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IE9 Released, Media Has Opinions
Yesterday Microsoft released IE9 and since
then we've been getting tons of submissions about it: It's hard to tell if it is
a threat to web development or
the fastest thing on the web
or even a waste of time. You'll just have to decide for yourself... if you are one of the 9% of Slashdot readers who actually uses IE.
I'm impressed with the work, but it's still a little glitchy, slower to load and just not as blazing fast as Chrome.
No, we all hate IE, it's just 9% of us are at work, libraries, etc. where they force us to use IE.
SSC
Well in my own (albeit not very scientific) testing with canvas/js performance. It's running at around 10x the speed of Firefox. Much faster for sites with a lot of Canvas animation (as their own demos display - Firefox stutters along badly, while IE9 is so fast some of the tests are a blur.) I'm primarily a Firefox user, but it's hard to ignore this huge performance difference.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
... at least until I can afford a monitor larger than 1024x768
i spit up my coffee when i read this
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Because you're just generally interested in the browser on the majority of desktops round the world perhaps getting closer to being standards adherent?
Do you just completely ignore stories on any piece of software that you don't use?
I wouldn't say it's irrelevant in the least. IE is still the leading browser, and it's kind of a big deal when the industry leader has a major release, especially one that addresses many of the issues the 91% of Slashdotters using it has. I'm not a big IE fan either, but I tried the 9 beta and it's a hell of a lot better than I remember IE being. Hell, I honestly think IE9 is a much better browser than Firefox is nowadays, and it's my #2 browser to go to when crap doesn't work in Chrome.
I must say, this is an impressive version. I've been using it since beta, and regardless what 'benchmarks' may or may not say, it's perceptually the fastest browser I've used.
Now if there was just a decent ad blocker available, rather than the TPL's that only block 3rd party scripts and images.
Until then I'll stick with Firefox for a cleaner view of the sites I visit.
If we're going to write inane headlines, let's at least try to be funny...
1. Include Your Children When Baking Cookies
2. Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say
3. Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
4. Drunks Get Nine Months in Violin Case
5. Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
6. Prostitutes Appeal to Pope
7. Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
8. British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands
9. Teacher Strikes Idle Kids
10. Clinton Wins Budget; More Lies Ahead
11. Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told
12. Miners Refuse to Work After Death
13. Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
14. Stolen Painting Found by Tree
15. Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter
16. War Dims Hope for Peace
17. If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last a While
18. Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
19. Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
20. New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
21. Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space
22. Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
23. Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
24. Typhoon Rips through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
if you are one of the 9% of Slashdot readers who actually uses IE.
I think that says it all...
Even though that sounds like a small percentage (and it kind of is) web developers cannot afford to ignore 9% (1 of 11) visitors to their sites.
People who hate IE currently will still hate it (for some its almost a religion - IE could give them free money and they would still hate it), those who like it will probably still like it (having used some of the Betas I can't see anything that would piss off an existing user). There will still be lots of frothy-mouthed ranting on the internet and those of us who really don't give a shit about who uses what browser will still just pick the one we like and get on with our lives.
While IE use has fallen drastically in the last year or two, that 9% figure is going to include quite a bit of audience bias. Unfortunately for those of us who have to support IE professionally the amount of people using it in some audiences is much higher, and an irritating percentage of those populations will be using ancient versions for some time to come. One of our banking clients (one of the largest in the UK) is planning to roll out IE8 "some time this year". The rest of out clients (including others in the "largest in the UK" category are still IE6 only on company desktop and laptop builds.
IE9 would be good news (afterall, it is far more compliant then any version of IE that has gone before) if people using older IE versions switched to it. Unfortunately this is not going to happen as many people who are still using IE for day-to-day browsing either don't care enough to upgrade (hence aren't already using FF/Chrome/Opera/other, though if IE is pushed as an "important" update MS will catch most if the Vista/7 users automagically) and/or simply can't because IE9 will not run on XP.
As with any Apple product, I'll wait 1 year for the 2nd version to come that that finally includes the options version 1 should have had considering the price of the device.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
is the 'pin tab on taskbar' feature (if you have Win7). My company blocks access to GMail, so I have to use the web interface -- now I can have GMail in its own 'application' on the taskbar next to Outlook :)
And yes, I am aware of the Firefox 4 'application tabs' feature -- I've been using my GMail that way ever since I started using the FF4 beta.
Now time will tell which solution fits my needs best.
I just tried that canvas bench in the link.
31 FPS in FF 3.6.15 and 302 FPS in IE9.
Beyond that bit of trivia, browsing with this thing is a lot faster and smoother than Chrome or FF.
Of course, it was a no reboot install and I'm concerned that my PC won't boot correctly the next time around or my drive will be filled with malware the next time I click on IE.
I am part of the majority. Me and 91% of the Slashdoters think that this story is irrelevant and IE is a piece of ... :-)
Anyone else with me ?
...
here we go again...
IE isn't irrelevant at all.
It's a major part of why the web works and looks like it does today, and IE affects how web sites work for you with Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Opera. You don't even have to use IE - these news still matter to you! Both as a developer, or an end-user.
The web is usually designed after the weakest link (usually IE, standards-wise), so of course this story is irrelevant.
The browser forming the weakest link is still the weakest, but today got a whole lot stronger than with IE 8.
We can finally start developing for some aspects of HTML5 without having to restort to relying on updates in some sort of cross-browser third party "compatibility library" where it's easier to just not use those features at all. So the features aren't used at all. So even if you aren't a developer, it still matters, since web sites will start working better.
Authors will now at least start being able to take the step to exploit the potential of Chrome 10 or Firefox 4 better while not having to worry about ~50% not able to be supported well.
IE 9 still has flaws, and is still not there with the competition, but it's miles ahead of IE 8.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
And it runs natively in decent Unixy systems! Oh wait...
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
When your phone catches up to your desktop, it's definitely time to upgrade.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I feel this is a bigger issue than might seem at first glance.
We have a powerful plateau situation in desktop tech. Cite "The Economy", social changes and more; the first two generations of former active experimenters are starting to become satiated now that modestly significant progress has been made. If you merge all the disparate threads of "we can't figure out the next quantum leap in OS", the Age of Good Enough, and the hidden walled up cost of moving Enterprise off of XP, for Microsoft to start to pit a browser as a hardware-based deliberate fragmentation will cause a pressure-cooker situation of a type that will simmer slowly until some further factor sets it off.
Let's coin a word: "Rhetorical Luddite". I thought ahead and built a custom quad core XP machine in 2006 that is still middle of the line now. Now it's MS's job to "prove" why XP absolutely must go to make way for the upgrade they'd like me to make. To do that, I currently guess it would take another Killer App of some kind. These little deliberate fragmentations instead are irritating.
My approximate current plan is that Windows 8 in 2013 will be the switch point, if at the same time both a hardware and application super-breakthrough shows up.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Initially I was referring to the latest live release of Firefox (3.6). On my system my test (linked from story) runs at ~34fps. Firefox 4.0 Beta hits ~97fps and IE9 ~311fps. That's quite a performance gap. The test is mostly rendering polygons in a quick little JS 3D engine, with some canvas->canvas blitting & rotation mixed in. Note that both Firefox 3.6 and Firefox 4.0 appear to be CPU bound, where IE is bound by the resolution of the interval timer (I assume), as it's only using 2-3% CPU.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
At work on Win XP (imagine that) trying to upgrade. . . "To install Internet Explorer 9, you need to upgrade to a more recent version of Windows"
What's the point of Mod points over a long weekend?
The browser forming the weakest link is still the weakest, but today got a whole lot stronger than with IE 8.
At this point, the weakest link is the wide remaining deployment of the nearly decade-old Windows XP operating system. IE 7 required Windows XP, which kept businesses that stuck with Windows 2000 on IE 6. Likewise, IE 9 requires Windows Vista, which will keep a lot of businesses on IE <= 8 for a while.
As with any Linux product, by the time I've finally worked out what all the config options do, a new version will be out that deprecates all of them in favour of newer, shinier options.
If "used by less than 10% of Slashdotters" made something irrelevant, we'd never have stories about "BSD", "Facebook", or "other people's genitalia".
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I think that the people who really care about IE's development are always those who, at some point, have struggled to get a commercial webpage with creative/nifty features to work cross browser.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/#/highlights/all-around-fast
"Without hardware acceleration, browsers only use about 10% of the processing power your PC has to offer. Internet Explorer 9 unlocks that other 90%. "
Rubbish! Firefox frequently uses 99% of my cpu!
Microsoft is good/evil.
IE 9 is wonderful/terrible.
Opera/Safari/Firefox is better/worse.
The best OS is Windows/Mac/Linux.
Sun rises in East/West.
The sun does not 'rise' you insensitive clod.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I still got XP pre-installed on a netbook last year.
These suggestions always bug me (although it's nothing personal, tepples). I type in the Colemak keyboard layout, and have for years. At my last job they wouldn't let me install the keyboard layout.
"But then how am I supposed to type?"
"We don't care."
"Wait, so you won't let me install an open source script for AHK because it's not safe, but I have administrator access to my machine and we use IE6?"
"Does not fem-pute."
No way in hell they're going to let anyone install Google Chrome Frame. Their heads would explode first.
.there is enough of everything for everyone.
As with all Linux products, once I've found a stable chain of individual tools that does what needs to be done, I will live in fear of upgrading any of them, lest the entire chain fail catastrophically.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Is IE ten times as fast as Firefox 3.6 or Firefox 4 RC1?
The reality is, no one really knows how fast IE really is. Firefox has caught IE cheating at several benchmarks and when this was taken into account (adding NOOP), those same benchmarks were several times SLOWER than all other browsers, despite the fact the change should have made absolutely no effect. The implications are extremely profound.
Now that should not be interpreted to say that IE is slower than everything else at everything. The simple truth is, the parts where IE isn't purposely cheating have had pretty strong improvements over previous IE releases. That in of itself, assuming you care to run IE, meaning an upgrade should seriously be considered.
Just the same, at the end of the day, one should be extremely skeptical of any and all performance comparisons of IE if its using any well known benchmark; otherwise you're being spoon fed lies by Microsoft.
My GWT (google web toolkit) sites are not working with IE9 this morning. Irritation is starting to grow. I sure hope Google releases an update to the GWT SDK soon. It was a pretty serious error to not get ahead of this I think. The RCs and Betas have been around for and they didn't work either.
I think your problem is DirectWrite, not ClearType. It's what makes the canvas demos so fast, at the "slight" cost of making text almost unreadable.
You can try switching the page view to compatibility mode, which disables it.
Despite what some may maintain based on the general tone of comments on /. not everyone who participates here is a Linux advocate. For my part I'm over in the BSD camp and daily curse the Linux Heretics who are working resolutely to corrupt our great institutions :) Only a fraction of the articles here are so Linux oriented as to not have relevance to the computer and geek communities outside of the Linux realm.
Will it work on Wine/Crossover?
IE6 and 8 load. Sometimes, they even render a page.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Don't run on Linux either.
$ wine IE9-WindowsVista-x86-enu.exe
fixme:advapi:RegisterTraceGuidsW (0x6cd15f38, 0x6cd20180, {e2821408-c59d-418f-ad3f-aa4e792aeb79}, 1, 0x33de50, (null), (null), 0x6cd20188,)
fixme:commctrl:TaskDialogIndirect 0x33d970, 0x33d9d4, (nil), (nil)
The same with Windows7 version.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Pity Microsoft, finally when they release IE 9, Chromed is ready to go to 11
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'm not complaining, just making an observation that, until quite recently, XP was still sold with new computers.
Just another prime example of why IE sucks sooo bad! I've been running FireFox beta (now RC) 4 since early Feb. Works great on XP! and I don't have to put up with Google spying on me with Chrome!
What's the point of Mod points over a long weekend?
The "cheating" you mention was the result of dead code removal optimization.
As well documented, dead code removal would have not created the observed effect. And if it did, IE would be completely unable to be competitive with any browser. Dead code removal does not in any way explain their obvious cheats.
the summary is that the performance differences are explained by relatively small bugs in Firefox, bugs in IE9, and bugs in the benchmarks, not due to any major architectural issues in Firefox
So are you saying the performance difference doesn't exist? Or, if it does exist, why do we care what the reasons are? Are you just apologizing for Firefox?
Let IE9 have its day, the IE team has earned it. They've put in a lot of hard work to finally release their first browser that is actually "good". It's taken them 15 years to do it, but at least they finally managed. Here's to seeing usage of all other IE versions drop.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Yep, FyRE666's "benchmark" is another bad benchmark that depends on the javascript timeout value. I get 95fps on the current nightly with mintimeout=10 (current default that will be changed soon) but 190fps if I set dom.min_timeout_value=4 (IE9's timeout value and what the HTML5 draft spec now requires).
What they're saying is that the benchmark is badly designed and is testing the javascript minimum timeout more than anything else. Properly designed hardware acceleration tests try to render more and more stuff until the framerate goes below 60 instead of rendering hardly anything and seeing how high the framerate goes.
Using the Tracking Protection Lists, you can get very simple adblock mechanism for IE9 here:
http://easylist.adblockplus.org/en/#easyprivacytpl
It doesn't let you whitelist anything, but if you need something quick and simple, this is the Easylist TPL and it works very well.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Oh crap.
I read other replies to this, blah blah blah MS announced this a long time ago, XP is too old for new APIs, etc.
You're missing the point folks.
As a web developer, I have been looking forward to IE9 as a means of deliverance from having to add style and functionality workarounds for IE6, IE7, and IE8. Designers have been putting rounded corners and drop shadows and complicated borders on everything for a couple years now. This stuff looks great in Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera. And it doesn't show up at all in IE. I have to use GIFs. Not even PNGs --- GIFs, because IE7<7 doesn't support transparent PNG.
There are so, so many people still on XP, and using it happily to get stuff done. We're talking about Presidents and Board Chairs here, the people who pay the bills. They will not upgrade just because there is a new version of IE. So now, instead of supporting 3 versions of IE, we will need to support 4, with all of the same headaches.
So instead of celebrating at long last the release of IE9, I have to go sacrifice a goat and pray that MS will update the rendering engine in IE8 to include an HTML5 mode for XP. Damn you, Redmond!
Who cares how fast the browser is? It's magnitudes faster than the network connection and the server is, so it's not the bottleneck anyways.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
IE8 is supported on XPsp3, but 9 isn't coming to XP at all.
Once the holdouts jump ship to a modern OS, that will make a difference, but I just can't see IE 9 being a deciding factor in speeding that up.
It doesn't even work on XP, so it's highly unlikely.