IE 10 Almost Finished For Windows 7 With Final Preview

Billly Gates writes "IE 10 just hit the final preview yesterday for Windows 7. Windows XP and Windows Vista support has been dropped. Most slashdotters have a complex relationship with Internet Explorer. Many of us hate it but have to use it in the office. Microsoft had tried last year to make IE good again with the release of IE 9 which had some fanfare on slashdot, such as hardware acceleration and better standards compliance. MS even launched a full campaign to get us to switch. IE 10 is supposed to continue the new process and promises to be much faster and support more HTML 5, CSS 3, W3C HTML 5.1 and CSS 3.1 with a score of 320 on HTML5test. As a comparison, last years IE 9 only scored 138. "

Comments

Microsoft Internet Explorer

[MrEricSir]

"It's the best way to install Firefox!"
  - Steve Ballmer

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[hcs_$reboot]

...is as Good as the OS It Runs On says Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft's top gun on the Internet Explorer browser team. Well, this is a double-edged sword...

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[bondsbw]

Disagreed. Installing anything requires clicking a banner at the bottom (a click that takes 10 seconds to register), then going through some security scan, then clicking on a dialog, and then clicking cancel on the 3 other dialogs I got because the lag made me think the first click didn't register.

And if you're on a server... Fuggiduhbadit! You'll have to enable anywhere from 1 to 12 security exceptions by clicking a few times and typing a website address, each. Then you have to reload the page, and get past the security warning that pops up every time. THEN you get to go through the above process.

I'm thinking next time, I'll just use telnet and a pipe.

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[hairyfeet]

Funny enough that isn't far from the truth, although to be more accurate today it would probably be Chrome instead of Firefox. Working here at the shop I get to see pretty much all walks of life and within the last 5 years I have seen a pretty fundamental shift, whereas before it was only the geeky types that had an alternate browser now EVERYBODY has one, even the little old folks that don't like change.

Now I can't tell you why, maybe its the fact like morons they fragmented the hell out of the userbase and people didn't like that they couldn't run the same IE on both their new laptop and their old desktop, maybe its the UI changes that frankly suck, who knows, but I can tell you pretty much ONLY the SMBs use IE anymore around here and even many of them are moving away from IE.

This is why I don't get why the EU and others are having a fit over IE, its fucking dying already, what is the point of kicking it as it quivers and bleeds? it would be like having a shitfit over the blink tag in Netscape after AOHell bought it and run all the users off, seriously what is the point? IE is dying, the fat lady has not only sang she is down the street having a sammich, nobody uses that crap anymore unless they absolutely have to and even those are looking for an exit strategy. Let the damned thing just die in peace already, let it join WinME, Vista, and Win 8 on the fail pile and move on.

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[crutchy]

or walk to your neighbors and use their firefox to download the firefox installer onto usb stick and walk back

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[partyguerrilla]

"There is no better way to install our botne^H^H^H^H^HBrowser" - Erick Schmidt

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[Anonymous Coward]

"I would like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Internet Explorer, is in fact, Mosaic/Internet Explorer or as I've recently taken to calling it Mosaic plus Internet Explorer."
-Richard M. Stallman

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[TheNinjaroach]

I'm thinking next time, I'll just use telnet and a pipe.

Joke's on you, buddy. Telnet hasn't been included with Windows Server installs for years now. How ridiculous!

The install footprint is measured in gigabytes but an essential 500KB tool isn't included by default.

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[Rhipf]

I can tell you one of the reasons you are seeing more alternate browsers (at least chrome) is because of drive by installs and bundling.
I am also seeing more alternate browsers in our shop and when there are problems with them I will suggest the users use IE instead (since it still seems to work). Some of them say that they prefer IE but that the other browser just suddenly appeared and they didn't know how to switch back.
I have also seen a lot of the name brand computers (Del, Lenovo, Acer, etc.) coming preinstalled with Chrome.

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[Ravaldy]

You did absolutelly no research before you made these statements. IE had bad moments but remains a competitor. From a developpers standpoint all browsers have their flaws. People who bitch about IE don't use IE, people who bitch about Firefox or Chrome don't use them. Simple as that. People will always bitch that they have to make changes to their work to accomodate a difference in another browser they don't use.

I too hate the 1000 notifications that come from IE when you first run it. Unfortunately the company does that because it's the only way to keep you informed that you don't know what your doing and that if you screw up, well you can't say we didn't tell you.

FYI, I use all 4 browsers because our customers use them all. Firefox, IE, Chrome and Safari (Damn I hate Safari) :)

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. It's there under the Add/Remove Features, just not installed by default. Client AND server.

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, telnet has always been a big fat gaping security hole. Good riddance.

The vitally important modern piece which is missing is an ssh daemon.

Re:Microsoft Internet Explorer

[hairyfeet]

That's funny, here we aren't seeing drive by Chrome installs but Jesus tap dancing Christ on a crutch if I see one more damned McCrappy Security Scan stuck on a customer's machine I'm gonna snap!

And since I don't get much OEM desktops (most folks here prefer my builds, since they get them crapware free and i make sure its upgrade-able) but I have noticed more chrome installs on the new Inspiron laptops that come through here.

That don't change the fact that its becoming damned hard around here to find anybody using IE anymore though, we have a couple of companies trapped on IE 6 thanks to the moron that built ActiveX intranet apps, but other than those even our SMBs are either using FF or one of the Chromium variants, usually chrome or since i started recommending it Comodo Dragon. But IE just seemed to die out, at least around here, around 3 years ago, one day it just stopped showing up for FF and then Chrome.

Riiiight

[H3xx]

:slow clap:

Attempting to give a damn

[fustakrakich]

Process failed. Damn not given

Seriously, who cares?

[Johnny Loves Linux]

It's like the guy selling the best buggy whips in the era of the car. Or the crazy homeless guy spewing crap about Soviet communism will triumph over capitalism any day now. It's only been 20+ years since the Berlin wall fell. Why does IE anything even matter? It's not going to be on your Android phone, or iphone. Who cares?

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[Nefarious Wheel]

It matters because we have to deliver content to several hundred sites via Web/Intranet, and we can't dictate the end user's infrastructure. They will invariably use IE as a standard. This is industry talking...

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[ganjadude]

or.. like the guy screaming THIS is the year of linux on the desktop???

/ducks ;)

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[tftp]

It matters because we have to deliver content to several hundred sites via Web/Intranet, and we can't dictate the end user's infrastructure.

But many end users will be glad to dictate their infrastructure to you. Starting from President/CEO and his VPs, and going down to program managers, and then to senior engineers... when your (IT) interests and their interests collide the IT will not be the winner. Those guys are bread winners, and IT is the cost center, with the sole purpose of supporting bread winners. They tell you what they have and you accomodate. Not the other way around.

For example, there may be a frantic phone call from one of your sales guys. He is trying to set up an elevator pitch since he just arranged for three minutes with the Big Customer. But his iPad cannot access your Web site!!! Disaster!!! Can you tell this sales guy that he should bring the customer in front of a company-issued laptop? These three minutes may well be on a golf course or when jogging. Nobody will be on your side (nobody who matters, at least.)

Besides, your Web delivery of materials will be just fine unless you go out of your way to support only this or that version of the browser.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

As a web developer, I care. And as as user, you should care.

Not because you should use IE. Use what you like, that's what makes standards with multiple implementations great. But there are tons of things that simply aren't done because browsers don't provide the necessary infrastructure, or because it'd be extremely difficult. Like it or not, as a major browser, IE dictates a lot of what happens on the web, even if you don't personally use it.

IE better supporting standards means those standards are more likely to be used, which means that your standards-supporting browser will work better, faster, and take less development time. For the browser developers, not having to implement work arounds for web pages that work around IE bugs means more time can be spent on new features, so your own preferred browser gets better, faster. Web pages take less time to create, so they're better, and us developers can work on more interesting things than working around some weird focus bug. Maybe the Slashdot developers will even have time to implement UTF-8 support so we can all post Zalgo and smilies that accurately depict our feelings.

It's a good thing all around! Lighten up!

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[NJRoadfan]

Don't forget that Windows RT users are forced to use IE, one of the many limitations of the OS.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really think handhelds are the only thing that matters or will matter in the future, you're an idiot.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[trudslev]

You are so right. :) New standards are usually so hard to adopt because we usually have to wait for Microsoft to invent their own version of the same paradigm and then we have to make exceptions in our HTML/code.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[93 Escort Wagon]

For example, there may be a frantic phone call from one of your sales guys. He is trying to set up an elevator pitch since he just arranged for three minutes with the Big Customer. But his iPad cannot access your Web site!!! Disaster!!!

If your company's website doesn't already work on the iPad (or Android phone/tablet), your company's web developer(s) and IT supervisor should probably have been fired by now.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[crutchy]

who the hell uses IE as a web standard?

industry uses W3C... if you don't know that you likely won't even get a job as a web dev nowadays

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[crutchy]

nah don't worry... "the year of the linux desktop" is more of an inside joke now, even for linux geeks. linux geek wannabes might be offended though :)

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[kiddygrinder]

i think that was his point, ie is not the target market.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[cbhacking]

In theory, you could publich other browsers to the store. In fact, Mozilla is apparently working on a Windows Store App ("Metro") version of Firefox... but for some reason only for x86. Not sure what's up with that; they know how to do Firefox on ARM but for whatever reason are deciding not too.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[NJRoadfan]

One of the limitations of Windows RT is that developers can only use the IE rendering engine, similar to how they are limited to Safari's rendering engine on iOS.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[JDG1980]

who the hell uses IE as a web standard? industry uses W3C... if you don't know that you likely won't even get a job as a web dev nowadays

No, the point is that it has to work on IE, whether or not IE is obeying W3C standards, because IE is what comes by default to low-information users, and IE is what is almost always used by businesses for Group Policy reasons. Thankfully, most businesses don't demand that IE6 be supported any more (though a few still do), but in many instances a website must at least display properly on IE8, even though that browser is absurdly outdated compared to everything else on the market. Remember, a lot of companies are still on Windows XP, and that can't even use IE9.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[jonadab]

> Maybe the Slashdot developers will even
> have time to implement UTF-8 support

What would be the point? The lameness filter is going to strip out everything but printable ASCII anyway. (In general, this is mainly a good thing, because it filters out a great deal of, in a word, lameness. Admittedly, it occasionally annoys me that I can't include one short foreign word in an otherwise English-language post.)

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[amicusNYCL]

It matters because we have to deliver content to several hundred sites via Web/Intranet, and we can't dictate the end user's infrastructure.

Thank you. Even though most of our customers don't put requirements on us to support their own infrastructure, having a fast, capable IE 10 means that we get fewer support calls relating to slow performance or other bugs with IE. You don't have to be an IE user to get a benefit from a good version of IE being released. It's finally gotten to the point where we are starting to tell our customers that their IE6- and IE7-specific issues are not going to be addressed (it feels so good to say that). It's nice to also tell that to a customer and have them basically respond with "oh... ok" instead of throwing some massive shit fit. The IE team has done good work with the last couple versions, I hope they keep it up and, even more, I hope existing IE users all move to new versions if they're going to stay with IE.

Their advertising for IE, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired. I'm sure people have seen the commercials for IE, which completely miss the mark. They are advertising IE like their target audience is people who don't have a web browser. They're talking about how fast it is, how it supports so much of the web, etc, like there are people sitting there with Netscape 4 hoping they can upgrade. The problem is that the audience they should be targeting is the group of users who have left IE for another browser. Their advertising needs to give people reasons to try it out again, not just a list of the features that people appreciate in all modern browsers. I don't care that IE is fast, the browser I use now is fast, convince me that I should use it over Opera or Chrome or something else.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[KingMotley]

It matters because:
1) Many people still use IE.
2) Google/Facebook only support the last 2 versions of IE, so when IE 10 comes out, they will drop support for IE 8.
3) We only support the browsers that google & facebook support, so we no longer need to support IE 8. We are now an IE 9+/Firefox/webkit shop.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[cbhacking]

Source or citation? I see nothing claiming that. There's certainly no technical reason it couldn't be done, though getting the entire browser to run in a low-integrity sandbox apparently has made things difficult for Mozilla. On the other hand, plenty of "third party browsers" for mobile OSes have worked just fine in similar sandboxes; they typically use the platform's built-in rendering engine but as far as I know only iOS mandates that.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[Nefarious Wheel]

i think that was his point, ie is not the target market.

In our case, it certainly is. Our target market is fixed workstations on office affiliates. They're independent of us (we're a national hub) and control their own LAN infrastructure, but the use a lot of services that we deliver via limited-access web portal. Basically they can do whatever they want with their LAN, including upgrade their IE to whatever version, or use Chrome, or any browser that supports a working PDF plug-in. They all, as far as I know, use Windows XP and W7 with Adobe readers. But they could move to IE10, and if it's slower to load content, that will become a real problem for us. I have no performance data yet, but we will be watching with abated breath.

Re:Seriously, who cares?

[crutchy]

true that we *must* account for IE absurdities, but IE is certainly no standard

honestly though apart from common visibility functions that include IE tricks, I don't even bother with IE any more... the cost/benefit ratio is just too high given that IE is becoming less popular

See it in action

[Billly Gates]

RIght here?

How will it perform, I wonder

[Nefarious Wheel]

We have a major national network, and IE9 is the standard. It's not without problems, not all of Microsoft's making. I wonder how it will perform with add-ons like Adobe Reader XI (yes, we're required to use that too). With all that new functionality/compatibility, will IE10 take a performance it?

Corporate use

[girlintraining]

Many of us hate it but have to use it in the office.

Yes, and that's mostly because Firefox developers steadfastly refuse to add integrated domain authentication, which a lot of corporations use for their intranet access. The other component is group policies; Which again, Mozilla in its infinite wisdom has made its product neigh-impossible for administrators to configure and control remotely. Open Source often fails in corporate environments not because corporations are opposed to its licensing terms, but because the software can't have its functionality limited or modified via a centralized framework. They jabber on about how it's restricting the "freedoms" of its users, but nobody has freedom at work. It's work, dammit, not a playground, and your IT staff needs to be able to control and restrict things -- not because they're some kind of authoritarian jerks but because corporate environments have a very different set of requirements than consumer environments.

Internet Explorer would be dead by now if Mozilla and friends would just get with the program and include group policies and the ability to restrict software functionality (like automatic updates!) from a centralized source. But the community keeps bringing it back because it simply refuses to listen to what corporations ask for.

Re:Corporate use

[naugrim]

Firefox supports integrated domain authentication on windows. The big difference between it and other browsers like IE and Chrome is that in Firefox you have to whitelist every domain you'd like it to authenticate to.

Re:Corporate use

[man_of_mr_e]

Uhhh.. Methinks you don't quite understand the concept of Integrated authentication. You don't have a "list of domains", there is only one domain.. the domain you are joined to.

Re:Corporate use

[wvmarle]

Internet Explorer would be dead by now if Mozilla and friends would just get with the program and include group policies and the ability to restrict software functionality (like automatic updates!) from a centralized source. But the community keeps bringing it back because it simply refuses to listen to what corporations ask for.

Besides that I doubt IE would be dead, I also don't think that's a good thing.

Why is it always that competing products have to be killed? It's not just with browsers, it's with other software and hardware too (think "iPad-killer" kind of stuff).

Wikipedia lists four browsers at >15% market share, with Firefox at #3, behind IE. Corporate-developed Chrome is #1, IE is #2.

This looks great to me. There is choice, there is competition, and there are four popular choices meaning no single browser can define the web like IE did with their IE6-specific code. IE is still competing in this market, down to a 22% level, which means they have to really work to stay alive. And we see that with the vast advances MS has made with their browser.

I don't like IE, tried it recently again (new laptop with Win7) and it just didn't work right. Somehow the UI was way too cluttered for me, so I went back to Firefox. Other people may like IE, well good for them. It's not that bad a browser any more. Microsoft is actively developing it, is adding new features, and now they're pretty much done catching up to the competition in that field they can start trying to surpass the competition by adding innovative features. And if those are good, FF will copy them again, just like IE copied a lot from FF and other browsers.

That's what competition is doing to you. Just killing off all competitors, and have FF be the >90% browser will bring us back to the late 90s and early 00s, the heydays of IE6. With a stagnant web, little to no innovation. It's not something I am longing for, at all. If anything Chrome is currently the one to go after.

Re:Corporate use

[girlintraining]

Firefox supports integrated domain authentication on windows.

Not exactly. With internet explorer, IWA is transparent to the user and administrator alike; You can set entire domains or subdomains to use it and be done with it. Firefox' support is clunky, and requires a list of every DNS domain, not every Active Directory domain which doesn't always match DNS records. As well, should you want the list to be updated, you have to remotely modify the configuration file of firefox for every user account on every workstation. Microsoft's implimentation is self-updating, automatic, and doesn't require organizing special deployments and patching systems to keep the list up to date.

So yes, it's possible to get Firefox working with IWA, but not exactly practical. Supporting Firefox is labor-intensive.

Re:Corporate use

[cheater512]

Choice is a illusion. Get me the number of people who actively choose to use IE over Chrome and Firefox.
Not the people who use it because it was pre-installed on their computer.

Re:Corporate use

[sumdumass]

Users would entail corporate and consumer groups of users. It was proper to distinguish between differing environments.

Re:Corporate use

[girlintraining]

Why is it always that competing products have to be killed? It's not just with browsers, it's with other software and hardware too (think "iPad-killer" kind of stuff).

Take a look at the state of the art in software engineering right now. Now realize that if we built houses like that, the first wood pecker would destroy civilization. It's duplication of effort -- rather than develop one tool that does its job very well, we develop twenty tools that do the same job sorta passably okay. A lot of this is thanks to the fractally stupid idea of intellectual property, but there are other reasons. Now you're right -- competition is good. We see this kind of thing all the time in open source communities where developers can't make up their mind on how to move from idea to implimentation and fork a project. But usually one implimentation proves itself over the other(s) and those inferior forks die, or a new paradigm is established and both sets go on to do whatever specialized thing they need to do. It's social evolution, of sorts, and like all forms of evolution -- its survival of the fittest (not necessarily the biggest or strongest).

Re:Corporate use

[cdrudge]

You don't have a "list of domains", there is only one domain.

Apparently you have never seen the sites button for the Local Intranet tab in the Internet Options control panel. It's where you can specify the "list of domains". IE just makes assumptions unless the user has specified otherwise or is overridden by a policy. And when you make assumptions...

Whitelising a site in Firefox is about as hard as it is for IE.

Re:Corporate use

[wvmarle]

IE, typically the one and only browser installed on new computers, use is far more prevalent in the US than in Europe for example.

Now I assume that Americans are, on average, just as competent and knowledgeable as Europeans when it comes to alternative browsers (that browser selection screen doesn't seem to do much; MS just got fined again for failing to make it work). So I'd say there is your proof: many Americans choose IE over the alternatives.

Re:Corporate use

[girlintraining]

Whitelising a site in Firefox is about as hard as it is for IE.

Okay, now multiply that by 96,000 workstations. Oh wait, you don't think your users can be trusted to follow those steps? Well, it's a good thing we have Active Directory and PAC files to upda--oh, you mean Firefox doesn't have those? Oh. You mean, you have to update the file manually, by patching it? For every user?

Hmm. Well... I guess it's a good thing you didn't make any assumptions then about how easy it would be.

Re:Corporate use

[wvmarle]

There are hundreds of ways to design and build a house - and houses are indeed being built in hundreds of different ways. There is no "one size fits all". Indeed OS software gets forked all the time, alternative projects are started, and often more than one survives. Just like in a real ecosystem, diversity brings strength and resilience..

Re:Corporate use

[girlintraining]

Users would entail corporate and consumer groups of users. It was proper to distinguish between differing environments.

Hmm... how come macs aren't more popular then? Could it be because people are already familiar with the systems they use at work, and when they go home, they make purchasing decisions based on that familiarity? Nah, that's crazy talk!

Re:Corporate use

[man_of_mr_e]

Dude. That's not Integrated Authentication. Those are security zones. Security zones turn on and off various features, like ActiveX and what not. It has *NOTHING* to do with Integrated authentication.

Integrated Authentication is when the site automatically uses your Windows domain username and password without prompting you for it.

Re:Corporate use

[girlintraining]

There is no "one size fits all".

Huh. I notice that all the building materials for those "built in hundreds of different ways" come in a rather small number of varying sizes, like "two by four". And there's rules for the construction of these homes that, while flexible, ensure safety and reliability of assembly.

Just like in a real ecosystem, diversity brings strength and resilience..

You haven't programmed using Windows APIs. You should try it some time, I think you'd like it -- it's packed with all kinds of diverse APIs and ways of doing things. That's really what's so nice about Windows standards... there's so many to choose from. Anyway, my point is diversity for its own sake is a waste of resources -- an idea that's been around since the Archean era. You're the result of a single thread of evolution stretching back billions of years, the one success out of tens of billions of failed evolutionary forks.

Nature tells us that in the overwhelming majority of cases, mutations (aka diversity) do not give an advantage. That isn't to say don't try... but it is to say rampant diversity would never get us anywhere -- for the most part, we should build on what we know works, and only occasionally take excursions outside that realm.

Re:Corporate use

[tuppe666]

So I'd say there is your proof: many Americans choose IE over the alternatives.

I don't care for your logic, but ironically you have proved the reverse, Americans don't choose IE, which is why it has a larger market share than places where a choice is mandatory.

Re:Corporate use

[sumdumass]

Crazy talk? Whether it is crazy or not doesn't change the fact that very few people at home have to worry about HIPPA, SOX, and SEC regulatory measures, lost profits from systems being down, lawsuits from intrusions that gain access to customer data, lost revenue from secretes like bid proposals or designs, launch dates for products, legal strategies, and a skew of other issues most corporations have to worry about.

Now I know some consumers run windows servers, but do you really think they are representative of the bunch?

Re:Corporate use

[wvmarle]

There are lots of people in the EU still using IE. And as choice is mandatory there, obviously they chose to use it.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

The Browser Choice screen only shows up for Europeans.

Re:Corporate use

[girlintraining]

Crazy talk? Whether it is crazy or not doesn't change the fact that

... The whooshing noise was the point going over your head.

Re:Corporate use

[tuppe666]

There are lots of people in the EU still using IE. And as choice is mandatory there, obviously they chose to use it.

Sorry this is not my argument. Using IE is like pulling teeth after using a real browser. If it had been my comment I would question the reasons why someone is using IE, or not choosing something else. The reality is I suspect all knowledge and capable computer users are using [choosing] an alternative browser, all the browser choice box does is reduce some of the worst excesses, but then by the very nature of a bundled browser. Choosing an alternative browser is always opt-in [amongst other things].

Re:Corporate use

[SomePgmr]

I'm not the GP, but if you're talking about SSO using windows authentication through Firefox to your intranet app, I think that can be done. I could be wrong.

Re:Corporate use

[sumdumass]

perhaps you could explain it then.

Re:Corporate use

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Yes, and that's mostly because Firefox developers steadfastly refuse to add integrated domain authentication, which a lot of corporations use for their intranet access.

It's implemented, just not enabled by default.

Go to about:config -> search for "network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris" -> add the domain. You can set it to a second-level domain, and anything underneath that works as well. And as of FF 14, you can set "network.automatic-ntlm-auth.allow-non-fqdn" and "network.negotiate-auth.allow-non-fqdn" to true, to allow it to work with anything that doesn't have a dot in it.

Not trying to argue your point, because the rest is both accurate and valid if a little over-strenuous (although I doubt IE would be dead even if FF supported every single one of its features, corporate inertia can be very strong), just trying to inform about something that seems to be a frustration for you.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so long ago I would have agreed, but have you tried Chrome Enterprise? I felt exactly the same way about Firefox until I recently gave it a shot, and we now have a new default browser for all workstations. I've always felt that Frontmotion Firefox was a bit of a hack, although it solves some problems to a degree. I also tried rolling a custom Firefox MSI package but it gets painful with the ever-increasing release rate.

Chrome seems to have answered all the problems so far as it features MSI deployment, ADM/ADMX templates for managing via Group Policy, integrated Windows authentication, works with the Windows certificate store and has frankly saved me hours over mucking about with the mess that is IE settings. Fortunately it also allows all the phone-home stuff to be turned off, otherwise I'd never have bothered.

I'd seriously recommend giving it a try.

Re:Corporate use

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Firefox certainly does some puzzling things though. For the NTLM example, the main (valid) complaint was that older versions of Windows, or current versions configured a certain way, would send insecure hashes of your credentials. But, since the browser is running on your operating system, I imagine it's fairly easy to tell whether it's configured that way or not (at worst requiring administrator access, which could be handled by an elevated stub program).

But, for all the Windows-specific things they do, they seem to draw arbitrary lines in the name of portability. I guess the real answer is, it takes a strong personality to do what they did, and that original strong, acerbic personality is still alive in the organization in some way or another. It is getting better though, if at a glacial pace, as evidenced by their adding of non-fqdn whitelisting.

Re:Corporate use

[perlith]

Integrated authentication can be done with Firefox if you backend application(s) support it:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Integrated_Authentication

First hit off a quick Google search of "SPNEGO Firefox" - IBM WebSphere Application Server:
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/v6r1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.websphere.base.doc%2Finfo%2Faes%2Fae%2Ftsec_SPNEGO_config_web.html

.
Your point on group policies is valid .. with a good reason for having it to distribute the whitelists needed for integrated authentication! Of the two features, this should be the more trivial of the two to implement. No idea why they haven't done so yet.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

Nature tells us that in the overwhelming majority of cases, mutations (aka diversity) do not give an advantage. That isn't to say don't try... but it is to say rampant diversity would never get us anywhere -- for the most part, we should build on what we know works, and only occasionally take excursions outside that realm.

really, rampant diversity would never get us anywhere? what the hell are you saying? your statement is the definition of fucked up. trying to prove your point of view about software engineering by saying that nature's diversity would never get us anywhere? LMAO

Re:Corporate use

[girlintraining]

perhaps you could explain it then.

I used to explain things on slashdot like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

Re:Corporate use

[sumdumass]

oh, you got slapped down in mid flight did ya,. Oh well, I guess your point will remain a mystery to me.

Re:Corporate use

[thedarknite]

It can be done in about:config by editing "network.negotiate-auth.trusted-uris"

Re:Corporate use

[swillden]

Choice is a illusion. Get me the number of people who actively choose to use IE over Chrome and Firefox. Not the people who use it because it was pre-installed on their computer.

Irrelevant.

The key point is that the market share is well-divided. Web site authors can't code to a specific browser, and no one browser can dictate the course of the technology. Sites have to code to standards, and browsers have to implement standards, and collaborate to define new standards.

This means that choice is real enough to accomplish what it really needs to accomplish -- require the industry to focus on standards and cooperative competition, since no one is in a position to dominate. And therefore, choice is not illusory, it's truly real, because you truly can use whichever browser you want, with a reasonable expectation that it's going to work. It doesn't matter if some people don't know enough to exercise that choice, and it doesn't even matter if IE is only "chosen" by those who don't know better.

Re:Corporate use

[Billly Gates]

Young people use IE 9 surprisingly.

Young people 5 years ago HATED IT as they remember IE 6 and how fucked up it was, but with newer verions not sucking why change? Old people use it who do not know what HTML is or CSS. The blue E is the internet etc!

IE always will be the most popular browser whether you like it or not. It works! Might as well be happy it acts like everyone else on the playground now so webmasters can move on and we can finally give a reason for XP loyalists who use IE to leave so we can finally enjoy HTML 5! Yes slashdot is HTML 4 becaue of these users who refuse to upgrade and who do not know what a browser is too or do not care because it is what they used for 10 years.

FOr the haters I have to say try it? You do not have to use it but it is at least in the same ballpark as the other browsers.

Re:Corporate use

[swillden]

Nature tells us that in the overwhelming majority of cases, mutations (aka diversity) do not give an advantage.

Have you ever looked at the massive level of diversity in nature? Even what we call "species" and choose to view as cohesive aren't, really... they're just a collection of diverse individuals who have barely enough commonality to be able to breed successfully... most of the time. And the sheer number of species is staggering -- and important, because there is strength in diversity.

In a more industrial context, the USSR tried to "optimize" production of all sorts of goods by doing exactly what you say the software industry ought to be doing: standardize on one design, build one big factory. Highly centralized, highly efficient, right? Except... no. It turns out that competitive duplication of effort is more efficient. The US destroyed USSR in terms of design and manufacturing, consistently producing products that were more advanced and less costly, and it wasn't in spite of the capitalists' wasteful diversity, it was because of the non-obvious but very real efficiency that arises from diversity.

With respect to browsers, just look at what a mess IE was when Microsoft was dominant. Consider what happened to the rate of progress when Chrome entered the picture, with its orders-of-magnitude-faster Javascript engine and streamlined UI. Look at the result of the huge waste of effort that was Konqueror -- except that it produced KHTML, AKA WebKit, which became the basis for Safari and Chrome both. Heck, go all the way back to when Marc Andreesen abandoned Mosaic development to uselessly duplicate its functionality in something called "Netscape Navigator", which later became Mozilla, and then Firefox. Look at all of the features pioneered by Opera and later adopted by the rest of the browsers.

In every one of those cases, apparently duplication of effort resulted in new ideas, new features, new approaches which then cross-pollinated to improve all of the browsers.

Diversity isn't just good. It's essential.

Re:Corporate use

[Billly Gates]

I am using it rignt now replying in this post. Pulling teeth?

I have the gradients here on slashdot. In addition, I have the rounded corners, the javascript, the baloon on the bottom and it is smooth and fast. In IE 8 I have none of that and a limited javascript run cough Jscript cough to change the comments, rough corners, and it is chop chop chop with more than 50 comments etc.

In other words from where I am it, it performs no different than Chrome or Firefox. I ran FutureMarks HTML 5 benchmark peacekeeper after I disabled webGL from Chrome and FF and did a test. IE 10 beat Chrome! Firefox was 1st place. All in all they were all within 10% of each other.

It is not 2001 anymore. I am curious to what web developers have to say and this is welcome news for you too. I want my gradients and HTML 5 but can't because XP users are still stuck on IE 8. This is great news for anyone who uses the world wide web.

Re:Corporate use

[girlintraining]

oh, you got slapped down in mid flight did ya,. Oh well, I guess your point will remain a mystery to me.

It's really for the best. The last time I tried to correct someone on the internet who was wrong, I woke up three days later in a cornfield covered in hot sauce and little else...

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

One reason corporations want centralized control in the first place is because of security vulnerability paranoia instilled in them from rolling out MS products in the first place.

Re:Corporate use

[gigaherz]

Because we as humans are genetically configured to think in terms of survival of the fittest. We tend to think in terms of "you win or you die", and we would rather see our favoured choice be the one that wins, so we desire death for the competitors, even though most of us rationally know it's actually a good thing.

Re:Corporate use

[kiddygrinder]

integrated domain auth isn't that big a deal, on firefox they just have to put their pass in and click remember. if you want it to happen automatically you need to add the domain to about::config somehow, i don't care enough to figure it out but it probably isn't that hard.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

But in IE and Chrome you don't need to enter in each site WITHIN the domain - it just works. When you work at a large corporation with a large intranet, it's a real nightmare having to add in all the various sites to make Firefox work - and if another site comes online in the meantime you have to repackage the stupid thing and redistribute it throughout the network. This wastes time and money that can be better spent elsewhere!

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

IE is fine but they should really open source it. the value is not in the code but the added services. Mozilla understand that.

Re:Corporate use

[swalve]

That's not what they are talking about.

Re:Corporate use

[cyber-vandal]

The price is probably a factor too.

Re:Corporate use

[makomk]

In a more industrial context, the USSR tried to "optimize" production of all sorts of goods by doing exactly what you say the software industry ought to be doing: standardize on one design, build one big factory.

Funny, I'd read the exact opposite - that they insisted on local production of goods even when it'd make more sense to centralize them in one big factory, and that's what did them in.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever heard about a thing called "script"?

You write it once, press a button, and it's executed in the 96,000 workstations.

Re:Corporate use

[swillden]

In a more industrial context, the USSR tried to "optimize" production of all sorts of goods by doing exactly what you say the software industry ought to be doing: standardize on one design, build one big factory.

Funny, I'd read the exact opposite - that they insisted on local production of goods even when it'd make more sense to centralize them in one big factory, and that's what did them in.

They did early on, but by the 70s and 80s they were very much into the "one enormous factory" mode, precisely because the cottage approach didn't work. But even when they did try to localize production, they still attempted extreme standardization, or at least had extreme standardization -- it may have been the result of lack of incentive for innovation rather than a party directive.

Re:Corporate use

[Lennie]

Now have an other look on mobile, where the new IE is all the different forks of Webkit that do not get updates. Replacement rate of mobiles was about ones every 2 years, with smartphones (because they are more expensive) this is going to be higher.

And webdevelopers already use webkit only features. Or are using it in a way which make it webkit only (-webkit *). Even though it already is a standard and other browsers support it.

* http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/australia/the-webkit-prefix-will-ruin-the-mobile-web/669

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Firefox allows you to send domain authentication to intranet. ourcompany.com, and not to blackhats.badguys.cn.

Where as IE will gladly send it to either site.

And you think the IE approach is the best one?

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

As a EU resident, I have never been asked to choose. Not on XP, not on Windows 7.

Neither are home edition or retail versions, that may make a difference.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

FF is making inroads at our business (13,000 users)

Some sites on the WWW are now tools, not pages of information, and these tools are extremely useful. I'm a lucky user, they let me have Paint Shop Pro on my PC after I argued my case for weeks and weeks. (Edit images? Why no earth would you need to do that Inda?). Others use websites and they do a reasonable job of cropping, colour changes, resizing, ect. Heck, some even edit audio and video.

Where does FF come in? These tools don't work on IE7 and some people are still stuck on IE6.

As long as MS continues to ship a browser that's not feature complete, FF will continue to make inroads.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, from an economics perspective, it was the fact that 250 million Americans (at the time) each individually making economic decisions was far more efficient than having a central planning committee of 10s or 100s making economic decisions for the entire USSR.

In essence, the "free market" destroyed the communist utopia. Capitalism has its warts, but communism is demonstrably a lot worse.

Re:Corporate use

[swillden]

Yep. That's exactly what I said :-)

Re:Corporate use

[narcc]

Mom?

Is that you?

Re:Corporate use

[assertation]

If any Mozilla developer are reading, I concur.

I've used all versions of Netscape and Firefox. I'm a loyal fan. I would love to have Firefox be a sanctioned browser at work.

Please do this.

Re:Corporate use

[strikethree]

Besides that I doubt IE would be dead, I also don't think that's a good thing.

Why is it always that competing products have to be killed? It's not just with browsers, it's with other software and hardware too (think "iPad-killer" kind of stuff).

Well, in this case, it actually would be better if IE died. Microsoft keeps polluting the web standards pool with it.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

>made its product neigh-impossible for administrators to configure

Oh, stop being such a whinny guy. I'm sure if you change your tack and horse around with it a bit, you'll be galloping your way to a solution.

Re:Corporate use

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, XP comes with IE6, and W7 comes with IE8. Both of which are being dropped by a lot of websites. So if people have something like IE8 on XP, or IE9 on W7, then they voluntarily installed it - it didn't come with the OS. They could have gone with Chrome or Firefox or even Safari, but didn't.

I agree with the GP - why do the other browsers need to be killed? Same goes for CPUs and OSs - Intel was fine, but why couldn't we have so many other platforms - NT/Alpha, NT/MIPS, OS/2-PPC, NEXTSTEP/PA-RISC, NEXTSTEP/SPARC and so on? Every one of them could have had their own market, depending on people's preferences. Instead, we are now looking @ a duopoly of Intel and ARM for CPUs, and slightly more options on the OS side - Windows, Linux, OS-X and BSD.

Re:Corporate use

[crutchy]

I am curious to what web developers have to say

as a web developer, i don't give a shit about the browser wars, only that they conform to w3c standards
if any browser dowsn't display my pages consistent with what the standard says, then as far as i am (and i'm sure most other web developers are) concerned it is substandard and workarounds *may* be implemented if time and budget permits

Re:Corporate use

[crutchy]

true true

as a web developer, i don't give a fuck about a browser that doesn't conform to w3c standards... the cost of developing workarounds isn't worth the satisfaction that a few extra users may or may not gain. marketing is hit and miss enough as it is, so i'm going to invest in making the experience better for browsers that are compliant to bring in more customers with compliant browsers

Re:Corporate use

[crutchy]

Nature tells us that in the overwhelming majority of cases, mutations (aka diversity) do not give an advantage

something tells me you're trying to convince yourself that fucking your own sister was ok

Re:Corporate use

[crutchy]

actually, from a human nature perspective, all systems are as fucked up as each other. anyone who thinks capitalism is less fucked up than communism is an ignorant fool

Re:Corporate use

[crutchy]

if IE was open sourced the world would see how much of Firefox is really ripped off... not gunna happen

A wild Internet Explorer appears

[theArtificial]

I'd like to begin by saying good job devs! As a developer: Yay, another version to support! IE Support already requires coddling especially for the long in the tooth IE6 & 7; granted IE9 is much better but there are still rough patches with border radius and gradients are used as well as transitions, see the table at the bottom. CSS transitions would be a very welcome addition. Maybe we can create a betting pool for how long until the next incarnation?

With their current strategy what are the chances it'll be a Windows 8 requirement? I'm off to find that guy who read the bones for Obama to do a browser reading.

Re:A wild Internet Explorer appears

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a web developer, but did you read that border radius page on stackoverflow? It's not a bug. The developer was too lazy to read the documentation on what he was doing and instead took the time to flame IE. The overflow value defaults to true, thus the gradient gets painted outside the rounded border corners. Instead of fixing that, the guy chose a wacky, less capable and more resource intensive workaround.

Re:A wild Internet Explorer appears

[theArtificial]

I quickly looked over it, here is another similar solution which illustrates the issue. The fix involves using SVG. No other browser requires you to do that is my point.

Windows 8 on Windows 7

[jfdavis668]

Why the Windows 8 look and feel on a Windows 7 piece of software?

Re:Windows 8 on Windows 7

[wvmarle]

To prepare you for the shock when you are forced to upgrade.

Re:Windows 8 on Windows 7

[tftp]

Why the Windows 8 look and feel on a Windows 7 piece of software?

Because you vill love our Windows that are made with a table saw and painted with colors from a kindergarten! Nice borders, avast! The new fashion is crude and straight and ugly, just like most of our cities are.

when will it end

[deathguppie]

I can only pray for the day I can stop putting stuff like this into my css

/**fix for stupid old internet exploder**/
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='pics/Gasworks-1024x454.jpg',sizingMethod='scale');
-ms-filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='pics/Gasworks-1024x454.jpg',sizingMethod='scale');

But since I have to even with IE9/10 because of the proliferation of the crappy ass IE's that they've produced in the past, I'm not going to be overwhelmed by the fact that they have finally started to get it right. Started I say IE10 320 vs Chrome 457.

Re:when will it end

[Billly Gates]

Fixed in IE 8. That is an old IE 6 trick with an alpha png.

Re:when will it end

[deathguppie]

Actually that has nothing to do with alpha. It's a method for centering an image background in a div.

Broken Document Icon ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it have a broken document icon that throws it into IE7 mode ???

I can't believe how many people don't even realize they have that icon enabled and are browsing the web in IE7 mode ... which is totally backwards.

Every time MS takes a step forward they give the user the option to take 2 steps back ... annoying for web developers ....

Re:Broken Document Icon ...

[jonadab]

That's what this is for:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge" />

Yes, granted, it SHOULD be the default, because there are only like three websites in the whole world that actually render _better_ on older versions of IE than on the newer version, and that's only because they haven't been updated in a full decade. We shouldn't HAVE to declare in our website markup that our site is more up-to-date than IE, because it's rare to find a site that isn't (excluding corporate intranets, but those are only accessed from systems that the site admins control anyway, so they still have IE4 or whatever antedeluvian version they were originally written around back in the punched-card era).

Nonetheless, putting that one little thing in your html head makes the entire broken document icon problem go away. The only downside, if it even counts as a downside, is that you are then committed to keeping your site at least as up-to-date as Internet Explorer. Yeah, that's gonna be tough. I might have to update my site, like, every three or four YEARS (unless I actually code to standards in the first place -- imagine that).

DOA without WebGL

[claytongulick]

Honestly, isn't not just for graphics - it's for the whole fantastic class of problems that can be solved via GLSL shaders - GPU accelerated calculations in JS - this is simply so amazingly powerful, IE 10 is essentially worthless without it.

As people start doing high performance computing and solving wildly complex problems in the browser with GPU accelerated JS, the browser will continue to emerge as the platform of choice for a wonderfully wide range of applications. IE will sit off to the side, largely ignored (except for certain "enterprise" business users) and will become even more irrelevant.

I'd expect to start seeing more and more web sites that want to do these things refuse to support IE at all, the shims and plugins just aren't worth screwing with.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[Luthair]

I would argue that most power users either have turned WebGL off, or will in the near future; exposing a new attack surface to the web will inevitably lead to exploits. Moreover Its highly unlikely that WebGL will become significant in the next 2-3 years, particularly if the mainstream (IE) audience isn't supported.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[DeathFromSomewhere]

Yeah it's a shame all those webgl websites won't work. So very many websites that need to be rendered in 3D. If only M$$$$ would wake up and see them. Yup.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[claytongulick]

Not sure if you're being purposefully obtuse, or trolling, but in case you're serious - there are a fantastically wide range of applications that benefit from massive parallelism found in shader languages like GLSL. Just take a look at some of the books on amazon that have CUDA implementations for everything from fluid simulation to computer vision stuff.

Most recently I've been playing with the concept of doing sound synth and processing on the GPU with shaders in js.

In my original post I mentioned that WebGL isn't just for graphics. There are enormous benefits to being able to execute massively parallel operations on a web page.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the f**k would you solve these problems in js and a browser? Web tech is a mess of crappy technologies all thrown in a bucket. The web blows a$$.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost all of which have no business being calculated client side in a web browser.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[kiddygrinder]

ie isn't the mainstream any more and i really hope that turning off features like webgl make it into the other browsers soon so people can stop listing this as a concern. how hard is it to block a tag?

Re:DOA without WebGL

[Rockoon]

GPU accelerated calculations in JS - this is simply so amazingly powerful

It is not "amazingly powerful" .. its giving grandma the keys to the porche.. sure, she might drive a little faster, but her reaction time is worse than a drunk driver.

I have this crazy idea that if you want to get there fast then you should give the keys to the porche to a professional race car driver.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone mod the parent: funny. It's a joke, right?

Re:DOA without WebGL

[JDG1980]

Honestly, isn't not just for graphics - it's for the whole fantastic class of problems that can be solved via GLSL shaders - GPU accelerated calculations in JS - this is simply so amazingly powerful, IE 10 is essentially worthless without it.

WebGL poses serious issues with security, because it allows untrusted code to basically talk directly to the graphics card. Most graphics drivers are barely stable, much less secure; they are written with performance in mind (gotta eke out that edge in Anandtech's FPS charts!) and security isn't even an afterthought. I don't want stuff from the WWW to be able to talk to bare-metal hardware.

As people start doing high performance computing and solving wildly complex problems in the browser with GPU accelerated JS, the browser will continue to emerge as the platform of choice for a wonderfully wide range of applications.

The browser is a crappy computing platform. For just about anything beyond simple games and basic calculations, you're better off writing in a real language instead of JavaScript.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[DragonWriter]

The browser is a crappy computing platform. For just about anything beyond simple games and basic calculations, you're better off writing in a real language instead of JavaScript.

There's a fairly widely used browser that both supports WebGL and supports applications written in "real language" (e.g., C) and compiled to native code, from a fairly large company that originally came to prominence because of its web search engine.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[DeathFromSomewhere]

Only partially trolling. I'm just waiting for you to explain why anyone should solve those problems in a browser instead of doing it server side and shipping the results to the browser. Like others have said, GLSL is compiled in kernel mode by the video drivers. Exposing kernel mode code to the internet is the worst idea from a security perspective since ActiveX. In fact I would say it's worse since video drivers get next to no security hardening and ActiveX at least ran in user mode.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[claytongulick]

Massive scalability through distributed computing?

Ask the guys at SETI why it shouldn't all be done on centralized servers.

Re:DOA without WebGL

[DeathFromSomewhere]

Sure, but we already have native clients for SETI. They are vastly more efficient then any Javascript implementation. I'm sure if they care about speed they care about not wasting half their available cycles on parsing Javascript. How many people are going to leave a browser tab open vs download the client that runs in the background? Besides, not being able to run SETI in a browser tab is hardly a reason to claim a browser is DOA.

IE10 is fast. I love it.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

What the hell did I just say?

Yes.. I cant believe it either, but the damn thing is actually really good. Chrome is a mess. Firefox is the middleman, and IE10 is faster, smoother than both of them. IE10 GPU acceleration is incredibly superior in every way.

Re:IE10 is fast. I love it.

[Sir Holo]

I have never visited a web page where I thought "this needs GPU acceleration." Bandwidth is usually the constraint. Who cares about GPU off-loading?

Re:IE10 is fast. I love it.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

all browsers use gpu acceleration for scrolling.

Re:IE10 is fast. I love it.

[Billly Gates]

I disagree. THe download Firefox page renders much better and downloads quicker than ever! ... on a more serious note I notice a big difference in smoothness. As an experiment open Chrome and use the up and down arrows on www.slashdot.org? Now do the same with IE 9? One is smooth with a few chops. The other is chop chop chop. Firefox is starting to enable this by default too which is now.

Sites that have tons of pictures like entertainment mag sites are best with IE 9 for that reason. While Chrome is best for lots of ajax. IE 10 ties this.

Re:IE10 is fast. I love it.

[swillden]

Chrome is a mess

How so?

Re:IE10 is fast. I love it.

[kiddygrinder]

gpu acceleration isn't needed for what the web does now, it's needed for what the web can do in the future.

Re:IE10 is fast. I love it.

[synapse7]

Can I read /. faster with GPU acceleration?

Re:IE10 is fast. I love it.

[strikethree]

Without something like no-script, a browser is worthless. That means I am stuck with Firefox. :(

This news made me relapse

[Anonymous Coward]

Been on the wagon for about 4 months. Just can't handle it. I need rum (chug)

>CAPCHA: gaging

Who is this mythical 'Us'

[Anonymous Coward]

There's this story about a guy who comes back from the Dr.'s office with a big grin on his face. When his wife asks him why, he replies, "The Dr. told me I'm impot_nt!" You don't really think that Microsoft targeted Slashdottr's... Do you?!

IWA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Integrated W______ Authentication... so how well does this system work in corporations that have outgrown Microsoft products?

Re:IWA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Integrated W______ Authentication... so how well does this system work in corporations that have outgrown Microsoft products?

It doesn't.

Supporting standards that don't exist?

[DragonWriter]

IE 10 is supposed to continue the new process and promises to be much faster and support more HTML 5, CSS 3, W3C HTML 5.1 and CSS 3.1

Wait, IE 10 is in final preview and it plans to support W3C HTML 5.1, which doesn't yet have a draft, and CSS 3.1, which doesn't even make sense given the way CSS Level 3+ is done by-module rather than as an across-the-board specification.

with a score of 320 on HTML5test.

Whoopty-frigging-do. The stable version of Chrome (23) has a 448. Chrome 10 beats IE 10 on HTML5test.

Re:Supporting standards that don't exist?

[Billly Gates]

Why is this modded flamebait?

Basically HTML5test does not test just the HTML 5 spec by W3C.It tests things the authors think is cool on web mailing lists as well as WhatG.

  So W3C is dividing it into HTML 5 and CSS 3 and its .1 counterparts for the more experimental things which HTML5test.com look at. Whatg tries to put it all together in html 5 and css 3. That is the confusion.

Webworkers (example) are HTML 5.1 which IE 10 does support so technically IE 10 is very HTML 5 compliant and partially 5.1. If you look at Firefox 16, IE 10 supports 90% of the same standards! That is pretty good as the 448 is for things not implemented in draft yet. Compared to ancient IE it is excellent!

Now if we could get the corps to upgrade and the grandmas we can finally develop more modern sites!

Re:Supporting standards that don't exist?

[Aewyn]

So W3C is dividing it into HTML 5 and CSS 3 and its .1 counterparts for the more experimental things which HTML5test.com look at.

Where did you get this from? The grandparent post is correct; after 2.1, CSS is divided into modules that advance individually. For instance, there is a Backgrounds and Borders module which has a level 3 spec and a level 4 spec (most of the level 4 stuff is not yet mature enough to implement). There isn't really any monolithic "CSS 3" thing, let alone "CSS 3.1".

Whatg tries to put it all together in html 5 and css 3. That is the confusion.

WHATWG's HTML spec is simply called the "HTML Living Standard", they don't use a version number at all. And the WHATWG doesn't specify anything in "CSS 3".

Re:Supporting standards that don't exist?

[cyber-vandal]

We can't have more modern sites because IE is updated so slowly. By the time IE10 comes out for an OS people actually use, IE9 will have spent 2 years in production without any updates to its capabilities. The corporate inertia is coming from Redmond not anywhere else.

IE10?

[Anonymous Coward]

IE10? Really? Somebody is working on that?

Why? It's so, like, 2005 and stuff.

Complex Relationship?

[epp_b]

What's so complex about "burning hatred"?

Re:Complex Relationship?

[Billly Gates]

What's so complex about "burning hatred"?

When you get all those overtime bonuses for having to make it work in IE6?

Re:Complex Relationship?

[jonadab]

> What's so complex about "burning hatred"?

Well, see, it's like this. As a web developer, I of course have a burning fiery passionate hatred of IE in general.

Importantly, however, I hate the older versions even more than the newer ones. IE8 is bad, yes, but IE7 is a million times worse, and IE6 is basically a cross between cancer and the holocaust. If you so much as mention any version before that, I will personally hunt you down and force you to watch ten thousand continuous hours of back-to-back car dealership commercials.

Thus, I am constantly on the edge of my seat wanting new versions of IE to come out, even though I know I am going to hate them. It's not because I want people to use IE but rather because I want people to upgrade off of their old versions sooner than is humanly possible. When should IE8 users upgrade to IE10? This morning would be good. Last month would be even better. The ideal time would be some time before the IE8 beta was actually released. 1997 would be fantastic. IE7 users should upgrade even sooner. Any time before I was born would be good, that way I'd never have to know about IE7 in my lifetime. If IE6 users could upgrade during the Achaemenid dynasty, that would be great. The sooner the better.

So it actually bothers me, for example, that IE10 doesn't support Windows XP. I don't use IE, and I don't use Windows XP, but I want the new version of IE to run on Windows XP. Frankly, I want it to be distributed to Windows XP users via Automatic Update. If it were possible to get IE10 into XP SP2, I'd be in favor of that.

Many of us hate it

[Psicopatico]

No. It's Internet Explorer who hates me.
It's not my fault if it doesn't run on both my Linux workstation and my Linux Notebook.

Hurray for full CORS support

[Galestar]

Its about time... we might actually be able to start using it.

IE 9 and 10 are the only good browsers for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Game development. Latest Firefox, Chrome and Opera are lightyears behind. Especially Firefox. It's a joke.

The total lack of WebGL support is a problem for sure, but that's for 3D. I'm talking Canvas 2D. IE 9 and 10 are the only realistic browsers to use for HTML 5 game playback unless the game is EXTREMELY simple.

It's very sad but true. I WISH this weren't the case.

You're blaming the open source browser...?

[zakkudo]

Reeeaaaally?

How was Firefox going to stagnate the web? By having open code? By having popular derivatives like flock? By stating that their main objectives were pushing a standards complient web and ensuring competition no matter how large or small they are?

That's what competition is doing to you. Just killing off all competitors, and have FF be the >90% browser will bring us back to the late 90s and early 00s, the heydays of IE6. With a stagnant web, little to no innovation. It's not something I am longing for, at all. If anything Chrome is currently the one to go after.

Firefox is not likely to die. It came around because of the closed source company fizzling. It might slow, but it will not dies.

Do not compare browsers thinking everybody is a corporate entity and thus is trying to stagnate everything. When open source stagnates, it is forked, then a new browser is born.

The only browser than I am stille extremely weary of is IE because it represents the player with the largest gain in creating something like a "windows only" web. We've delt with this before, and it is the last thing I want to see things going back to.

Re:You're blaming the open source browser...?

[Billly Gates]

Chrome is doing this harder than anyone with its own cloud based ecosystem. All your history, bookmarks, passwords, GDrive, all in Chrome only! Websites that require Chrome are popping up.

So far IE is being nice because it has too. Also Microsofts incentive is to create a great METRO environment in which it needs bug free graphically rich applets in HTML 5 and CSS 3. Think you can make it look pretty without gradients in a shitty IE 6 rendering engine? Ha! Developers would give up after the text would be all over the place.

IE 10 is shaping up pretty nicely and is usable if you really have to use it now.

Re:You're blaming the open source browser...?

[cyber-vandal]

I'm quite weary of IE myself.

Re:You're blaming the open source browser...?

[hawkinspeter]

I can run Chrome on a variety of operating systems. How many can I run IE10 on?

Re:You're blaming the open source browser...?

[crutchy]

that's like trying to argue that you can fuck pussies of all sizes because you have a small dick, whereas a guy with a big dick is limited... it may be technically true but...

Re:You're blaming the open source browser...?

[crutchy]

well stop using it then or you'll wear it out

Re:You're blaming the open source browser...?

[hawkinspeter]

I've never found a pussy that wouldn't stretch to accommodate me! (Joke - I'm happily married, so I don't go chasing women).

I don't quite follow your argument/analogy as it's not the size of the application that's stopping it from running on other platforms and other platforms can be bigger or smaller than Windows. Are you trying to imply that the elite awesome features of Windows are absolutely required to make such a magnificent browser and that no other OS can possibly host the supreme coolness of IE10?

Re:You're blaming the open source browser...?

[crutchy]

no, simply that IE (big dick) works (feels) better in Windows (limited pussy) than in other OS's (pussy that's too small for it)

the analogy wasn't about size of the browser - it was an (albeit lame) attempt to highlight that a browser doesn't have to work for all OS's to make it a good browser for one OS

and as far as number of available pussies for IE (or any other Windows-only browser), there are still more than enough to make it viable

HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's great that it has better support, the fact that Microsoft doesn't roll out updates for the browser after release is just plain bad, meaning it will alway stay at 320, compared to other browsers that keep on evolving and supporting it better and better, like Chrome and Opera, already being over 400 with their latest regular updates.
Also, from what hole did Maxthon crawl out of? Never heard of it...

XP/Vista support

[Cyko_01]

i think their refusal to support old, but still very popular, versions of the windows OS will be there death knell as users of XP and vista will be forced to switch to Firefox or chrome to keep there favourite sites fully working. Similarly with DirectX 10/11

Re:XP/Vista support

[Billly Gates]

It is dying and according to g.statcounter.com it represents less than MacOSX users! Time to let it retire as even Firefox and Chrome are retiring it.

Re:XP/Vista support

[jader3rd]

i think their refusal to support old, but still very popular, versions of the windows OS will be there death knell as users of XP and vista will be forced to switch to Firefox or chrome to keep there favourite sites fully working. Similarly with DirectX 10/11

Do you think it's possible that supporting the older OS's would begin to weigh the browsers down?

Re:XP/Vista support

[Anonymous Coward]

You do talk talk a load of garbage, don't you.

Maybe you should actually look at the site you link to. It shows XP at 25% and Mac OS X at 10% (approx).

This matches (e.g.) the relevant Wikipedia page.

Sincerely disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

I am extremely grateful that they haven't enabled corporate policies.

It would tremendously impose on my freedom at work. *My* work IS a playground and I do not want my IT staff interfering. They *are* authoritarian jerks.

Still no MathML :(

[jensend]

IE really has come a very very long way since v7, and has gone from being a totally backwards abomination that impedes progress and gives webmasters nightmares to being a mostly OK browser. Outside of royalty-free codec support (which everyone knew MS would drag their feet on) there's only one way that its backwardness still impacts me: MathML.

Gecko-based browsers have had native support for over a decade (enabled by default starting with Mozilla milestone 0.9.9). Safari has had native support for a year and a half, and Chrome is finally about to release its first version with native support. But IE only has access via a third-party plugin. Worse, the plugin was broken with the release of IE9. A year ago, the developer made a "preview release" version of the plugin that's supposed to work with IE 9, but it's buggy and inconsistent and hasn't been updated.

It's frustrating that almost 15 years after MathML was standardized we've still got browser developers dragging their feet.

Re:Fixed in IE 10

[Billly Gates]

SVG support is implemented fully. The gradients are all W3C compliant in IE 10. Your post is a great reason to upgrade and encourage others to do so.

According to html5test, this bring IE 10 to

[tetrode]

  - the level of Chrome 8, released December 2010
  - the level of Firefox 8, released November 2011
  - the level of Opera 11.50, released June 2011
  - the level of Safari 5.1, released July 2011

and thus

  - internet explorer 10, released December 2012

Re:According to html5test, this bring IE 10 to

[jemtallon]

They may be worst in class but at least their name is long and confusing!

The browser market needs competition

[concealment]

I'm glad they're hanging in there, although I have no plans to use IE 10.

Having multiple different browsers in active development actually spurs innovation.

Many of the features of our modern browsers are inherited from older versions of IE, just like many are inherited from Opera, Firefox, Netscape and Mosaic.

Here are a few of the innovations that have come to us through Internet Explorer:

http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2012/08/22/the-innovations-of-internet-explorer/

http://htmlcssjavascript.com/web/some-internet-explorer-innovations-you-probably-forgot-about-while-waiting-for-ie6-to-die/

Interesting. Many people forget that, at one time, Internet Explorer was a usable alternative to the rarely-updated Netscape.

Automatic Updates

[westlake]

While it's great that it has better support, the fact that Microsoft doesn't roll out updates for the browser after release is just plain bad, meaning it will alway stay at 320

Automatic updates to IE10 are enabled by default.

"Tools > About Internet Explorer"

By The Numbers

[westlake]

I can tell you pretty much ONLY the SMBs use IE anymore around here and even many of them are moving away from IE

Statcounter Top 5 Browsers

Worldwide
USA

Net Applications

Desktop Browser Market Share

Statcounter and Net Applications are in agreement that the IE browser remains a strong global competitor on the laptop/desktop. Net Applications draws its stats from sites which have deep penetration into the mass consumer market.

[FYI: Net Applications posts a .41% share for Windows 8 and a 1% share for Linux. Not too shabby for an OS the geek claims no one is using.]

w3schools

Browser Statistics

Note: W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use the browser that comes preinstalled with their computer, and do not seek out other browser alternatives.

Tip: Global averages may not be relevant to your web site. Different sites attract different audiences. Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, while other sites attract hobbyists using old computers.

Re:By The Numbers

[littlebigbot]

October 2008 - October 2009 IE had 61.67% of the worldwide share compared with 35.14% in the past year. Compared with 62.84% in the US down to 43.4%. (And compared with 85-95% of the market in the early 2000s)

Also, each proceeding version is less popular than the last starting with 6.

And the w3schools shows IE with a high of 88% in March 2003, and October 2012, it had 16.1%.

GP greatly exaggerated IE's demise, but it's not faring well.

IE *does* have the best javascript profiler.

[clintp]

Like IE or hate it, it still has the best Javascript profiler available today -- and it's built in. It beats the ever loving crap out of Firebug's pathetic profiler, and presents timing data in a proper tree with better function name resolution than Chrome's.

It's other development tools are marginal though. Debug your app in Firebug, and fire up IE to check it for compatibility and find the slow bits.

Death of Flash

[archen]

No flash for IE10 on Windows 7. Another reason not to use Windows 8.

MathJax

[Immerial]

It's frustrating that almost 15 years after MathML was standardized we've still got browser developers dragging their feet.

We gave up on that dream a year ago. We now use MathJax, you should check it out. It has a few quirks but overall it's pretty good!

IE 8

[Tenebrousedge]

Web developers don't have anything to say about IE10. Either we're already ignoring any browser-specific quirks, or we're condemned to support the legacy versions.

Now, if anyone were to raise the topic of killing off the security nightmare that XP has become, you might find that web developers have a thing or two to say on the subject.

For responses in the vein of "XP works for me!" : you want room 12A, just along the corridor.

people do care

[BlackSnake112]

If the sales guys needs to show the site then that sales guys sucks. Golf course meets have been going on for decades (if not longer). Back before in internet deals were made with *gasp* talking about your product/service and convincing the other party to go see or experience it.

If you are only dealing with computer tech people you might have a point. Many computer tech people have crappy real people skills. Other business people, that i not the case. I know a number of self made millionaires. No, they have not written me into their wills. I wish they would. They would agree to come see what you have to offer on the golf course. They will never sign any technology deal without trying it out first. They will never try a business deal item out on the golf course, boat ride, where ever. They network with the golf games and such. They do not make business decisions there. Too much money is at stake. Considering two of them are 26, and 27 years old. They are not old people. When they are making a $50-100 million deal, they always have their legal and financial team on board. They have done deals where one golf game they agreed to take a look. A later golf game they agreed to do the deal. Between those golf games a lot of people were looking into things and contracts were written up. I guess you could say that the deal was made on the gold course. Many people were involved in vetting things out off the golf course before that deal was done.

Re:people do care

[tftp]

If the sales guys needs to show the site then that sales guys sucks.

Not necessarily. The sales guy may approach the customer with one project in mind, but the customer suddenly asks about some other project - that he was just called about a minute ago. If you can deliver what he needs, rejoice - this is your golden opportunity, you are the first to offer your services. The last thing you want to do here is hem and haw and say "I will call you later about that." A good sales guy will immediately access the network, fetch the appropriate presentation, and run with it.

This is not a contrived scenario. I had hundreds of sales reps visit me as I was working for various large companies. They always come prepared for a generic scenario that they think you will be interested in. But they never know what I need right here and right now. They were pretty good in delivering what I wanted to know. Some had the materials on their notebooks, some downloaded them over the "guest" WiFi, and others... well, they had to call me back.

In today's world you cannot expect to just talk and win a deal. Talk is cheap, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Not even mentioning videos. Sales guys want access to the materials (over HTTPS, of course) - and if some stupid ActiveX or Flash stands in the way they will be very, very unhappy. Always remember, sales people have far better relations with the CEO than you and your IT boss do - just because it's in their job qualifications :-)

It's true, of course, that a 3-minute pitch cannot be enough to sign a $100M deal. However it can motivate the decision maker to look into it. If he is not interested then none of the "between those golf games a lot of people were looking into things" will happen. You have to quickly and clearly explain to the decision maker why it is in his interests to keep listening. What would do the trick better, you telling him that you have an antigravity machine, or a video of you in that machine flying around a well known building?

Still wrong on HTML and CSS standards

[DragonWriter]

Basically HTML5test does not test just the HTML 5 spec by W3C.It tests things the authors think is cool on web mailing lists as well as WhatG.

This is fairly close to the truth, but everything that follows it is wrong:

So W3C is dividing it into HTML 5 and CSS 3 and its .1 counterparts for the more experimental things which HTML5test.com look at.

Wrong.

WhatWG has a continuously-evolving HTML "Living Standard", not HTML 5. W3C has HTML 5, which is a standard targetted for completion to Recommendation status in 2014, and it plans to start work on HTML 5.1 with a working draft due later this year. It also has a number of specifications outside of the HTML spec proper that are maintained by the W3C HTML working group. Some of the things HTML5test looks are in HTML 5, some are in other W3C specifications, some are in WhatWG work or elsewhere and may be included in HTML 5.1 or some other future W3C standard. But HTML 5.1 is not "the more experimental things which HTML5test.com look at", and, in fact, no one knows what HTML 5.1 will be since it doesn't exist, at least in any public draft, yet.

WhatWG has no CSS spec at all. W3C has CSS, but the last (not merely "most recent", but "last" according to the current plan, since the approach to CSS has changed) across the board release with a numbered level rather than a snapshot year is CSS Level 2 Revision 1 (CSS 2.1). After that, CSS switched to per-module updates. Some CSS modules have a Recommendation (i.e., final) Level 3 spec. Some have draft Level 3 specs. Some only have Level 2.1 specs. Selectors has a Recommendation level 3 spec and a draft level 4 spec.

There are also across-the-board snapshots (CSS Snapshot 2007 and CSS Snapshot 2010) representing the across-the-board stable status of CSS at the time of the snapshot. CSS 3.1 is a meaningless term, and even CSS3 used in a sense that implies a single standard like CSS 2.1 is misleading.

Webworkers (example) are HTML 5.1 which IE 10 does support so technically IE 10 is very HTML 5 compliant and partially 5.1.

No, Web Workers are a separate specification (currently, in Candidate Recommendation status) that is also from the W3C HTML working group, outside of any of the W3C's HTML specifications. This is part of the policy of modularity (similar to what W3C has done with CSS from Level 3 onward) now being applied by the W3C HTML Working Group where instead of the broad monolithic standard that HTML5 was in early drafts, the HTML 5 spec proper (and, as long as the policy is maintained, future HTML specs like 5.1) is much narrower with a lot of HTML-related functionality moved out into separate specifications that can develop from draft to recommendation at their own pace.

Best IE. Ever. = finnaly ok vs. other browsers

[millertym]

So I've been using it at the office the last couple of days. Definitely faster than IE8 or 9 was. And now has built in spell check. I think they finally made a browser I won't mind using. Not saying it's good enough to replace Chrome, Opera, Firefox with if you are already using that. But by far the best of the IE's to date.

I just tried it myself (pretty good)... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

I was sort of afraid to, since it's not FINAL code yet, but I went ahead & installed the 64-bit model of IE 10 onto Windows 7 64-bit, & know what? Per my subject-line above??

It's not bad!

* I can't wait for them to finalize it, & pull the "debug code" & other code used for it etc./et al + do their final optimization touches actually...

Posting late to this one since I did not have it installed, but now that I do, so far @ least? Those are my thoughts on it... as far as how it performs.

APK

P.S.=> It IS a wee bit faster than IE9 was, even on outlook.com for email - & again, it's not even FINAL CODE yet...

... apk

Blurry fonts

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried it, and it's still not for me. For some reason fonts displayed in IE9 & 10 are very blurry. I already tried disabling hardware acceleration to no avail. Don't have the issue with Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari.

That and the fact there's no ad blocker is a deal breaker.

I find IE10 running on my win7 machine is kicking

[Anonymous Coward]

as longtime user of firefox, I find IE10 running on my win7 machine is kicking firefox's performance butt. I haven't used IE for 10 years and now I found myself using it soley the past 2 days