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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.
Don't forget to vote, current stats for "I'll download it" are:
including my Yes vote
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Breaking News: April Fools joke leaked on March 31st
Yeah, little early guys, It's not yet April 1st here, in Europe sure, but since when has /. been Europe-centric :)
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.
"IE 8.1 beta will be released in the summer. "
Of what year?
...it isn't April 1st yet :)
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.
Wow, this article is pure satire. I dont think I saw one unaltered image in the bunch.
Dubbed "Eagle Eyes" because it has FireFOX in its sights.
:(
Evil bastards
ilovegeorgebush
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.
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.
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.
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.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
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.
It's April 1st somewhere in the world already. :)
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...
You need to supply your own pony feed, though.
...my IEtab plugin will work with this
So, that's what the Conficker virus does...
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
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
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.
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
- iPhone
- Amiga
- Mac OS 9
- Atari
and many more via there new "really universal binary".
[random pessimistic comment about anything microsoft] and/or [april fools something or other]
can I get modded up now too?
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.
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?
...the 24 hour endless stream of April Fool's day jokes. Will there be ponies?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I think I can safely say that Slashdot will be running on empty for at least the next twenty-four hours.
that 71/100 score looks _exactly_ the same as Firefox. ... and when on Earth is MS going to use opensource to this degree!?
Can I run IE Tab on Internet Explorer and make the world explode?
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.....
Check out this statement from the article: ... will let you view the server-side source code of a web page. '
'Eagle Eyes
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.
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
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.
Voice= Lil' John:
WHAT!??!?!
Sent from your iPad.
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.
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 ;)
The firefox daily builds do 94/100 on acid3
Early PONIES!!!
Change your name to Homer Junior! Your friends can call you Hoju
Little blurb in article:
"Graph created in Excel to showcase superiority..."
This is my sig.
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.
Lucky for me, my computer went ahead and pre-emptively died this morning - won't even turn on.
You ain't gettin' ME, Conficker!
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.
April Fool's deserves the full color treatment!
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.
bureaucratic and writing 1s on the Baby take my
I just ran the test and Safari 4 scored 100/100. I am fairly surprised about this.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
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...
the newest version of Internet Explorer... supports Firefox plugins
Now if we could only get Google Chrome to do the same.
That is all.
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.
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.
most people think your crazy when you say a standard calendar day lasts 48!
you insensitive clod!
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 :)
Smashing Magazine April Fools leaked in March
my build of opera 10 gets 100% and minefield 3.6a1pre x64 gets a 94%
If the trauma was not bad enough.
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¤t=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
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.)
Server side code decompiler! Finally us script kiddies can break into those web apps with the usernames and passwords hard-coded into the page!
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.
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.
nice to see slashdot is upholding the fine tradition of not running a single news story on this day of days.
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.
In what sense is it still "Internet Explorer" then?
GTH with this april fools sh--
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."
It isnt even the first of april yet. Why are they running the story now?
or did you mean the Northern Summer
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...
This post was added yesterday. :)... but sounds like a joke
-- Simon said: Die!
thank you.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
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.
No Lynx support = teh fail.
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.