Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IE 8.1 Supports Firefox Plugins, Rendering Engine

Posted by kdawson on from the fruits-of-competition dept.

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.

6 of 283 comments (clear)

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

    Nothing to see here, move along...

  2. 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
  3. 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.

  4. 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.

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

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

  6. 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/..."