopoly who aren't bound to real rules, it is just a April fools joke, sadly.

    8. Re:Wait...what? by BenoitRen · · Score: 1

      That's not something the dominant browser does, that's something that a low-share browser does to help with compatibility, ala Netscape 7.

      I think you mean Netscape 8. That's the one that embeds both Trident and Gecko.

    9. Re:Wait...what? by sdiz · · Score: 1

      > How on earth would IE 8, a browser with a UI not written in XUL, be able to "flawlessly" use a Firefox plugin like Tab Mix Plus?

      "Tab Mix Plus" is addon/extension, not plugin.

      Navigate to about:plugins to get some idea what plugin is.

  12. What's not said by NaCh0 · · Score: 1

    Is that obviously MS won't be packaging firefox with windows so don't count on having gecko as the default rendering engine for your website visitors anytime soon.

  13. April Fool a day early by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft's Internet Explorer Development Team has teamed up with the Google Chrome Development Team to create JSE in a seemingly grand plan combat Mozilla Firefox's growing market share. The result: a JavaScript engine that outperforms all modern browsers currently available on the market.

    Yes of course Microsoft will team up with Google to "combat Mozilla Firefox's growing market share". When chairs fly.

    1. Re:April Fool a day early by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chairs already fly...

      http://www.wingedmammal.com/action_photos_2003/action_photo_030913.shtml .. but I still think this story is honky.

    2. Re:April Fool a day early by kauttapiste · · Score: 1

      It's going to be interesting to see if they will integrate Chrome 3D into this. Now that would be exciting! 3D chairs flying!

  14. From the comments ... by krou · · Score: 5, Informative
    RTFC, perhaps? From Smashing Magazine's editorial team, 16th comment:

    actually, it is April 1st in Kiribati already (see Link [is.gd]) and since we have readers all across the globe, it sounds quite OK for us to publish the post now. We don't have that many readers from Kiribati, but it would be unfair to publish it when it's April 2nd there ;)

    --
    'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
    1. Re:From the comments ... by dr00p · · Score: 1

      c'mon ! It's April first in New Zealand .
      Look at this :
      IE 8.1 Supports Firefox Plugins, Rendering Engine
      Posted by kdawson on Wednesday April 01, @08:28AM

  15. IE 8.1 really rocks by INeededALogin · · Score: 5, Funny

    They also decided to release an OSX version again and while I was taking a shower, it fed and took my dog for a walk.

  16. check your clocks by Tumbleweed · · Score: 1

    It's April 1st somewhere in the world already. :)

  17. Let me guess... by Millennium · · Score: 1

    It's April 1 in the country of whoever "leaked" this "news," right? Note to self: just stay off the whole frickin Internet tomorrow.

    Ah, who am I kidding...

    1. Re:Let me guess... by againjj · · Score: 1

      Nice idea, but the author himself dated it 2009-3-31.

  18. It comes with free ponies, too. by Trillan · · Score: 2, Funny

    You need to supply your own pony feed, though.

  19. I hope... by simonbas · · Score: 0

    ...my IEtab plugin will work with this

  20. Okay by slapout · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, that's what the Conficker virus does...

    --
    Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
  21. Re:Acid3 by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 1

    I think the new build of Opera 10.0 and Safari4 Beta get 100% on Acid3.

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  22. Server Side Compiler by CannonballHead · · Score: 4, Informative
    In case anyone is in doubt about April Fools or not...

    Server-side code decompiler

    If youâ(TM)ve ever wished to know how sites and web applications work, Eagle Eyes (the name is fitting in this context) will let you view the server-side source code of a web page. We didnâ(TM)t explore this feature much, but from basic tests, the server-side code decompiler was able to tell us how the Mixx promotional algorithm worked.

    And they show this picture ... hehe.

    1. Re:Server Side Compiler by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In case anyone is in doubt about April Fools or not...

      Server-side code decompiler

      If youâ(TM)ve ever wished to know how sites and web applications work, Eagle Eyes (the name is fitting in this context) will let you view the server-side source code of a web page. We didnâ(TM)t explore this feature much, but from basic tests, the server-side code decompiler was able to tell us how the Mixx promotional algorithm worked.

      And they show this picture ... hehe.

      If anyone thinks it's true after that... I honestly pity them.

    2. Re:Server Side Compiler by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      "403 - Forbidden"
      I don't know about you, but looks like text to me.

    3. Re:Server Side Compiler by the_one(2) · · Score: 1

      It won't work if you click on it. You have to copy-paste the address. It seems they don't want to have their images slashdotted or something =)

    4. Re:Server Side Compiler by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      Works in chrome, doesn't work in Firefox. I assume Chrome retries without a referrer or something like that. Weird!

  23. Usability still matters by hwyhobo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Usability still matters, not just raw speed or ability to supports other vendor's plugins. I have and occasionally use IE8, and while it is a huge improvement on the previous versions of IE, usability-wise it still cannot hold a candle in my book to Firefox. It insists on its own way of arranging menus and bookmarks, so that if I want to have what I have in Firefox, I need 3-4 rows of text and icons at the top instead of 2 in Firefox. That kind of inflexibility irritates me. I don't like wasting screen space. I also don't like using software that irritates me. It's strange because Microsoft was one of the pioneers of the "Customize" concept of the application's interface, where you could remove and rearrange items as you saw fit.

    --
    End anonymous moderation and posting on /.
  24. They forgot to mention that they also release for: by fadir · · Score: 1

    - iPhone
    - Amiga
    - Mac OS 9
    - Atari

    and many more via there new "really universal binary".

  25. Re:Don't forget to vote! by vishbar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Look at this image from the article:

    http://88.198.60.17/images/ie8-eagle-eyes/graph_js_performance.jpg

    See the "Graph created with microsoft excel to showcase MS's greatness in the software market? This is a hoax.

    --
    Ride the skies
  26. 92/100 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am using Seamonkey 2.0a3 (alpha version). The score on the Acid3 is 92/100. I wonder how production browsers score much lower than that.

  27. Re:Don't forget to vote! by areusche · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This BS has got to stop. I'm going to go and burn some karma, but websites should not be pulling April Fools jokes a day or two early. Why? Because sarcasm is lost in text. The humor in this article was not obvious that I ended up thinking it was true. Haha I was fooled! On march 31st! Stop the jokes when they're not supposed to be done. This article would have been easier to spot in the late 90s with IE 4 and 5. Nowadays they're doing better.

  28. News at 11 .. there are other parts to the world by OzPeter · · Score: 1, Redundant

    And they are not in the same timezone as the US. Let alone mentioning the International Date Line!!!!!!

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  29. And so it begins... by Kjella · · Score: 1

    ...the 24 hour endless stream of April Fool's day jokes. Will there be ponies?

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:And so it begins... by HillBilly · · Score: 1

      Yup.. slashdot wont be worth visiting for the next day or so.

      Quality not quantity people...

      --
      "Go into the hall of mirrors and have a bloody hard look at yourself" - HG Nelson
    2. Re:And so it begins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Closer to 48-hour.

    3. Re:And so it begins... by Legion_SB · · Score: 1

      People sometimes ask me if I could put up with a whole day where I'm cut off from my up-to-the-second news sources, my RSS feeds, my constant torrent of media.

      I say to them, yes, I do it every April 1st. And I end up with the shakes and it strengthens my resolve to never willingly unplug.

      At least there are video games. Sweet, blissful, calendar-unaware video games.

      --
      'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM DATA WHERE name LIKE '%'... if you're reading this, it didn't work.
    4. Re:And so it begins... by Kelbear · · Score: 1

      I hate April Fools crowding out all the real slashdot articles...

      But you know what? I'm still here anyway...*hangs head*

  30. Idle pursuits by westlake · · Score: 1

    I think I can safely say that Slashdot will be running on empty for at least the next twenty-four hours.

    1. Re:Idle pursuits by gaderael · · Score: 1

      I think I can safely say that Slashdot will be running on empty for at least the next twenty-four hours.

      You know, as opposed to all the interesting, non-biased, and informative articles that get the go ahead from the moderators the other 364 days of the year.

      --
      Anyone got a light for my sig?
  31. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whoosh...

  32. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Mr.+6502 · · Score: 1

    Hmm, when I voted it said 1337 votes for Yes. I thought that was part of the gag.

  33. it's march you fools, even where i am. by rgbe · · Score: 1

    that 71/100 score looks _exactly_ the same as Firefox. ... and when on Earth is MS going to use opensource to this degree!?

  34. IETab for IE 8.1 by mistapotta · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can I run IE Tab on Internet Explorer and make the world explode?

    1. Re:IETab for IE 8.1 by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      <quote>Can I run <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419">IE Tab</a> on Internet Explorer and make the world assplode?</quote>

      Fixed that for you.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  35. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do note some places in the world it is the 1st when it started getting promoted.

  36. Note to self: by Dynedain · · Score: 1

    Do not read slashdot for the 24-36 hours. Especially if the article has anything to do with your line of work.

    --
    I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
    1. Re:Note to self: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plz to mod parent up to +6, Insightful. Kthxbye.

    2. Re:Note to self: by linuxci · · Score: 2, Informative

      Do not read slashdot for the 24-36 hours. Especially if the article has anything to do with your line of work.

      Most of the slashdot April fool posts are totally unbelievable anyway. As for other times I know that slashdot is more for killing time than using as a reliable news source.

      Now as there's still 2 hours to go before April 1st here I almost believed the headline. As I mentioned in another post plugins (e.g. Flash) are not extensions (e.g. Flashblock). All browsers except IE support the same plugin API, so if IE wanted to be seen to make developers lives easier they'd support it (they used to back when IE was the underdog). The API is the Netscape Plugin API (NPAPI) as it was first implemented in the Netscape browsers.

      Extensions on the other hand are browser specific and serve a different purpose to plugins. Plugins are for displaying content that would otherwise be unsupported, whereas extensions add extra functionality to the browser.

  37. Re:Don't forget to vote! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Check out the author's tagline at the end:

    Jacob Gube is a professional contemporary dancer for the New York City Dance Company. An avid Steve Jobs follower(/stalker)*, you can find him in the local Star Bucks with his Mac Book Air developing .NET applications. Follow him on Twitter⦠if you really must.

    *Seriously Steve, was that restraining order necessary? I was only trying to give you a hug. In retrospect, I shouldâ(TM)ve not done that naked.

  38. Definitely FALSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Check out this statement from the article:
    'Eagle Eyes ... will let you view the server-side source code of a web page. '
    This accompanies a screenshot of this side-by-side.

    You can't see the server side code when you're on the client side. Period.
    Client requests page, server takes server side code and generates the client side code, server sends client side code to client, client parses client side code.

    Part of the point of server side code is the fact that the clients can't see it. It's part of the security of it.

    Even if the program were claiming to simulate the server side code to generate it, it isn't possible. There are so many technologies and so many methods to do things it just couldn't do it. It's not going to be able to tell you pulled user data X from the database at location Y, grabbed their forum icon from location Z, scaled it to 64x64, and then placed it there to be seen.

  39. Scrap Trident, Use FF or Webkit by WebmasterNeal · · Score: 1

    Isn't it about time to fire all the IE developers responsible for the Trident rendering engine and just use another open source rendering engine? I mean if they're going to go through all the trouble of incorporating the other engines in IE why even bother developing Trident anymore?

    --
    "During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
    1. Re:Scrap Trident, Use FF or Webkit by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Uhhhh - actually, I read an article about MS scrapping Trident.  Whatever they release to browse the web next will use SOMETHING ELSE - but no indication of that SOMETHING ELSE was given.  Personally, I suspect they'll shift to Webkit (or Khtml) No, I didn't save a link, I read it days ago.  Google, if interested. Or, don't if not interested.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  40. It'll never get out of R&D by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The sad truth about most of the stuff we do in the R&D lab is it never comes out of the labs. This is especially true of product-line-threatening works like Singularity, which could compete internally with Windows (apparently they don't care if it's win-win, they don't want to have to go through the fight with themselves); much less a browser that makes migration to other browsers--firefox, safari--much easier by using the same rendering engine and plug-ins. Most Linux ports of server and desktop software gets killed pretty fast, for instance.

  41. Re:News at 11 .. there are other parts to the worl by Em+Emalb · · Score: 1

    Voice= Lil' John:

    WHAT!??!?!

    --
    Sent from your iPad.
  42. Re:Don't forget to vote! by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 1

    We need a +1 Fool for April Fools' articles.

  43. Re:Don't forget to vote! by digitalunity · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hereby turn in my Slashdot member card until it is 4/2/2009 or later in all time zones.

    Thanks.
    digitalunity

    --
    You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
  44. If only by Daimanta · · Score: 1

    I would love to see this happening. Alas, the 1st April is nearing and /. is to be taken even less seriously than it usually is.

    If the IE team would support FF add-ons and the FF rendering engine I would personally send them a cake. Seriously. Here's to my vain hope that an MS exec will read this and think it's a great idea. Never take away a person's dreams.

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
  45. Firefox 8.1 more like by Mehall · · Score: 1

    I for one belief that this could be the next release of IE. Note, I said "could" not "would". Want to know how? They can get the source to Firefox (or any OTHER browser that isn't IE) and make that with their own modifications. That's certainly a good way to get it to run FF addons too ;)

  46. Re:Don't forget to vote! by eddy+the+lip · · Score: 5, Funny

    Or a -1.

    I love a good hoax as much as the next guy (the perl/python/parrot thing was great), but I dread April 1 every year now. Disabling every second news source on the planet for 24 hours leaves me with nothing to do but actual work.

    --

    This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.

  47. Firefox daily builds trounce IE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The firefox daily builds do 94/100 on acid3

  48. Re:Don't forget to vote! by master5o1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, but when the site's URL has the date in it, and it's 31 March, then it's really stupid. I'm in New Zealand so It's been April for 10 hours now.


    http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ 2009/03/31/breaking-internet-explorer-81-eagle-eyes-leaked/

    --
    signature is pants
  49. OMG by Ryan+Monster · · Score: 1

    Early PONIES!!!

    --
    Change your name to Homer Junior! Your friends can call you Hoju
  50. We've been SO HAD! by tjstork · · Score: 1

    Little blurb in article:

    "Graph created in Excel to showcase superiority..."

    --
    This is my sig.
  51. Extensions are not plugins by linuxci · · Score: 4, Informative

    Extensions are not plugins. Take a look in your Firefox addons menu if you don't believe me. Plugins are things like Flash, they're written to a specification (NPAPI) that originates in the Netscape days, it is supported by all major browser makers EXCEPT Microsoft. That's why on Windows there's two versions of Flash (not talking 32/64 bit issues here) one for IE and one for everyone else.

    IE used to support the Netscape plugins API, but removed it around about IE5.5 if I remember, the idea was to force developers to write an IE version (ActiveX) if they wanted to support IE. They were probably hoping that plugin developers would have just developed for the more popular IE and ignore Netscape, finally killing browser competition off for good.

    Fortunately the increase in popularity of alternative vouchers has kept the NPAPI alive, meaning that plugins written for one browser will work on them all.

    Now the problem with plugins is they're written in compiled code and therefore a version needs to be written for each OS. Extensions on the other hand are usually written in XUL and JavaScript and so extensions will normally work on any platform, but extensions are specific to a particular browser. So plugins are OS specific, extensions are browser specific.

    So when I read that IE8.1 supports Firefox plugins, my first thought was that IE was bringing back support for the NPAPI that they removed in IE5.5 making it easier for plugin developers. I knew that it was not possible that IE could support Firefox extensions. That would be almost impossible to implement for anything more than the most trivial extension.

    1. Re:Extensions are not plugins by BenoitRen · · Score: 2, Informative

      Extensions are often cross-browser too. But they still all depend on Gecko in the Mozilla world.

  52. Re:Don't forget to vote! by FelixNZ · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's been April 1st here for 10 hours now you insensitive clod!

  53. Another way to avoid it by Nerdposeur · · Score: 1

    Note to self: just stay off the whole frickin Internet tomorrow.

    Lucky for me, my computer went ahead and pre-emptively died this morning - won't even turn on.

    You ain't gettin' ME, Conficker!

  54. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can have your member card back. 4th of February has passed in all time zones I know of

  55. Best April Fools EVER by tjstork · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you skim the thing, it seems pretty real, but once you get into it, you find gems like:

    "[Pauses to answer a call from his iPhone]"

    "Internet Explorer has always been the leader of executing client-side scripts, but that didnâ(TM)t stop Microsoft from continuing its thirst for excellence by including a completely new JavaScript engine called JSE, which stands for JavaScript Speedy Engine"

    This article is just great...what sucks for Microsoft is, everyone wishes this article were true!

    --
    This is my sig.
  56. Why isn't this headline PINK? by fruity_pebbles · · Score: 4, Insightful

    April Fool's deserves the full color treatment!

  57. Reference Rendering Results: by VeNoM0619 · · Score: 1

    While the reference rendering fails on FF 3.0.7 with just gray background (no boxes).
    Yet somehow IE6 gets all the colored boxes in the middle...

    Why the hell did they make the REFERENCE rendering a web page instead of an image is just beyond me.

    --
    Disclaimer: I am not god.
    We may not be created equal
    But we can be treated equal.
  58. Safari 4 beta scores 100/100 by SnapperHead · · Score: 1

    I just ran the test and Safari 4 scored 100/100. I am fairly surprised about this.

    --
    until (succeed) try { again(); }
    1. Re:Safari 4 beta scores 100/100 by Rendoggle · · Score: 1

      Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 (and presumably releases after this) does/do too.

  59. FINALLY by shicaca · · Score: 0

    I've been waiting for a long time coming for IE to support some kind of USEFUL addons. If they get Foxmarks to flawlessly integrate into IE, I'm there. I love Firefox for filling the void that existed b/c of Microsoft, HOWEVER, I do NOT enjoy its (IMHO) lackluster performance vs the newer IE's... Not to mention it always seems my computers run a bit more on high power with Firefox than with IE...

  60. Re:Don't forget to vote! by BlackSnake112 · · Score: 2, Funny

    He might be using MM/DD/YYYY not DD/MM/YYYY. In that case the 2nd of April 2009 has not passed yet.

    And I am most likely hearing a whooosh sound...

  61. Re:Don't forget to vote! by MooUK · · Score: 4, Funny

    It is already well past the fourth of February, 2009. You may keep your card.

  62. Now... by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

    the newest version of Internet Explorer... supports Firefox plugins

    Now if we could only get Google Chrome to do the same.

    --
    That is all.
    1. Re:Now... by koiransuklaa · · Score: 1

      Chrome supports NPAPI so your wish is hereby granted.

    2. Re:Now... by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

      OK, so where do I get the del.icio.us plug-in for Chrome and how do I install it?

      --
      That is all.
    3. Re:Now... by repvik · · Score: 2, Informative

      A Plugin (flash/java/etc) is not the same as an extention.

  63. Happy Conflicker Day! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    This BS has got to stop. I'm going to go and burn some karma, but websites should not be pulling April Fools jokes a day or two early. Why?

    In former Soviet Russian city of Moscow, is already April 1, so April Fools you, yanks.

  64. Re:News at 11 .. there are other parts to the worl by EvanED · · Score: 1

    As many others have said: the article is dated the 31st! "By Jacob Gube, March 31st, 2009." By the site's own admission, it's not on 4/1 for them.

  65. Re:News at 11 .. there are other parts to the worl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    most people think your crazy when you say a standard calendar day lasts 48!

  66. 1:27h left to April Fool at this spot (0,0,0,0) by miknix · · Score: 1

    you insensitive clod!

  67. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Don't worry, the sound will hit you on the 2nd of April...

  68. Re:Don't forget to vote! by jonbryce · · Score: 1

    In some time zones, they write dates inside out, so it is currently 3/31/2009, tomorrow it will be 4/1/2009, and the next day it will be 4/2/2009.

    I find it confusing as well.

  69. warpdesign by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The most funny one is the "Server-side code decompiler" :)

    If you had any doubts before this one... Well, they just vanish while reading this :)

  70. Breaking News: by hviniciusg · · Score: 1

    Smashing Magazine April Fools leaked in March

  71. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Warll · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Oh you think that is confusing? Throughout Canada we use all of them! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_by_country#Canada

  72. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Disabling every second news source on the planet for 24 hours leaves me with nothing to do but actual work.

    It's the meta-April Fool's. Sucker!

  73. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Walzmyn · · Score: 1

    It's already past the 4th of February, what's your point?

  74. Re:Acid3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    my build of opera 10 gets 100% and minefield 3.6a1pre x64 gets a 94%

  75. They gave me mod points for April 1st by Dan667 · · Score: 1

    If the trauma was not bad enough.

    1. Re:They gave me mod points for April 1st by PhxBlue · · Score: 3, Funny

      Just randomly mod things "funny" until you run out of points. :)

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
  76. Re:Don't forget to vote! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    DD/MM/YYYY makes the most sense, IMHO, and I'm American. In fact, when I was a kid in school, I thought that dates should be written this way so I wrote my dates that way, and I was corrected by the teacher. I corrected the teacher telling her that if I were in Europe (I had looked this up at the library) I'd write it the way I was writing. Who then called in a parent teacher conference in which they told my parents that I was too much of a smart ass.

  77. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 1

    No, I'm pretty much in favor of making fools out of everyone every day of the year. April 1st, is supposed to be *a* day of practical jokes, but practical jokes shouldn't be *limited* to April 1st.

    FYI, making you think something absurd is true is sort of the point of a practical joke. So in this case ... it worked ... perfectly.

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  78. Re:Don't forget to vote! by MooUK · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I still prefer YYYYMMDD. Automatic date sorting makes some things so much easier.

  79. Re:Acid3 by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

    This image is a couple weeks old - I did the same thing months ago, but misplaced the image.  http://s217.photobucket.com/albums/cc226/Runaway1956/?action=view&current=Midori_Acid3.png  I can't swear to it, but I think Midori beat them all to the goal of 100 on Acid3.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  80. Re:Don't forget to vote! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

    Oh, definitely. I use that format when I need to put a date stamp into something like a filename. For example, if I make a backup of a particular directory, I'll name it something like dirname_YYYYMMDD or dirname_YYYYMMDDhhmm (if I need that much granularity).

  81. Re:Don't forget to vote! by minijedimaster · · Score: 0

    WOW, talk about negative karma. Good luck with that.

  82. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Randle_Revar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    DD/MM/YYYY is better than MM/DD/YYYY, but still not as good as YYYY/MM/DD

  83. Lirpa Loof by Keeper+Of+Keys · · Score: 1

    This is certainly the best format when sorting by date is necessary, but DDMMYYYY is closer to how it's usually said: 2nd of April, 2009; not, er, 2009 of April the Second. (And the OP is of course an April Fool trick. Wouldn't be a bad idea for IE to start supporting Firefox extensions, though.)

    1. Re:Lirpa Loof by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you ask most people what today's date is, they'll say March 31, 2009.

      I'm not saying it's the best way, but that's how they say it.

      For example, what's your birtday?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:Lirpa Loof by Keeper+Of+Keys · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm a Brit. To me that way sounds American. My birthday? The Twenty-Ninth of November, my good man, and I'll say yes to that pint of Old Peculier. Cheers!

    3. Re:Lirpa Loof by sledge_hmmer · · Score: 1

      Anytime that question is asked (like when I call the bank), I always say 1st January, 1900 rather than the January 1st, 1900.

      So you are incorrect in your assumption. I think it does depend on how you typically write out your dates (what you have mentioned goes for the US).

    4. Re:Lirpa Loof by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 1

      4th of July.

    5. Re:Lirpa Loof by GIL_Dude · · Score: 1

      There is a reason why I think. Now, I believe it is easier for folks on computers, for interop with other countries, etc. to standardize on something like DD/MM/YYYY. However, probably in the olden days - if you had a calendar, you would flip to the correct MONTH first, then find the DAY you wanted. Hence MM/DD/YYYY. Not saying it makes sense anymore, but I am going to guess it started with paper yearly calendars so you could get to the right page before the right day.

    6. Re:Lirpa Loof by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I'm a Brit.

      It's good that you're not ashamed to admit it.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:Lirpa Loof by mabinogi · · Score: 1

      That's the common urban legend explanation, but I doubt it has anything to do with it. As far as I can see, ther's no common way people will answer that question - and it's more likely to vary by the the specific date than anything else.

      There's no reason at all for MM/DD/YYYY. That doesn't mean it's inherently wrong, just that there's no reason. People do lots of things just because that's how they've always done them. It doesn't have to make sense.

      And whilst DD/MM/YYYY may appear to make more sense, (And being a Kiwi, it's what I use), I'd not be willing to bet on its adoption being for any more reason than the USA's use of MM/DD/YYYY. It just is because it is.

      People spend way too much time trying to rationalise or invent reasons for these sorts of things.

      (And for the record, I'd say today's date - even at the time of your post, was the First of April).

      --
      Advanced users are users too!
    8. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      18th of November, 1979.

      There's more than one common speech pattern for specifying dates.

    9. Re:Lirpa Loof by artor3 · · Score: 1

      Actually, in a lot of the countries that use DD/MM/YYYY they do say 31 March 2009.

    10. Re:Lirpa Loof by blackpaw · · Score: 1

      29th/Nov?

      Wow - that's my birthday as well. Cool coincidence.

    11. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For example, what's your birtday?

      10th of April, 1970. Why?

    12. Re:Lirpa Loof by tobiasly · · Score: 1

      29th/Nov?

      Wow - that's my birthday as well. Cool coincidence.

      Not really.

    13. Re:Lirpa Loof by FeepingCreature · · Score: 1

      If you ask most people what today's date is, they'll say March 31, 2009.
      I'm not saying it's the best way, but that's how they say it.
      For example, what's your birtday?

      For what it's worth - if you ask me what today's date is, I'll think "1. April 2009". Then I'll translate it into your weird reverse format.

    14. Re:Lirpa Loof by Eythian · · Score: 1

      Err. No. People would be as likely to say '31st of March 2009' around here. I always give my birthday in the form 'day of month'.

    15. Re:Lirpa Loof by laddiebuck · · Score: 1

      I usually say the twentyseventh of February. Then again I also write 27-02, so perhaps it's a case of one influencing the other.

    16. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      28th October, 1970. That's how I'd say it, I think most Brits would do likewise (the ones that share my birthday, anyway).

    17. Re:Lirpa Loof by shermo · · Score: 1

      31st of March of course.

      --
      Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
    18. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      5th of January, thx for asking.

    19. Re:Lirpa Loof by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 1

      Most people I know say the day first. "The thirty first of March". It comes from the older style "The thirty first day of March."

      I find the "March thirty first" construct weird.

      --
      I don't therefore I'm not.
    20. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      le 17 mars 1975

    21. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I prefer ISO-8601, big endian:

      2009-03-30 11:59

      If you like little endian,

      The 30th day of March, 2009.

      Or the 59th second of the 11th hour of the 30th day of March, 2009.

      59:11 30-03-2009 ??

      Again, ISO 8601 is consistent, the others are not.

    22. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe I'm not most people, but I would say "31st of March" (well, if you asked me what day it is now I'd say "1st of April", but you get the picture). I don't know if this style is caused by or the cause of Aussies writing the date in the format dd/mm/yy.

    23. Re:Lirpa Loof by bytta · · Score: 1

      I'm born on the fourth of July.
      And my mexican neightbour's birthday is Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May).

      Starting to see a pattern here?

    24. Re:Lirpa Loof by Serious+Callers+Only · · Score: 1

      YYYY-MM-DD is the ISO standard, and won't cause confusion, so best to use that.

    25. Re:Lirpa Loof by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 1

      Wow, I'd say parent wins the "Most Directly-Replied-To Comment of the Century" award.

    26. Re:Lirpa Loof by servies · · Score: 1

      Nope, I well tell you (in the case of 31-3-2009) that it is "31 maart 2009"

    27. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      31. mars. I'm norwegian, you insensitive clod!

    28. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My birthday is the Xth of Month.

      Today's date is April Fools Day (aka 1st of April), though it was the 31st of March when you asked the question.

      That disprove "that's how they say it" enough for you? I'm English, and we all say and write the date day-first.

    29. Re:Lirpa Loof by initialE · · Score: 1

      Thirty-first March, 2009, why? Most people think they know what the next person is like, but in reality they live in a tiny tiny world.

      --
      Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
    30. Re:Lirpa Loof by jonbryce · · Score: 1

      You'd pick the calendar for the correct year first, not last, so it should be yyyy/mm/dd.

    31. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Already pointed out by the Brit, but you can't just assume you know what most people do like that. Most people you know, maybe.

      But here in Norway it's pretty much unheard of to state the month before the day, unless you're not talking about a specific day at all.

      Now if you ask me English, I'm likely to say June 19th, because that's the kind of English I'm familiar with, but it's always "19. Juni" in Norwegian.

    32. Re:Lirpa Loof by omnichad · · Score: 1

      And here I thought there were no Centenarians on Slashdot.

    33. Re:Lirpa Loof by omnichad · · Score: 1

      And here I thought there were no Centenarians on Slashdot .

    34. Re:Lirpa Loof by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Sorry - wrong thread.

    35. Re:Lirpa Loof by The+New+Andy · · Score: 1
      I think it depends where you are. Around here, "the 31st of March" would be fairly common (except for the fact that it is the 1st of April).

      When it comes to writing stuff the way you say it - dollar signs are something everyone can agree are wrong :)

    36. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My birthday is the 30th of August, thanks for asking.

      Deal with it, saying the month first sounds wrong to some people :) ... because it is wrong :)

    37. Re:Lirpa Loof by inasity_rules · · Score: 1

      by PopeRatzo (965947) * on Wednesday April 01, @01:49AM

      If you ask most people what today's date is, they'll say March 31, 2009.[...]

      So, no, they'd probably tell you it's the first of April...

      --
      I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
    38. Re:Lirpa Loof by JAlexoi · · Score: 1

      Maybe in your area, most I'm my say 31st of March.

    39. Re:Lirpa Loof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mmmh Old Peculiar, yum...

      I'm an Aussie, and while in England in the late 90s, the Australian batsmen had a mighty collapse and allowed England to get way ahead in the first Ashes Test. I ended up on the afternoon/evening of the 5th day at my local, with overjoyed Englishmen queuing to buy me a celebratory beer.

      Since my regular Sydney beer wasn't on tap, I was recommended to the Old Peculiar. I can't tell you exactly how many Old Peculiars I drank, but I was thankful I was staying only a block down the road.

      Cheers!

  84. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1

    ISO FTW

  85. Script Kiddies Rejoice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Server side code decompiler! Finally us script kiddies can break into those web apps with the usernames and passwords hard-coded into the page!

  86. Server-side code decompiler by Keeper+Of+Keys · · Score: 1

    That's the best bit! But I could almost imagine the less security-conscious Microsoft of days gone by thinking: hm, how can we help developers debug server-side code in-browser? The PHP code example is funny too.

  87. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Malc · · Score: 1

    Well it is 1st April, here in Melbourne. Catch up already!

    The BS has got to stop, definitely. Every year /. runs stories purporting to be funny "April Fools" jokes, but are actually incredibly dumb, unimaginative and far from funny. Thanks for reminding me not to visit this site tomorrow.

  88. Re:Don't forget to vote! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    I corrected the teacher telling her that if I were in Europe...

    Except you were in Cincinnati at the time.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  89. Re:Don't forget to vote! by AvitarX · · Score: 5, Funny

    Where is the omgponies tag?

    --
    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  90. Re:Don't forget to vote! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

    To be fair, Felix, New Zealand just does not matter.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  91. Re:Don't forget to vote! by atraintocry · · Score: 3, Funny

    So you fell for an April Fool's joke...that's sort of the point :)

  92. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 2, Funny

    The humor in this article was not obvious that I ended up thinking it was true. Haha I was fooled!

    What, did you get to the bit about the server code decompiler?

    If you read the whole article, it's so obvious that if you didn't get it, you probably shouldn't be on /. But then again, if you did RTFA, you probably shouldn't be on /. either.

    I'm confused.

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
  93. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When will you Americans keep up with the times?! March 31st was so yesterday.

  94. In other news... by JackassJedi · · Score: 1

    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/31/1332257
    ...cosmonauts rename themselves to 'astronauts'.
    "We're just going with the times. We see this is a value upgrade to our main product, cosmonautics, called "astronautics" starting April 1st 2009."
    Oh and yes, we hope that we can also use the toilet too then.

    --
    Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
  95. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 0

    He fell for an April Fool's joke that wasn't delivered in April.

  96. Re:Don't forget to vote! by WED+Fan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Willing to bet the /. editor let this through thinking it was real as well.

    --
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
  97. OMG PONIES!! by XMode · · Score: 1

    nice to see slashdot is upholding the fine tradition of not running a single news story on this day of days.

  98. It's Obvious! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's completely obvious that this story is true. We've all been hearing the rumors about IE8's "Compatibility Mode". We also know that Microsoft's code is so often shitty. From these two facts, we we can confirm that Compatibility Mode is Gecko. After all, Microsoft doesn't like spending money outside of marketing, and it's much easier to add a new rendering engine then to fix their ancient broken code.

  99. Re:Don't forget to vote! by infinitelink · · Score: 0

    Properly, in America it is MM/DD/YYYY, but for FORMAL and important docs (such as, see below, the 4th of July), one writes DD/MM/YYYY to match antiquated docs' style. And personally, I'm with those who like YYYY/MM/DD for order on computers (for the sake of sorting). : ) In America we say things like "March 29th 2009" so we don't have to speak obstusely (i.e., the extra "the", nd/th/[whatever] (after the number), "of", etc. words). And no offense or anything: again, in formal docs I actually prefer DD/MM/YYYY, but that is when it is written with words, not with the numerical numbers/numbers/numbers form.

    --
    Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
  100. Re:Don't forget to vote! by jedwidz · · Score: 1

    Stink as, bro!

  101. Re:Don't forget to vote! by ancientt · · Score: 1

    Messing with the poll results would definitely have made it better. I personally was wondering how many people would vote for it (obviously I encourage a Yes vote) but what I really wish is that there was a way to tell how many people voted one way or the other thinking it was real. How did you vote?

    --
    B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
  102. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll take your card (as I obviously need one)!

    Shall I give it back to you on 04/01/2010?

  103. in what sense by speedtux · · Score: 1

    In what sense is it still "Internet Explorer" then?

  104. Re:Don't forget to vote! by 1001011010110101 · · Score: 1

    Also, input validation can be done progressively! The Japanese write it that way...I think its also ISO compliant (ISO 8601)

  105. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Stray7Xi · · Score: 1

    You can have your member card back. 4th of February has passed in all time zones I know of

    Don't listen to him, it's an April fools joke! We're really still in January!

  106. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Aphoxema · · Score: 1

    I like YYMMDD.hhmm.ss (2 digit year, Month, Day, 24 Hour, Minute, Second, all with leading zeroes), it's what I always set my clocks to when I can. To me, it makes sense to descend from year to second...

    -When it's a file it stays numeralphabetical (I totally just made that up).

    -The average lifespan of a human being is still well within 100 years, I know it's the thinking the caused Y2K, but I won't need the use of 4 digit years in my lifetime.

    -Separating by a period is clearer than a colon.

    -It's easier to 'guess' when looking right at it than YY/MM/DD MM/DD/YY or whatever.

    -Numbers alone sit better in logfiles than something like Tuesday 31 March 2009, especially when using monotype fonts.

    --
    "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
  107. Re:Don't forget to vote! by FishWithAHammer · · Score: 1

    -When it's a file it stays numeralphabetical (I totally just made that up).

    The term is "ASCIIbetical," I believe.

    --
    "You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
  108. Re:Don't forget to vote! by MadnessASAP · · Score: 2, Funny

    I personally prefer YY/M/SS/D/L/Y/UX/MD/Y.
    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

    --
    I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
  109. not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GTH with this april fools sh--

  110. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Spatial · · Score: 1

    Well maybe you shouldn't have taken it as truth without a second thought. The point of the day is made: learn from your gullibility and employ some skepticism next time.

    I mean, come on... Slashdot is unreliable to begin with and you should know this by now. Firefox plugins and renderer in IE didn't raise any doubts?

  111. Re:Don't forget to vote! by tobiasly · · Score: 2, Informative

    Oh you think that is confusing? Throughout Canada we use all of them! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_by_country#Canada

    I might feel sorry for you if I weren't from Indiana. You may not know what date it is, but unlike us, at least you can be relatively certain what time of day it is at any given moment!

  112. Re:Don't forget to vote! by andy_t_roo · · Score: 1

    i tend to use yyyy-mm-dd that way when you sort the folders/files then they are sorted chronologically

  113. Re:Don't forget to vote! by tobiasly · · Score: 1

    This BS has got to stop. I'm going to go and burn some karma, but websites should not be pulling April Fools jokes a day or two early. Why? Because sarcasm is lost in text. The humor in this article was not obvious that I ended up thinking it was true. Haha I was fooled! On march 31st! Stop the jokes when they're not supposed to be done. This article would have been easier to spot in the late 90s with IE 4 and 5. Nowadays they're doing better.

    So you actually thought that an upcoming release of IE with Firefox extension support, multiple rendering engines, full CS3 support, and an entirely rewritten javascript engine, all by this summer, sounded reasonable? That such a release would only be considered a .1 version? That "server-side code decompilation" is even possible? It should have been obvious by the 2nd paragraph that the article was bogus, regardless of the date.

  114. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Aphoxema · · Score: 1

    That is totally more fun to say.

    --
    "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
  115. Re:Don't forget to vote! by tobiasly · · Score: 1

    As lame as the rest of the article was, their "Mixx promotion algorithm" was good for a chuckle.

  116. Re:Don't forget to vote! by ancientt · · Score: 1

    Judge me not only by my friends, but also by my enemies. Last year I resolved in part to make more enemies, and I'm feeling better about that now.

    --
    B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
  117. Can't beat 'em, join 'em by RazorSharp · · Score: 1

    yeah, I could elaborate, but that about sums it up. nt

    --
    "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
  118. Re:Don't forget to vote! by ancientt · · Score: 1

    Cotton candy ponies that live in rainbows no less. I should have included the link for Google's lunar work: http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html but I was wrong about the year. Last year was Custom Time at http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

    --
    B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
  119. Isnt this a bit early? by moniker127 · · Score: 1

    It isnt even the first of april yet. Why are they running the story now?

  120. Re:Don't forget to vote! by moniker127 · · Score: 1

    Lol why do you need to look at the caption to tell it is false- it indicates that the javascript performance of ie6 is higher than google chrome.

  121. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Dayze!Confused · · Score: 1

    They didn't list Taiwan in that article but there is an additional problem here, they have two different ways of counting years. One is using western years, and the other is using dynasty, the latest having started in 1911, making this year 98.
    When I first moved to Taiwan in 2006 I thought they were trying to sell me 11 year old milk when the container said good till 95/08/01.

    --
    "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]
  122. Re:Don't forget to vote! by dillee1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    You need to disable it for 48hrs. From GMT-12 00:00 to GMT+12 23:59 1st April occurs somewhere in the globe.

  123. Re:Don't forget to vote! by hackiavelli · · Score: 1, Insightful

    DD/MM/YYYY is better than MM/DD/YYYY

    Why? Dealing with a lot of daily paperwork and having to reference back to some that's weeks or months old I would rank YYYY/MM/DD the most useful and DD/MM/YYYY the least in terms of efficiency. You want to start with large divisions which you can bypass or zero your search in on rather than small ones.

  124. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's kdawson, what do you expect?

  125. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why we just don't have an virtual en_IT (Information-Technologies) dialect ? With all of these important details for computers like sorting, ascii order etc. ?

  126. Summer has just finished by pavium · · Score: 1

    or did you mean the Northern Summer

  127. Re:Don't forget to vote! by ketilwaa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So you actually thought that an upcoming release of IE with Firefox extension support, multiple rendering engines, full CS3 support, and an entirely rewritten javascript engine, all by this summer, sounded reasonable?

    Now, now, don't be so sure. You know what they say about monkeys and the works of Shakespeare? Maybe the monkeys finally has had enough time, and are ready to replace the former MS developers.

  128. Re:Don't forget to vote! by MoogMan · · Score: 1

    All slash-delimited dates are subject to confusion (09/04/01 - what date is that? Today? 8 years ago?)

    This is why ISO 8601 uses hyphen delimiters to remove the ambiguity.

    Choose YYYY-MM-DD

  129. Really fell for it by Fredde87 · · Score: 1

    Damn, I got so excited I almost wet myself... But once I got down to the part about using GNU LPL code it became too obvious. Ohhh well, maybe one day there will be a article like this which isnt a april fools hoax...

  130. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Waccoon · · Score: 1

    Antarctica has one of every time zone. Does that count for something?

  131. Isn't april 1st? by manoelhc · · Score: 1

    This post was added yesterday. :)... but sounds like a joke

    --
    -- Simon said: Die!
  132. Re:Don't forget to vote! by aliquis · · Score: 1

    Because it's logical? For your purpose yyyy/mm/dd works just fine, and it's the best solution since computers sorts it nicely to.

  133. Re:Don't forget to vote! by LingNoi · · Score: 1

    Insightful news which is factually correct without sensational headlines.

    ZING! Happy April fools!

  134. Achievement unlocked by Verteiron · · Score: 1

    thank you.

    --
    End of lesson. You may press the button.
  135. Re:Don't forget to vote! by geminidomino · · Score: 1

    What does the delimiter have to do with it?

    what date was 01-02-03?

  136. A great disturbance in Teh FOSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I feel a great disturbance in Teh FOSS... as if millions of unpaid zealots all cried out at once, and were suddenly silenced.

    Seems Teh FOSSies finally got their wish- an IE which is standards compliant... and it's going to bury them.

  137. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1

    4 digit years coming first remove ambiguity in the ISO standard (since no one uses YYYY/DD/MM). The delimiter could be anything, and it wouldn't matter.

  138. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1

    DD/MM/YYYY is better because it is logical. I can accept big-endian or little-endian, but "middle-endian"? Come on!

  139. And Lynx? by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

    No Lynx support = teh fail.

  140. Re:Don't forget to vote! by hackiavelli · · Score: 1

    I guess I don't get it. What makes that "logical"? If I have a big stack of paperwork where the dates all begin with 15 it could not only be *any* year, it could be *any* month within that year. In terms of sorting and filing, it's the least useful method.

  141. March 31 is not for jokes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A prank article on March 31... how annoying and insulting. That's a huge betrayal of trust. I won't be reading this stupid blog in the future, because the articles can't be trusted on 364 of 365 days like everyone else's can.

    And I hope you understand that I'm not kidding, you need to tell the truth on your site unless it's the day (server-local time) when lies are allowed and expected.

  142. Re:Don't forget to vote! by clone53421 · · Score: 1

    Only one? Bah... the US has two of some time zones. That should definitely count for something...

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  143. Re:Don't forget to vote! by Randle_Revar · · Score: 1

    >it could be *any* month within that year

    I have never experienced the 15th month. Tell me, what is it like?

    Little endian is somewhat better than US style, because at least it can be easily reversed and sorted. And it is the logical opposite of big endian, whereas the the US system is the "logical" result of madness.

    Of course, big endian is still by far the best, as "year first" dates are always 4 digits, and the construct YYYY/DD/MM does not occur (except maybe as a bad joke), so there is no ambiguity at all.

    Big endian also allows for the easiest correct sorting - you can treat the date as one big number (instead of 3 smaller ones) and the biggest number is the most recent (or farthest in the future) and the smallest is the oldest. Still breaks on AD/BC, of course, but you can't have everything.