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Microsoft Previews IE9 — HTML5, SVG, Fast JS
suraj.sun sends this excerpt from CNET on Microsoft's preview of IE9 in Las Vegas just now. "At its Mix 10 conference Tuesday, Microsoft gave programmers, Web developers, and the world at large a taste of things to come with its Web browser. Specifically, Microsoft released what it's calling the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview, a prototype designed to show off the company's effort to improve how the browser deals with the Web as it exists today and, as important, to add support for new Web technologies that are coming right now. Coming in the new version is support for new Web standards including plug-in-free video; better performance with graphics, text, and JavaSript by taking advantage of modern computing hardware. One big change in the JavaScript engine Hachamovitch is proud of is its multicore support. As soon as a Web page is loaded, Chakra assigns a processing core to the task of compiling JavaScript in the background into fast code written in the native language of the computer's processor." Microsoft didn't say what codec they were using for the HTML5 video demo, but the Technologizer says it's H.264.
Of course it's H.264. That's the superior standard! And by superior I mean it allows a superior level of control over the once free and open Internet.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
It seems that even IE beat Firefox in Javascript performance now. Firefox sure has been slacking recently. There's still road ahead though, Chrome and Opera are leading.
That's great and all, but Microsoft isn't competing with other browsers for market share, it's competing with its own older browsers. Anyone who knows anything about browsers is already using Firefox or Chrome or Opera, and anyone who knows nothing about browsers is using whatever came pre-installed on their computers:
IE6 if they're still on XP, Safari if they have a Mac, or IE 8 if they're running Windows 7.
Unless this is a mandatory upgrade to IE 8, it's not going to gain any ground.
And of course, the 30% of users still using IE6 will continue to do so until their computers die, or a techie relative replace it with Firefox.
"The new software is only a framework, raw enough that it's still missing a "back" button." You can't say it isn't forward thinking if it won't let you go back.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
I wouldnt be surprised if this is misquoted and it really means the JIT translation that the other browser engines use. But doing it on another core is a nice move, I wonder how well that affects the performance. I'd honestly have expected Apple to do that first, having a good API for doing this kind of thing.
my band is more brutal techno punk than yours
Meaning Microsoft controls the kinds of video IE can stream?
This is a big opportunity for Microsoft to force the Internet media standards AND generate some meaningful license fees. Those fees would be paid to Microsoft to enable streaming your hot-new-VC-backed media format. Microsoft would never have to deal with those pesky media streaming competitors they used to call partners.
If I made decisions at Microsoft, that's how I'd do it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
The demo looks good so far, but I know my MS, there is an angle. There always is. Some subtle way in which they screw it up. Royally. There must be. They have done it for over two decades. No ways after 8 major versions and several minor ones are they suddenly going to play nice.
Paranoid? It ain't paranoia if they are out to get you.
They seem to be really honest this time about following standards, admitting they are not there yet and that it is time they did... so where is the closed source proprietary crap you just know MS is going to insist on adding.
A while ago someone asked on a forum, what would it take to use a linux library for accessing MS services. And I said there was nothing they could do. No, opensourcing it wouldn't do it, because I know MS has in the past done that and then later added closed source extensions you couldn't get on anything but windows.
And before you mod me down, if Blair/Bush (in holland this doesn't apply, Bakellende is after 4 failed goverments still available for re-election) said they were sorry, they knew what they did wrong, know what to do know to fix everything and all they ask is for another chance, would you give it?
Lets face it, they knew since version 6 that they had created a beast that to this day and for years to come haunts them. And version 7 was a beast and version 8 was a beast. So, third time is a charm? This one won't be a beast? I remember when Windows 7 came out: "Oh wow, this is so good, it ain't as crappy as Vista, MS has finally got it." And now slowly the negative is getting out and SP1 is being launched in a rush to deal with all the issues that were overlooked before. IE7 and IE8 were hauled as great improvements on IE6, only for devs to then realize that they were still spending most of their time on getting sites to work with the crappy products of Microsoft.
Will IE9 be different? Will it finally have real dev tools? Will it finally respect standards? Will it finally not introduce a thousand new proprietary and conflicting features? Will it finally perform? Will it finally not have a security hole per day that goes unpatched for years? Will it finally render a page coded to standard correctly?
And will MS finally do something serious about forcing the upgrade of everyone to IE9? Like MS disabling access to all its own extra services to anyone with an obsolete browser and releasing IE9 for EVERY single windows version from 98 on so that everyone can finally switch?
I doubt it. Que the MS apologists who will claim this is finally it. They should be ready, they said it often enough before.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I had to stare at the headline for like 5 seconds before it even parsed. It just didn't seem like a reasonable configuration of words.
This should be able to serve over 2000 popunder ads per second.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
You've missed the overall point. This isn't even alpha quality software, it's in development. They aren't claiming they passed, they are just showing that they are making progress.
What you're doing is kinda like picking on a 2 year old for not having an expansive vocabulary.
No, you've missed my point: They're excusing something that's part of the test. Nowhere else do they explain away the current score or what's missing. The text on the page seems to give the impression the pause is acceptable or 'as intended'. But it's not - it has failed ACID.
They don't claim it passed ACID3. In fact, after continuing from 39, it never gets past 55. Read the IE9 arstechnica article from a few hours ago to see their comments on ACID3, mainly that they don't put any priority on passing it but that their score is going up as they improve their standards compliance.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
It's scoring a 55. That's a fail no matter what. You're latching on to the wrong point. The important part, which you've glossed over so neatly, is that Microsoft included that 55/100 on ACID3 as part of the actual news. They're freely admitting upfront, "hey, on this test, we're still doing badly, but we are working on improving. It's just not our focus."
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Which is better default behavior?
1. Open the browser as quickly as possible and let the user click the page they want from the history / most visited list (Safari, Chrome, Opera do this)
2. Open the browser and check all the plugins for updates, check to see if pages were open when the browser was last closed, stop loading, present a dialog asking the user if they want to load the browser (which is going to happen anyway regardless) or load the browser _and_ try to open N tabs simultaneously.
If you said 2 you are an imbecile.
To continue the voting analogy, it takes 20 percent to force a roll-call vote in the U.S. House of Representatives or Senate.
I just recently learned about that practice. It's rather disturbing to think every little detail is recorded when you go to court for a traffic ticket, but no record is kept of who voted for what in our Legislature unless 20% of them agree to allow it.
It's not surprising they rarely do roll-call. By not keeping records, they can claim to have voted in whatever manner the group they are currently speaking to finds most acceptable... a very useful tool for each and every one of them.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
I know they're not claiming they've passed. But you've assumed something pretty big: "hey are just showing that they are making progress". If they've only got to 55, and the process of reaching 55 does not fulfil the rest of the test (being smooth, namely) then it actually hasn't even got to 55. It may as well be at zero.
To be fair, you're also making a big assumption: that someone cares what you consider the score that an alpha browser achieves against a test it's not trying to pass is.
I mean, this is a site full of geek wankery, and I mean that in the most affectionate sense, but come on.
So with all of the nifty, new stuff they are finally compliant, right? I mean no more body {text-align: center;} instead of body { margin: 0px auto; } to center a fixed width layout, right?
Those are two different things. text-align: center centers stuff in a div. the margin: 0 auto you set to a div to center that block (the div) in its container. Even IE6 works correctly with this, so I don't know what the issue is here.
For those having box-model issues with IE6, you can easily fix this by using the HTML 4.01 Strict DTD, FYI.
What good is a standard embedded video tag if there is no standard coded with which to play with it?
What good is a standard embedded image tag if there is no standard coded with which to play with it? Notice that HTML's definition of the <img> element doesn't require support for any specific image format.
What happens if they cut-and-paste OS into their commercial products?
They get busted and have to release their formerly closed source product into OS.
Problem solved.
MS is visibly arrogant and arguably evil, but stupid? Nyet. Count on their legal eagles making DAMN sure the little fiasco outlined in the linked article never happens again. They may be inclined to do anything they think they can get away with, but this is something they understand they can't get away with.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Please go to http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/contact.aspx and ask Microsoft to add support for Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis. They could add it to the browser, or add support for it to the OS and then have the browser support it. They can support both H.264 and Ogg if they want to. For example, there are many sites like Wikipedia which *ONLY* permit Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis for multimedia; without built-in support, IE users have trouble hearing/viewing the content.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
As a web developer, I'm really glad that every version of IE has been more standards compliant than the last.
It would be nice if the everyone magically installed FireFox or Safari or Chrome, but that doesn't seem to have happened yet.
Our best hope for killing off older versions of IE is newer versions of IE and an automatic upgrade path.
Frankly 8 doesn't seem that bad to me. Most of my code just works with IE 8. I'm really excited about HTML 5 and SVG in IE 9.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
I know this is going to sound trollish, but hear me out.
I can't be the only one noticing that there is a recent upswing in what I'd call Microsoft "prototype news." All the blogs are full of Win Mobile 7 System Phone (or whatever they are calling it...), something called Courier that's probably vaporware, Natal, and now IE enhancements that aren't quite done yet. It feels to me like Microsoft shifted a good chunk of change into marketing for some reason.
It kind of feels like they are saying "Oh, don't look at that, we'll have something soon..."
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Does it run Linux?
No, everyone is NOT on board. For example, Wikipedia explicitly forbids MP3 and H.264, and only accepts Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis. If you want to hear audio or see videos on Wikipedia, one of the world's most popular web services, then you MUST use Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis. And as you know, Firefox (one of the most popular web browsers and growing) includes built-in support for Ogg and NOT for H.264. Many sites, and many operating systems (such as Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Debian, etc.) do NOT support H.264.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
What if there was an option to not check for updates and to not load the previously loaded tabs?
MS also announced demos of IE10, IE11 and IE12.
"A new release every month! That's our goal!" said sweaty, vaguely simian MS CEO Steve Ballmer. The new Hachamovitch Javascript engine will interface with the Millajovovich subsystem to spawn independent processes to more effectively deliver those animated ads everyone loves!"
"Like that punch the monkey ad! I love that one!" Ballmer said and began his patented monkey dance. "C'mon everyone! Punch the monkey!"
When asked about MS simply adopting WebKit and making everyone's life easier and even saving themselves piles of money, Ballmer pulled out a shotgun and killed the reporter.
"Oops! Thought he was zombie," said Ballmer and shot the reporter's body again. "Double tap!"
No, not even slightly true. The primary reason that PNG was created was to create a patent-free format. Then, since they were creating a format anyway, they decided to make other improvements. For more information, see "History of the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Format" by Greg Roelofs, which was published by the Linux Gazette and later the Linux Journal. I know, this is Slashdot, I'm not allowed to cite sources :-).
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Even if it did, it would be banned from the app store.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
It's the newest version of the Microsoft's web browser, also known as Internet Explorer. However, due to the increased Internet standards compliance and for marketing reasons, the successor to Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8) won't be called Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9), but rather Internet-Compliant Explorer 9.
Ezekiel 23:20
It's not that they think Theora will win in the end. It's that they want some free standard to win in the end, and they know that won't happen if they (of all people) fold on H.264.
The money they'd have to pay for including it in their distribution isn't the issue. It's the fees people in future would have to pay for creating and distributing movies. They want the Web to be democratic, and that means everyone gets to contribute, whatever their financial means.
You don't get it. If Firefox had h.264 support, it could not be redistributed. Period. Everyone would have to download the 'offical' version from Mozilla. No Linux distro could include it. No one could change the code and distribute it. It would cripple Firefox. Why the hell doesn't anyone understand this?
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
Homogenisation leads to stagnation, even when it's not Microsoft driving it.
People need to realise that it's a *bad* thing if everyone's using Firefox or all the browsers are using webkit as their rendering engine or everyone's running AMD processors. Variety provides competition, which results in progress.
See here: http://www.ie7pro.com
If you don't want Active-X, disabled it.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Ubuntu doesn't seem to have a problem redistributing H.264 support in libavcodec.
This probably goes without saying, but the IE9 preview does not install on Windows XP.
You don't get it. If Firefox had h.264 support, it could not be redistributed. Period. Everyone would have to download the 'offical' version from Mozilla. No Linux distro could include it. No one could change the code and distribute it. It would cripple Firefox. Why the hell doesn't anyone understand this?
That's not true. h.264 can be implemented as a plugin. Firefox needn't include this plugin by default. There are plenty of third-party h.264 implementations to choose from. Mozilla themselves could even create such a plugin as an add-on, and make it freely available (sans source, if necessary).
Mozilla are shooting themselves in the foot if their present stance is anything but bluster. The h.264 train is leaving the station, and Apple, Google, and even Microsoft are on board. Firefox's market share will plummet without an h.264 solution.
Why the hell doesn't anyone understand this?
Because it's false.
Firefox needs only to ship with generic gstreamer support for it's video element, just as Fennec will be doing. Then you can install any damn gstreamer codec implementation you want, and it'll be available to Firefox. Problem is, the Firefox devs decided they don't want to do that for political reasons, and so Fennec's implementation won't be ported to Firefox. Thank you asshole developers!
It could be worse. The name could be Internet-Complaint Explorer 9, but that would be redundant.
Like prior IE releases they're still playing catchup and not moving ahead of the competition. Webkit & Mozilla have support border-radius for quite some time now and Opera, I believe, has also started to supported it. Then there's SVG which the others have supported for a very long time now.
This is no different than when IE8 was released and IE finally supported CSS 2.1 when all the other browser vendors had.
Webkit, specifically Safari, has been leading the way in CSS innovation & Javascript performance with each release with Chrome slightly behind. Firefox & Opera seem to be battling it out for third place and IE, of course is always an entire generation behind.
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
With all the idiots fighting over the usual crap no one mentioned that it doesn't seem to support the canvas element. Microsoft has specifically tried to get the canvas element removed from the HTML5 spec. (as per here). And I know why Microsoft doesn't want the canvas element in there: because it's a direct threat to Silverlight.
Nonsense.
First of all, Microsoft does *not* have "nothing to worry about" with H.264. Just because it pays tribute (er, licenses patents) from one organization does *NOT* mean that it's protected from all other organizations. In fact, once you demonstrate that you're willing to pay to one organization, others will start to show up to get some money too. For an analogy, look at the history of the Vikings; once people started paying tribute, the odds of looting parties showing up INCREASED. And we don't have to just use analogies; look at the recent history of sound codecs, specifically MP3. Microsoft paid big$ tribute for MP3, but Alcatel-Lucent sued Microsoft and won a record-breaking $1.52 billion in damages via a jury verdict. Now it's true that Microsoft got lucky in that one; in the MP3 case, a judge reversed the jury, a highly unusual event. If a judge hadn't reversed it, Microsoft would have paid $1.52 billion in additional damages for something it had ALREADY PAID LICENSE FEES for. And even so, Microsoft spent a FORTUNE in court on MP3, a codec that it was already paying license fees for. So it appears that "licensed" codecs have a HIGHER risk, not a lower risk, historically speaking. Wikipedia has more about the MP3 patent stuff.
Second of all, there's already been a lot of money and research spent to make sure that Ogg Theora is free of patent issues. Few things in life are "conclusively proven"; let's use realistic measures. The evidence, in this case, is really strong that Ogg is safe. Strictly speaking, it's not that Ogg Theora is patent-free, it's that all known required patents have been released under and irrevocable free license. That is actually a stronger legal position than simply "not knowing of any patents"... here we have a granted patent, which is then released. The Ogg folks spent $ to do their own legal searches, too, something standards bodies emphatically do NOT do, giving you additional protection. Most companies that claim that "Ogg has unknown patent issues" are basically flinging FUD; it's mainly a protest claimed by companies who have a vested interest (a kickback) from the patent licenses. In particular, it's my understanding that Apple *makes* money from the H.264 patents. So unsurprisingly, Apple works to lock everyone else into the patents they partly control, and actively works to *prevent* the use of open standards for codecs. But you don't need to buy into that.
Sure, it's always possible that there are unknown submarine patents, but submarine patents are risk to all codecs, including H.264; that is not specifically a risk to Ogg Theora. Indeed, H.264 is MORE dangerous. Because H.264 was developed in an environment where patents were permitted (for shame, ISO), and there was no *requirement* for an external patent search (ISO doesn't require it), there was an incentive to patent everything, both by the participating parties and by external parties. There have been a number of court cases about MP3, but none about Vorbis, which shows that once you let patents into a standards process, things can get really bad.
Someday, someone may find a patent problem with Ogg Theora, but this is highly unlikely. In contrast, we have hideous patent problems with H.264, today. Why worry about Ogg, when there's a wolf already in tent? We need to dump H.264 (with its KNOWN problems) and switch to Ogg (which has NO known problems). First step: Get the browsers to support Ogg Theora. Then websites can more rationally use the format. It's better for Microsoft's customers: They can then easily use an open standard. It's also better for Microsoft: If more people use an open standard, they won't be as beholden to the H.264 licensors and will reduce the risk of me-too lawsuits like that of Alcatel-Lucent.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Let me rephrase then.
What is the better default behavior given that there is an option to alter said behavior if you don't like it?
The default behavior attempts to keep Firefox as up to date as possible. It also tries to recover from the browser crashing or some other misfortune. If I need to go in a hurry, I can close the browser and it will reopen where I left off.
Your argument seems to be that people are imbeciles if they don't have the same priorities you do. I don't subscribe to that point of view.
IE is one of the few Microsoft products that is actually worth exactly what the customers pay for it!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
When Internet Explorer 6 was released, way back in 2001, it included two different rendering modes. The old 5.5 rendering mode, retroactively dubbed "quirks mode", and the new 6.0 mode. The new mode was only triggered on pages that included a modern doctype. The new mode gets centring right. The old mode gets centring wrong. So what you have done by asserting that Internet Explorer 6 gets centring wrong is tell everybody you've inadvertently been targeting Internet Explorer 5.5 by not using a modern doctype and not being aware of something the rest of the world has known about since 2001.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha