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Open Source Add-on Rewrites the User Interface of IE11

An anonymous reader writes "This is how Internet Explorer would look if you move the tabs to the top like in other browsers. Developed as a design and UX study, the open source add-on replaces the default navigation bar and combines three traditionally separate toolbars into one. The UX project started in 2004 to demonstrate that it is feasible to combine the address, search, and find box into one. Additionally, Quero offers a variety of customization options for IE, including making the UI themeable or starting Microsoft's desktop browser always maximized."

48 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Showcase by Laconique · · Score: 1

    I find this a good case when I'm intrigued just to see a dev's talent showcased but can't imagine staying on ie beyond that though

  2. Turns out... by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is how Internet Explorer would look if you move the tabs to the top like in other browsers.

    Turns out that it would look pretty much the same as the other browsers. Thanks timothy, I never could have figured that one out!

    --

    How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    1. Re:Turns out... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's *really* hard to give a shit about this "story". Hey, special news report, you can change IE's look, whoop-de-shit!

    2. Re:Turns out... by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      It's not that one anachronism either.

      The UX project started in 2004 to demonstrate that it is feasible to combine the address, search, and find box into one.

      Maybe in 2004 that would be interesting but seeing as that's default behavior for both IE and Chrome I don't really see the novelty. If anything this toolbar is regressive. "Hey check out these browser UI concepts that have already been tried and either discarded or adopted."

    3. Re:Turns out... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Makes me wonder where it put them before. Spiraling out from the lower right corner?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:Turns out... by dkleinsc · · Score: 2

      I couldn't agree more: The story amounts to "Browser plugin does something that the author really wanted. Film at 11."

      I mean, why would it be news if some guy had written a Firefox plugin to do the opposite?

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    5. Re:Turns out... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Well, the technical achievement of finding a way to polish a turd has to count for something.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Why? by bankman · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is how Internet Explorer would look if you move the tabs to the top like in other browsers.

    I have yet to understand the reason for the UI change in the other browsers.

    --
    I feel so sig.
    1. Re:Why? by redback · · Score: 2

      Because they ran out of other ways to make their browser worse with every new version?

    2. Re:Why? by Soluzar · · Score: 2

      Seems that way to me. I use a theme that makes Firefox look the way it used to. Because that's what I need.

    3. Re:Why? by Ghostworks · · Score: 1

      There are a couple of reasons.

      As a starter, I remember an interview from way back in the aughties when where they asked an IE designer for his thoughts on the Firefox browser, which was at that point really cutting into IE market share. I remember one comment along the lines of "really good browser: the only thing I would change is to put tabs on top. The address bar and everything else only affects the current tab, so you want tabs on top to give the impression that each tab is like its own, separate browser." At the time, IE didn't have tabs, so he could say these sort of things without thinking he's shooting himself in the foot.

      He did cite Microsoft usability studies (no specific study, just the nebulous term "usability studies") as part of that comment. Eventually Mozilla did it's own study and concluded pretty much the same thing. There was also an argument about how tabs would be easier to select now while using less screen space because of the "infinite space" of the tab. You see, if you scroll over a tab, and go too far, one of two things can happen: you either scroll past the tab and onto something else (miss), or you hit the edge of the screen and the cursor lands on the tab anyway. The argument was that this is in effect like having an infinitely tall tab, so it's easier to hit.

      Now, some personal comments on why I hate that entire line of reasoning:
      First, back at the time I found the initial comments from an MS employee to be odd, because that's exactly the opposite of how MS has trained users to think of tabs in every one of their products (except for this hypothetical "tabs on top" browser which didn't exist anywhere yet). Before the browser, you mostly saw tabs in OS preference dialogs, where sometimes the tabs were on top just because they were used as categorical dividers (you know, just like real tabs in a in a real filing cbinet were always meant to be). But just as often, there would be a small section of tabs embedded on some larger dialog pane. The only thing they had in common was the obvious "tabs are nested within windows". To the population of the time, window and browser were inextricably linked.

      But that was then, and this is now. What about how people ten years later are used to interacting with the browser? Well for one, most still don't actually think of each tab as a "mini-browser". If anything they just expect the browser control elements to go away altogether to make room for the page. (In fact, the ease with which mobile browsers have hidden away such controls proves to me that taking up _any_ space within a tab is probably a losing proposition.) But where hiding elements isn't possible, the view is still generally that the window is a true "window" out to some slice of the internet. To me personally, arguing that each tab should contain "its own" URL bar and buttons is sort of like arguing that each window in your card should have it's own steering wheel and speedometer. It just doesn't follow for me to embed controls within content. But since the controls are being hidden away fast, it's largely a matter of choice.

      So why should tabs-on-top be a good default choice then? They argue because it make tabs easy to select with minimum real estate. The "infinite space of the screen-edge tab". Unfortunately, I don't think I have ever had a browser end at a screen edge. Either I'm on a Mac or a Linux variant that has a bar on top, or I'm in Windows where I never use full-screen mode. (I'm having trouble even thinking of a time when I even would use full-screen mode for a browser now that the screens are all obscenely wide.) So the infinite space argument is DOA. And then there's the times where I'm on a half-foreign system (read: work laptop) where the touchpad cursor is slow and all I want is for the cursor to get there. Overshooting is not a concern. In these cases, making the tabs farther from center and shorter while trying to make up for it with pseudo-infinite space just makes them shorter and farther away.

      And on a final, unrelated note, whe

    4. Re:Why? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Have you used a recent IE? All of my control are on one line. It takes exactly the same screen real estate as FF.

      If you like having 400 tabs opened then I can see a preference for FF, as you get more room for each tab. I don't browse that way, and I prefer applications for my platform to look like applications for my platform, not some different thing that some UI designer thought was clever.

      But whichever your subjective preference there, both browsers have the same screen real estate. And both do the same thing when you press F11 on windows to devote the whole screen to the tab contents, with "pop down" tabs.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    5. Re:Why? by Soluzar · · Score: 1

      http://gooeysoftware.com/mozaddons/ff3ff4/ You need to override the compatibility check. It's only listed as being compatible with pretty old versions, but you will actually find that it works with even the latest.

  4. Re:Cool... But no thanks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not sure if stupid or trolling. IE has been an excellent browser since version 9.

  5. Stupid Positioning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Put the tabs underneath the bookmarks toolbar (just above the webpage you're viewing) where they make sense, then we can talk about maybe using the browser again.

    1. Re:Stupid Positioning by Badooleoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can not agree more with this. Tabs are for the page you are viewing not the menu, address bar, search bar, navigation buttons, bookmarks or anything else that is browser wide.

      Also having tabs at the top messes with hovering and accessing remote desktop bars and operating system docks like object dock if you have it at the top (which is the default).

    2. Re:Stupid Positioning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Navigation (back, forward, refresh, and home) and the address bar all control the state of the current page you are viewing, not the browser as a whole.

    3. Re:Stupid Positioning by phluid61 · · Score: 1

      +1 parent insightful, someone, please.

    4. Re:Stupid Positioning by fast+turtle · · Score: 1

      I use FF and place the tabs in the sidebar. Works nice when I have more tabs open then screen width

      --
      Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
    5. Re:Stupid Positioning by Badooleoo · · Score: 1

      AC missed the point.

      Navigation is used across the whole browser

      Tabs are to choose pages/sessions. You don't change your navigation platform when you select another tab.

      At least in Firefox there is a workaround in about:config

  6. Ohhh by caspy7 · · Score: 2

    I feel like my response is supposed to be "Ohh! That's what it would look like if it were different!"
    But the reality is that I didn't have much of an idea of what it looks like now.

  7. Re:Did they implement AdBlock and FlashBlock? by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sure.

    AdBlock Plus supports IE.

    As for blocking Flash, click the gear menu and tick Safety -> ActiveX Filtering. As Flash is an ActiveX plugin in IE, this blocks Flash by default. You then can whitelist individual sites by using the blue address bar icon.

  8. Oooo Wee! by Obliterous · · Score: 1

    everything I never wanted in a browser UI

  9. Why not on the side? by Phydeaux314 · · Score: 1

    I'm still confused why everyone insists on dumping the menus and buttons on the TOP of the browser window. Web site design, for various reasons, tends to follow a fairly vertical layout: You scroll up and down to get at more content, with little to no side-to-side scrolling. Our screens, on the other hand, tend toward horizontal layouts, with aspect ratios getting increasingly wide.

    It makes no sense for us to put menu bars at the top when we could put them at the right hand side, and the content in a narrower, taller window. We'd see more relevant content on our web pages, it keeps the tabs closer to the scroll bar, and minimize/maximize/close buttons are close by as well. Vertical pixels are valuable. Horizontal ones are cheap. Make the buttons and tabs use cheap pixels, please.

    --
    Never underestimate the stupidity inherent in all human beings.
    1. Re:Why not on the side? by bobthesungeek76036 · · Score: 1

      I'm still confused why everyone insists on dumping the menus and buttons on the TOP of the browser window. Web site design, for various reasons, tends to follow a fairly vertical layout: You scroll up and down to get at more content, with little to no side-to-side scrolling. Our screens, on the other hand, tend toward horizontal layouts, with aspect ratios getting increasingly wide.

      It makes no sense for us to put menu bars at the top when we could put them at the right hand side, and the content in a narrower, taller window. We'd see more relevant content on our web pages, it keeps the tabs closer to the scroll bar, and minimize/maximize/close buttons are close by as well. Vertical pixels are valuable. Horizontal ones are cheap. Make the buttons and tabs use cheap pixels, please.

      Unless your coding a browser where you want a consistent UI on a mobile device as well where horizontal pixels are far more precious...

      --
      Karma: Bad
  10. Re: Who cares by Vanderhoth · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm a web developer. Firefox is fine. If I develop a site for Firefox, or Chrome, or Opera, or Safari it will work in any of those four browsers without issue, but I have to redevelop the site for IE. If I develop for IE I have to redevelop the site again to work in the other browsers.

    I will give that my company recently decided to stop supporting IE 6, 7, and 8. IE 9 isn't nearly as bad, and doesn't require as many workarounds as the previous iterations. IE 10 is a little better, it's still slow as shit for mapping applications that HTML 5 and javascript (not written by me) for the mapping engine (works great in Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari), and I haven't used IE 11 as of yet. Hopefully with IE 11 they'll finally have it right and I won't have to waste time rewriting sites and having to explain over and over to management why it's necessary. It's so stupid, our management insists sites work in all major browsers, but then they get pissy when extra time is needed to actually make sure things are working correctly.

    I'd also like to know who sets the metrics for how long development should take, because it's not me.

  11. Re:Who cares? by Megane · · Score: 1

    Apparently they were wrong. It seems you can polish a turd after all.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  12. Re:Who cares? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    But even if you spray paint it gold, it still stinks.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  13. Re:Cool... But no thanks. by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    It suffers from one basic major flaw. The same flaw the MS Antivirus suit suffers from: It is the one thing most people have, and the one thing no malware author can avoid.

    Malware is the biggest reason to avoid the IE like the plague. No, not because it's more susceptible. I don't even want to discuss whether it is more secure or less secure than $obscure_browser. It is simply the bigger target. It would be more sensible for a malware writer to try to infect via a timing hole that allows one out of ten attempts to succeed (because the IE was so superspecialawesomely secured that this remained the only way to use it for an infection) than writing one that succeeded every single time with a trivial exploit that even an idiot could find and write attack code for for some obscure, unknown browser. He'd STILL infect way more people.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  14. For their next project.... by Alsee · · Score: 1

    they plan to re-engineer the Flu virus to come in pastel colors and to manufacture vitamin D.

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  15. Side-by-Side Application Windows by Sanians · · Score: 2

    Personally, I like the obsession with menu bars at the top and bottom. It ensures that applications aren't hungry for additional monitor width, which means I can actually run two of them side-by-side on the same monitor. If they start making use of that additional width then I'll no longer be able to do that.

    Menus on the left or right also take up far more pixels than menus on the top or bottom simply because text is written left to right. So applications that use menus on the left or right easily eat away the additional width that comes with wide-screen monitors, putting us right back in the situation we were in with 4:3 monitors where most applications (particularly web browsing) are impossible to use without consuming the entire screen.

  16. The security implications by Outtascope · · Score: 2

    It never fails to amaze me that no one seems to get the negative security implications of an integrated url/search bar, especially given the underwear knots some smart people seem to get over truly esoteric 1 in a billion use case vulnerabilities.

    If the URL bar performs search, it is ripe for a mistyped URL to lead you to a fishing site (hell, bad guys don't even need to register every typo iteration in DNS anymore, they can just pollute search results; it's like DNS hijacking made simple.) I have seen my wife and kids do it time and time again, no matter how many times I tell them. They don't type in URLs anymore, they just type in "youtube" or "amazon" or "runescape" and then click on the first link that shows up.

    Obviously this is dangerous, but more than that it broadcasts your URLs to Google or Bing or whatever. There is a mountain of information that can be culled from those queries that can compromise not only you but your business/employer. If it were reported that Firefox was sending every URL you entered to Microsoft or Google, people would lose their shit about it. But when the browser is designed to do that deliberately, no one seems to give a flying ----. THIS is the reason that I do not use Chrome. It's a gaping security hole, but because it is Google (who i am generally a fan of) it gets a free pass. That said, all browsers seem to exhibit the same behavior regardless of whether they have a separate search box.

    If the URL I entered isn't found, return a 404. End of damn story. THIS is also the reason to still type http:/// or https:/// in the address bar.

    But this is all just symptomatic of the larger problem of security in general. To pass my audits I have to take a hit either for being somewhat vulnerable to BEAST or for using the weak RC4 algorithm, pick one. And I don't process financial information of individuals in any way shape or form. But companies like Pandora get away with putting a credit card processing form in an https IFRAME inside a non-https url. And those frigging morons, when explained to them why this is monumentally stupid and that part of the reason for HTTPS is for the user to be able to verify that they are giving their credit card information to the people that they intend to (and to verify the certificates), just don't understand the issue. Their explanation is that it is too intensive to stream music over https so they have to do it this way. How can they be this successful and be this completely brain f'ing dead. Hey, Pandora: _blank. Look it up ass hats!

    Or my bank totally not understanding that when I go to the bank page URL and it says "John Smith and 3 other friends like Dumb-Ass Credit Union. Like us on Facebook" that they have just communicated sensitive personal financial information to an incalculable host of 3rd parties. Why in the F does my credit union need to use social media? What the hell is wrong with people? Their response "Dumb-Ass Credit Union doesn't send any personally identifiable information to Facebook, blah blah blah". Seriously? Can they really be this stupid? Here is a hint, I now know that "John Smith" likely has a Dumb-Ass Credit Union account, step 1 in identity theft process complete. Of course, he WAS dumb enough to like it on Facebook, so there's that. I, however, had no intention of telling anyone I had an account at Dumb-Ass Credit Union, but the frigging Credit Union decided to tell Zuckerberg themselves, and they just don't get it.

    1. Re:The security implications by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Excellent comment. I have been pondering the same issues every now and then.

  17. Like putting lipstick on a pig.... by rts008 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, it looks different, but it still squeals, smells, and acts like a pig.

    --
    Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
  18. Tab and url box look visually identical by caseih · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's just the Windows theme, but I found the screenshots disorienting. I could not tell the difference between the tab itself and the location input box.

  19. Re: Who cares by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

    What quirks are in IE 10 where it has to be rewritten?

    IE 6 I can see. So buggy you need to rewrite it just to make sure bugs dont do what other browsers dont.

    But IE 10 does not render different. It maybe missing some things but it is pure fud to say it is so horrible you need a 500 line CSS rewrite for formatting errors which is what you are implying. It is 2013 not 2003.

  20. Re:Cool... But no thanks. by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    I don't use IE as my main browser and haven't in 12 years.

    But the targeting of browsers is so 10 years ago. They target flash, Java, and PDF. After all why target IE when you can target 100% of users instead? Comes to show to use adblock!

    yes it exist for IE users now too and great for offices

  21. Re:Cool... But no thanks. by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

    There's plenty of malware code out there that checks for browser versions, fires off different exploits based on it, and still tries to load Java and PDF malware.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  22. Not sinking. News at 8.1. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You apparently haven't bothered to work with Windows 8.1. I learned that with 8.0 about 2/3 of my customers didn't like the default interface. With 8.1 setup to boot to the desktop, wharing Start screen and desktop wallpaper, and shriking the Start screen tiles made it easy to use, even for an 86 year old customer. Presently, we sell about 2/3 Windows 8.1 and 1/3 Windows 7 PC's.

  23. Re:Cool... But no thanks. by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    All browsers even including IE are more secure and improving each release. Sandboxing, process isolation per tab, excluding xss or side scripting, and hardened APIs.

    unless you still run XP or worse IE 6 & 7! Not saying unhackable but hacking a browser is becoming more difficult.

    I do cringe on FF 3.6 users. That is an invitation to be hacked!

  24. Re:Who cares? by bjwest · · Score: 1

    Hint: Windows is usable these days.

    Yeah, if you're a preschooler used to the Mattel "My First" line of big button crap, or have poor motor skills and/or hand-eye coordination.

    --

    --- Keep the choice with the user..
  25. For Windows 8... by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Can we have a similar FOSS to make Windows 8 look like Windows 7, or whatever else we want it to look like?

  26. Anyone who doesn't use Firefox as their main brows by onix · · Score: 1

    IE only necessary and useful for MS updates. Chrome useful for google applications, such as google drive. Firefox remains OS, OEM, and platform agnostic. So anyone trying to hack "IE" to be a better browser, and IE 11 at that, is drinking the Redmond's kool-aid.

  27. Re: Who cares by Monkey-Man2000 · · Score: 2

    Another vote for vomit-inducing. DICE please take notice because it was strongly conveyed in comments of the beta announcement: I, and many like me, have had /. our homepage for 15+ yrs and read it several times a day. If you go with this godawful layout I expect you'll be lucky to have 10% of your current traffic. I will certainly not be one of those remaining... It makes me sad that a single company can singlehandedly kill a beloved site/brand like this... It now seems inevitable...

    --
    This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
  28. Tabs don't go there. by HouseOfMisterE · · Score: 1

    I use Firefox and not IE, so this add-on doesn't even effect me, but the first thing that I do on a new Firefox install is set "browser.tabs.onTop" to false in about:config.

  29. Re: Who cares by Vanderhoth · · Score: 1

    I don't know why I'm bothering to respond at this point, but I did say IE 10 was better than IE 9.

    I also pointed out the issues I'm having is with a mapping engine written in HTML 5 and JavaScript. The mapping application works awesome in Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari, but it is slow to the point that it's next to unusable, not totally unusable, but very very slow to load in IE 10. I don't know if it's the HTML 5 IE can't handle properly or the JavaScript. In either case it's not FUD, It's an actually real world example of how IE is failing.

    I also said I haven't used IE 11 yet and I hope they have the issue worked out. If it is IE will finally be on par with where all the other major browsers were two years ago.

    Even between versions of IE there are serious issues, so anyone who claims to be a web developer and that Firefox is the problem browsers doesn't know what they're talking about and/or is blatantly lying.

  30. Re: Who cares by RockDoctor · · Score: 1
    A six-digit UID who has been here for 15+ ears. I'm not sure if that's impossible, unless you've lost the password to your original account, but "meh" on that point.

    I've never used /. as a home page. For me it's always been following links in the 'headlines' emails, because I'm often without connectivity for days or weeks at a stretch. But I too have been suffering from increasingly vomit-inducing layouts as I've been using a tablet more often. for some dumb-fuck reason they try to force me to use a mobile interface which is utterly bouwfing. I mean - it doesn't even let you fill more than a third of a screen with text before it's UI goes up shit creek. And as for erasing your replies if you try to use Ctrl+(arrow key) to move around in your reply. Do they actually want only "Me, too" type replies?

    Their UI people are really doing a bad job.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  31. Re:Who cares? by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

    Mythbusters proved this a while ago.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"