Microsoft Is Killing Off the Internet Explorer Brand

An anonymous reader writes: The Verge reports that Internet Explorer as we know it will be taking a back seat to Microsoft's new browser, Project Spartan, in Windows 10 and future projects. IE will still exist, and stick around for compatibility issues, but Project Spartan will be the default way users interact with the internet. Microsoft wants to distance itself with the negative connotations Internet Explorer has acquired through the years. They still haven't decided on an official name for Project Spartan, but it will probably have the company name in it.

Comments

A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

is still a turd.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Project Microsoft Spartan, anyone?
Great name and shows Microsoft ownership.
PMS for short.
Works!

Re:A turd by any other name

[FatdogHaiku]

is still a turd.

But look, it's all shiny now!

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they will break the trend of making every new browser identify itself as every other browser that exists...and just identify itself as "Spartan 1.0".

The user agent string is pretty useless these days. It would be nice to see that actually honestly and exclusively represent itself.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations!

You just came up with the name for the new IE:

Microsoft Squisher

Re:A turd by any other name

[OakDragon]

Should have been called "Project Trojan..."

Re:A turd by any other name

[dkman]

Will Darnell: "Ya know Pepper, ya can't polish a turd."
Christine (1983)

Re:A turd by any other name

[DiSKiLLeR]

Yeah, i'm not really happy with the Useragent situation. That clusterfuck needs to be sorted. I'm surprised it wasn't somehow forced as part of the HTML5 or HTTP2.0 spec.

Re:A turd by any other name

[DarkOx]

Hey my browser is actually named.

"Firefox57 Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1) Like Opera and Google Chrome" you insensitive clod. Its hell to escape starting from the CLI.

Re:A turd by any other name

[kheldan]

Pretty much, yeah.
I don't see why they even need to bother with any sort of extensive internet browser. Why not just provide a minimal browser, just enough to get you to where you can download Firefox, or Chrome, or whatever other browser you want? Or maybe just partner with one of them instead? It would cost them less money in the long run due to reduced development costs, and most people will get what they want anyway, just quicker.

For what it's worth, a the Major Microprocessor Manufacturer I work for just announced yesterday that we'd all be having Chrome push-installed on us and that IE would be retired. What does that tell you, that they're not willing to wait for Microsoft's next offering?

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the final name should be Internet Destroyer instead of Internet Explorer.

Re:A turd by any other name

[UnknownSoldier]

What do you expect when they renamed Spyglass Mosaic to IE? :-)

In typical MS fashion it didn't get good until 3 versions later, IE4, before getting proprietary vendor lockin with that piece of shit IE6.

Their stupidity of not being able to down-grade IE or simultaneously install different versions so web developers could test ALL the various versions, forcing people to rely on hacks like SandBoxie, was absolutely retarded.

IE was so bad at security that at one point that us geeks called it "Internet Exploder"

Microsoft writing the browser from scratch, is too little, too late.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:A turd by any other name

[Pope Hagbard]

IE4 wasn't all that good, actually. From what I remember it was notorious for crashing, especially if you enabled Active Desktop.

Not that contemporary Netscape was known for /not/ crashing.

Re:A turd by any other name

[armanox]

My string shows what I'm using anyway....

"Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; IRIX64 IP30; en-US; rv:1.8.1.25pre) Gecko/20121112 Firefox/2.0.0.22pre"

Re:A turd by any other name

[amicusNYCL]

Microsoft writing the browser from scratch, is too little, too late.

No, not really. If this causes a further decline in the usage of buggy versions of IE then yes, do that. I doubt the new software will be completely bug-free, but hopefully it actually is from scratch (including the general design) and they don't carry over some of the same bugs.

Re:A turd by any other name

[theArtificial]

But you can roll it in glitter!

Re: A turd by any other name

[spectrum-]

It may be all apps this and apps that these days but the humble Web browser is still a lucrative business for some. MS are not going to let go easily. Secondly the loss of the Web browser on desktops is seen a slippery slope to depleted control of the desktop itself.

We geeks tend to forget that most home users and businesses tend to just go with what is native to a system OS. Many simply won't bother getting another browser and will just put up with things they may not fully like.

Re:A turd by any other name

[ColdWetDog]

That would just be a cover up.

Re:A turd by any other name

[CronoCloud]

Google says there is a working Firefox 3 build for Irix.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it run on my iPad?

Re: A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Mythbusters polished a turd...

Re:A turd by any other name

[sconeu]

I always called it "Insecure Exploder", to go with the email client, "LookOut!"

Re:A turd by any other name

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

It's not too little, too late if you consider that the alternative is to rely on either Apple for WebKit, Mozilla for Gecko, or Google for Blink, etc.

If this new browser's point is to have a browser that you can use when you turn the machine on and have everywhere no matter what machine you're using, then it's not too little, too late.

Too little, too late would be Mac, Linux and Android ports of IE10.

This isn't Ballmer or Gates' Microsoft. It's Satya Nadella's and I think he gets it more than they did.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

It will run just as well as the latest Safari runs on Windows.

Re: A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely should not be part of the HTML spec, maybe for HTTP though

Re: A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

IoTE

Re: A turd by any other name

[kheldan]

But, they're not the ones driving this process, precisely because they don't know the difference, and don't really care. Also I don't necessarily believe that, because if it was true then why would there even be Chrome or Firefox or Opera or any other 3rd-party browser in the first place?

Re:A turd by any other name

[shutdown -p now]

It was already said that the engine is not from scratch. But rebranding it allows the team to throw out crapload of legacy code (ActiveX, VBScript, all the various quirks rendering modes etc), and generally change things to behave according to the standards even where it breaks someone relying on old behavior, since, as a distinct product, this has no obligation to be backwards compatible with IE.

Re: A turd by any other name

[jd2112]

It won't be good until Spartan 3.00, at which time it will be able to fight off an entire army of Persian malware.

Re:A turd by any other name

[TWX]

You can polish a turd. It's called a Corpolite. It's fossilized dung.

In other words, you can polish a turd, but it takes a very, very long time.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Quirkz]

Out with Internet Exploder, in with Internet IMploder!

Re:A turd by any other name

[ilsaloving]

What do you mean 'at one point'? People still call it that. :)

Re:A turd by any other name

[theArtificial]

In typical MS fashion it didn't get good until 3 versions later, IE4, before getting proprietary vendor lockin with that piece of shit IE6.

If IE6 was such a piece of shit, as you put it, that implies that the other browsers at the time were much worse than that. You've inadvertently made a profound statement about the browser landscape of the day. IE6 rightfully earned infamy in its unnaturally long life even more repugnant is rampant revisionism. IE introduced a feature that is the foundation of today's web, some of you might be aware of the XMLHttpRequest object, for the non-developers it's like the force now, all around us. JavaScript support and performance, CSS support. Unfortunately this period had to occur, and it will occur again once these lessons are forgotten; Without the stranglehold IE6 eventually obtained, and more importantly stagnated the web with, the choices we have today wouldn't exist.

Their stupidity of not being able to down-grade IE or simultaneously install different versions so web developers could test ALL the various versions, forcing people to rely on hacks like SandBoxie, was absolutely retarded.

As much as it pains me to say Microsoft wasn't unique in this regard, as an aside, try installing multiple versions of Safari. Even the easy mode package managers don't support multiple versions of browsers out of the box (not to say it's difficult). Internet Explorer 6 released in 2001 following the launch of Windows XP. For those unfamiliar with their history, Web Development of that era revolved around IE and Netscape. With IE being the Chrome of its day (as in "works here, onward!") since the browser market was 90%+ IE and IE6 was supported on Windows 98, NT, and 2k. Low usage for potential targets results in a chicken and the egg problem. Low single digits just aren't a priority for many shops, see Opera.

Sandboxie came out in 2004ish and has its uses, especially on 32bit machines. However, for web development involving IE it's much easier to use MultiIE which has been around since 2006. IETester is worth another mention. Not to mention there are alternatives due to the ever growing number of devices and variants released year after year, requiring a different approach such as farms that show screenshots from targeted browsers. Regarding the hassle of Sandboxie, limiting yourself to one tool is pretty silly.

This is a little off topic. Since this criticism is being framed as a Microsoft issue you might be shocked to discover how apps and to a lesser extent websites, are developed and tested in 2015 on devices manufactured and supported by multiple vendors. This process requires physical devices, in many cases multiple to support the popular OS versions on them (there are other OS, but they're less than 8%). Think it's a hack to wrangle Sandboxes or multiple installations, try wrangling devices that let you only upgrade! But what about device simulators, one might ask? Oh yes, they do exist and they're improving but there isn't a substitute for deploying and testing on device. IE variants are a dwindling piece of the very large fragmentation pie.

Microsoft writing the browser from scratch, is too little, too late.

Too late for whom? W

Re: A turd by any other name

[spectrum-]

I suspect it's driven by nends to some extent but also by the marketing and price and legal teams of competors who see financial opportunities

Re:A turd by any other name

[UnknownSoldier]

Touche! :-)

Re:A turd by any other name

[UnknownSoldier]

> If IE6 was such a piece of shit, as you put it, that implies that the other browsers at the time were much worse than that.

No, that doesn't follow at all. Firefox was a significantly better browser at the time, before they jumped the shark after version 4.

> Regarding the hassle of Sandboxie, limiting yourself to one tool is pretty silly.

I never claimed there was only _one_ tool. You sure love to jump to conclusions about things I never said. There was another utility I used to use back in the day too, it might have been MultIE. I've deleted / removed almost everything related to IE.

> try wrangling devices that let you only upgrade!

You're missing the point. Microsoft popularized that crap. Just because other vendors are doing it doesn't give MS a free pass.

Re:A turd by any other name

[rtb61]

It is all about advertising dollars. They simply want to build the browser into the operating system, so that not matter what you do it will create an internet hit to Bing, so that, 'Bing' another cent can be claimed for advertising, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. So losing the internet 'browser, search, portal' war, no problem, fake it via the operating system. Of course when the fake claims about customer eyeballs reflects in very bad advertising outcomes, the customers will then just avoid M$ because it simply doesn't work, regardless of the internet hit numbers, at least as far as M$ is concerned. So no matter what they do in the future, no matter what, everyone will just avoid them.

Much like the crazy bullshit idea of sticking a phone GUI on a desktop because people will get used to it and like idiot sheep automagically buy the phones with the same system. Of course in reality, what really happened is that touch screen phone GUI wont really work well on that desktop and that is of course what the customer will remember. A lesson reinforced each and every time they touch the desktop and are frustrated by the experience. (OH FUCK, might need to do a free upgrade to stop the damage being done ;D ). M$ is just totally infested with crazy bean counter logic and magic numbers in spread sheets and pays no attention at all to more realistic customer empathic logical outcomes.

Re:A turd by any other name

[zennyboy]

Except on that episode of Mythbusters I saw where both Adam and Jamie did it :)

Re:A turd by any other name

[theArtificial]

No, that doesn't follow at all. Firefox was a significantly better browser at the time, before they jumped the shark after version 4.

Your disagreement seems to be looking from now backwards instead of from the beginning. Since Firefox was named specifically, it's a browser that wasn't released until 3 years after (4 excluding the technology previews) the competition.

Better is such a subjective word, better how? Stability? That eliminates technology previews bumping the "better" browser back another year. I sincerely hope something developed years after its competition was released would improve upon established norms. Out of the gate it was feature incomplete by their own version numbers. Steve Jobs is one who can make that a compelling argument. Firefox also featured some really cool fundamental concepts, like the now ubiquitous download manager.

Firefox became competitive in 2005/2006. Prior to that IE was top dog, when IE6 was released it was better than the other browsers by means of features like standards support and speed. Prior to the JavaScript engine wars fundamentally changing things, there were incremental steps. IE6 believe it or not was peppy compared to Netscape's offerings. This is documented in Netscape Navigator's decline. IE6 at the time it was released and for many years was what the vast majority of designers targeted and designed for. Designed for Internet Explorer, Designed for Netscape Navigator were prevalent like perverse badges of honor. In my opinion the debut of Firebug in 2006 was a turning point for designer/developer interest considering many tools are heavily inspired by its features. Here's a neat little read on IE1.0 upto Firefox 2.0.

I never claimed there was only _one_ tool. You sure love to jump to conclusions about things I never said. There was another utility I used to use back in the day too, it might have been MultIE. I've deleted / removed almost everything related to IE.

The way you mentioned it was, paraphrasing: "Sandboxie was really annoying." So is installing Steam games into it and so is supporting dozens of viewport sizes. Welcome to software!

You're missing the point. Microsoft popularized that crap. Just because other vendors are doing it doesn't give MS a free pass.

I feel like somewhere in your secret volcano lair there exists a giant whiteboard which has a soul crushing flowchart with winding complex paths leading to the giant Sauron like cloud labeled "Microsoft: Great Satan". At some point the responsibility shifts to the shoulders of those who take action.

Re:A turd by any other name

[armanox]

There is, but it is extremely slow and clunky. Either SGI had some sort of magic they put in to their Firefox build (very possible) that people didn't figure out for 3, or 3 supports a lot of slowness that isn't in the older build. Since I just upgraded my Octane (upped the RAM to 1280MB from 384MB and the CPU from a 250MHz R10K to a 300MHz R12K) I intend to play with it again.

And relevant to this thread, the string for Firefox 3 is:

"Mozilla/5.0; U; IRIX64 IP30; en-US; rv:1.9.0.19) Gecko/2013020113 Firefox/3.0.19"

Re:A turd by any other name

[ppanon]

                Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
                That here obedient to their laws we lie.

                Stranger, go tell the men of Lacedaemon
                That we, who lie here, did as we were ordered.

                Stranger, bring the message to the Spartans that here
                We remain, obedient to their orders.

                Oh foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians
                That here we lie, obeying those words.

Re:A turd by any other name

[davester666]

Meet the new browser. Same as the old browser.

Re: A turd by any other name

[Malc]

As I remember, IE6 was actually the first decent version. Unfortunately it stuck around for years, without being updated, and under the eye of hindsight it appears pretty poor. The Netsape products from back then were equally as rubbish, but they were superseded more quickly. Firefox has technically stagnated more than IE ... that team still can't deliver the Electrolysis project, and is now definitely the weakest of the major browsers.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Spec doesn't control what my browser can do, and as long as websites want to wreck house based on browser choice, fuck them. Oh, you noticed I'm using Safari, so you have javascript to disable pinch to zoom? Fuck all of that bullshit.

Re:A turd by any other name

[donaldm]

Err lets see!

Google Chrome: Version 41.0.2272.89 (64-bit) - Check

Firefox: Mozilla Firefox 36.0 - Check

Konqueror: 4.14.4 - Check

Microsoft IE: ???? - Nope not there

Hmm better check my system:
- Operating System: GNU/Linux 3.18.9-200.fc21.x86_64 - Err!
- System Release: Fedora 21 - The alarm bells are ringing

Well colour me surprised that's why I couldn't find Microsoft Internet Explorer \(^o^)/

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

is still a turd.

Microsoft is pulling an XFinity - different name, same (you know the rest)...

Re:A turd by any other name

[Hank the Lion]

I think you mean coprolite?
A corpolite, if it would exist, would rather be a fossilized corpse.

Re:A turd by any other name

[gtall]

I don't think we need to bring Putin into this discussion.

Re:A turd by any other name

[jaseuk]

IE6s only "problem" was that it was supported for 10+ years and that business uptake of Vista was low. If Vista had been a business success we'd generally be having this conversation around IE9 now, not IE6.

IE6 is still technically supported when installed on Server 2003 and in Windows XP Embedded for example.

Microsoft have thankfully corrected this policy, however they have to maintain their existing commitments: https://support.microsoft.com/...

Why keep upgrading your internal web apps, when you can keep them static for 10 years.

Jason.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Big Hairy Ian]

Doubt they'd be stupid enough to build the browser into the operating system since they got fined billions for doing that with IE and Windows98 and the authorities which imposed those fines will be watching like hawks. No doubt tho they'll still pull stunts like redirecting www.google.com to bing if you forget to put http:/// infront of it.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Actually IE6 was really good when it released, the problem was that standards were beginning to take form and MS simply (maliciously) stopped updating the browser.

Re:A turd by any other name

[AmiMoJo]

That doesn't sound like a very good plan. The few paltry hits they get for Bing by having it as the default that opens once before people replace it are not going to bring them much money. It also don't see what that has to do with being built in to the OS... They have to ship a browser of some kind, otherwise how will people download Chrome?

That's the really screwed up thing. Despite being the default both IE and MSN/Bing have failed. The EU needn't have bothered, although I'm glad they did because a) free money from fines and b) Windows N is nice. That's why they are ditching the IE name, because everyone knows that IE is the thing you use to download a browser to get to Google.

Re:A turd by any other name

[david_thornley]

The browser is mostly built into the OS. Take a look at the size of ie.exe. MS Windows has an HTML rendering engine built in, which is used for various things, and IE manages the HTTP and uses that rendering engine.

I think (but don't know for sure) that's why it's hard to run multiple IE versions on one system: they need different versions of the rendering engine which are part of the OS.

Re:A turd by any other name

[david_thornley]

IE used to run on the Mac, ending about the time of the switch to OSX (although I believe it was available briefly on OSX). Way back when, I read that the best browsing experience was IE 5 on a Mac.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Their stupidity of not being able to down-grade IE or simultaneously install different versions so web developers could test ALL the various versions, forcing people to rely on hacks like SandBoxie, was absolutely retarded.

IE was so bad at security that at one point that us geeks called it "Internet Exploder"

Yep "Seamlessly Intergrated Into the Operating System" is what brought on all the above.

Dear MS
PLEASE go back and study the 7 layers of the OSI model. There is a good reason applications are to stay in their place and the system to stay in its layer.
Especially applications at directly access the public network.

b0101

Re:A turd by any other name

[dkman]

Holy crap! I need to check that out. (pun intended)

Re: A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you seriously don't have any idea what you are talking about. Most of the web application development world had abandoned MSIE around 2001, and it's because the dot-com bubble had created a furiously-paced web with which Microsoft couldn't keep up. Firefox (nee Firebird, nee Phoenix) was there, offering cutting-edge features and semi-regular releases.

Version numbers weren't important, features were: you could build a new-skool web site using Phoenix and then hack it to look less-than-shitty in MSIE (does that sound familiar? It's still the process most of follow today).

The Wikipedia article on Firefox doesn't cover all that, so your apparently insightful research simply isn't.

Re: A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

Um.. what? The OSI model is all about network communication.

If you want to complain about bundling things together, you could complain that your NIC chip does way too much. Viva la separatiÃn!

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

M$

What is this, 1998?

Re: A turd by any other name

[theArtificial]

Wow you seriously don't have any idea what you are talking about. Most of the web application development world had abandoned MSIE around 2001,

Abandoned IE? IE dominated from the late 90s to the mid 00s. No amount of revisionism will dispute this fact. It's not like I work(ed) for Microsoft or enjoyed supporting IE6 later in its life, it's just a fact it was immensely popular for multiple reasons. This was the infamous era of applets and ActiveX, static webpages, single user computers, Sub7, Melissa and peak AOL. Web application development was IE centric, especially in the form of intranet sites, which were responsible for it being around an unnaturally long time. This isn't about ideology, it's simple business, you target what your customers run and at the time that was IE(6).

Version numbers weren't important, features were: you could build a new-skool web site using Phoenix and then hack it to look less-than-shitty in MSIE (does that sound familiar? It's still the process most of follow today).

The person who replied named Firefox specifically, not Phoenix, nor Firebird. You're moving the goal posts. Compared to the popular browsers at the time few people would've been using it prior to 2004 because it simply didn't exist as such. Regarding the claim about the process "most" follow today, (anecdote? are you the arbiter of the world wide designer/developer leauge?) , it's focused around Chrome and if they're half way competent Firefox. Why? Because laziness isn't new or unique to this industry. Just to be clear, how do you determine laziness? There are things called vendor prefixes which enable non-standard vendor specific CSS. Lazy folk will just use the popular ones which typically mean webkit specific. Things have improved as support for HTML5 and CSS3 increases. I'd love for ISPs to release the metrics for the User Agent strings for a more objective list of browsers/devices instead of relying on sites people visit. Google.com might be a worthy runner up, but here's a wiki page citing several stat sites in the browser wars.

The Wikipedia article on Firefox doesn't cover all that, so your apparently insightful research simply isn't.

For the record this is just a topic which I've firsthand experience with and calling it research cheapens the term and I'm not involved with the articles I referenced in any way. I just did some admittedly quick searches for supporting citations where possible, honestly, what is/was difficult is finding information on Netscape and IE JavaScript performance. There is a reason why Netscape users jumped ship and it took writing something from scratch to succeed. Your post contains no links, for those who aren't familiar with the details of the situation the more information available the better. My post isn't gospel and citing wikipedia doesn't grant one authority, it's simply convenient. Lots of sites have disappeared over the last ~15 years to boot. What would really help is finding a side by side comparison of the features supported by each browser (including Netscape!) I often search for things on my own, and I don't think I'm alone in this practice and I encourage anyone to do the same when educating themselves.

As an aside, revisionism is rampant. Look at Windows XP being lauded as light on resources, which at the time it was considered a busted pig compared to Windows 2k and 98 on this very site.

Re: A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a shitty pun.

Re:A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

psst, you are showing off your youth and ignorance. Put it away.

Re: A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen firefox on non-techie computers for at least a decade.

There's not just a geek class, and a citizen class. It's a spectrum of competence with computers.

Re:A turd by any other name

[rtb61]

They'll get more than a few paltry hit if they can tie their search to a google search. So every time you make use of a search function it triggers a background bing search that you don't see and that includes all your browser searches.

Rename, embrace, extend, extinguish?

[Anonymous Coward]

A new Microsoft.

They've already failed

[Anonymous Coward]

What are people going to say? "This is internet explorer's replacement" or "oh so it's internet explorer"

and my favorite, the older audience will ask "what happened to the internet E?"

Re: They've already failed

[corychristison]

A previous employer of mine got on the Internet through "the big E".

Re: They've already failed

[Anonymous Coward]

it's always ''the big blue e'' when i talk to most people.. it's the only term that they all understand right off the bat. i don't know what i'm gonna do when the big blue e disappears.. maybe retire, i guess.

Re:They've already failed

[Anonymous Coward]

and my favorite, the older audience will ask "what happened to the internet E?"

Easy. MS can name it in Spanish: espartano. There you have your "e".

Re: They've already failed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you deal with stupid people? The people I deal with have no problem with learning about other browsers like Firefox or Chrome.

New name?

[UnknowingFool]

If history is any guide, it will be a terrible name. It might even be a recycle of a previous terrible name. I'm going with Kin.

Re:New name?

[Sarlok]

Nah, that's too new still. Here's to the new Microsoft Bob.

Re:New name?

[Jason Levine]

If history is any guide, it will be a terrible name. It might even be a recycle of a previous terrible name. I'm going with Kin.

Microsoft Clippy-Zune?

Re:New name?

[synapse7]

Xbox One
Browser One

Re:New name?

[Megane]

Bing Explorer

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say "Bung" to match with its search strategy.

So the question is if the name change will be the entirety and the code will still suck and cause web developers to rip out their hair in frustration.

Re:New name?

[Dracos]

How about Bang, as in developers' heads against their desks?

Re:New name?

[OhSoLaMeow]

I'd say "Dung" to match with its search strategy.

So the question is if the name change will be the entirety and the code will still suck and cause web developers to rip out their hair in frustration.

FTFY.

Re:New name?

[alexhs]

I'm rooting for "Internet 365". Internet... on the Cloud !

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows.net? World-Wide Windows? Browser ME? Plays-4-Sure?

Re:New name?

[Ziest]

How about EIP ? ( Exploit Injection Point)

Re:New name?

[93 Escort Wagon]

If history is any guide, it will be a terrible name. It might even be a recycle of a previous terrible name. I'm going with Kin.

If recent history is any guide, they might call it Microsoft Surface.

Re:New name?

[The Grim Reefer]

I'm thinking Bada. It goes better with their search engine name. They will need another web based product they call Boom.

Bada Bing, Bada Boom.

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bong? As in you need to be smoking something to make the decision to use it?

Re:New name?

[GNious]

My bet's on "Microsoft Internet"

Re:New name?

[Andy_R]

After Bing and Zune, I think they'll continue with the 'rejected 60s Batman fight scene captions' theme, and it'll be Splork, Zoing or possibly Ptoink.

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't give them any ideas!

Re:New name?

[sconeu]

Bong, to reflect what the marketroids were using?

Re:New name?

[MachineShedFred]

If you don't think they're going to cobrand it in some way with Bing, you're crazy.

You might be quite close to the mark.

Re:New name?

[MachineShedFred]

Not marketing-y enough.

Microsoft CloudSurface (tm)

Re:New name?

[tverbeek]

If the executive in charge of branding back in the mid-00's was still in charge, it would be called 2016 Microsoft Windows Office Internet.

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft marketing won't accept it until you string on a few more vague overarching brand names. Microsoft MSN Windows CloudSurface.Net Live One.

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

If history is any guide, it will be a terrible name. It might even be a recycle of a previous terrible name. I'm going with Kin.

I hope it's called Clippy

Re:New name?

[blue9steel]

Browser One

That's actually kind of catchy.

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

If history is any guide, it will be a terrible name. It might even be a recycle of a previous terrible name. I'm going with Kin.

How about Internet Sugar?

For those that don't know, the Corn Refiners Association has been lobbying Congress the past several years to force the FDA to allow them to rename high-fructose corn syrup to corn sugar in order to side-step all the negative research that has linked high-fructose corn syrup with obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft Browser"

Re:New name?

[budgenator]

That would confuse everybody that used to send Email via UUCP!

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Beng. Because... I got nothing...'e' was the only vowel left.

Re:New name?

[G-forze]

Byng?

Re:New name?

[sensationull]

It will be just like Project Natal, huge hype, recognition and promise then they shaft all the free advertising and beige it up with a new name like Kinect. Spartan is a cool name with tie in with the Halo series, like Cortana it is on the cooler side of the brand but they will probably call it something stupid like Better At Net Goofing (Bang) or Microsoft Windows Internet Application for all Users that is Better than Internet Explorer.

Re:New name?

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Maybe they'll name it after their favourite development aid. BingBong!

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft "Click here for the Internet, Grandma!"

Re:New name?

[david_thornley]

A browser court-martialed and executed for losing Minorca? As long as it's a Microsoft product I'm OK with it.

Re:New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

some former m$ marketer is wishing he'd thought of that

Re:New name?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Bing Explorer

Microsoft Bingo!

Microsoft Spartan?

[MikeTheGreat]

Isn't this how the XBox became the XBox? They released the code name of their internal project, people kept using the name, and then they just stuck with it?

On the one hand "Microsoft Spartan" doesn't seem corporate enough. On the other hand it'll fit right in with Firefox & Chrome, which also have non-descriptive names that are pan-inoffensive yet interesting...

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[erikscott]

pan-inoffensive

Persia? I could see it going either way...

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you don't realize that Microsoft is planning to change its name to United Mations Space Command, with Spartans running Cortana all over the place.

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

The codename was "DirectX Box". They changed it to just "XBox" on release.

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft Spartan" seems to be akin to calling something like "Obese Anorexic".

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Snotnose]

On the one hand "Microsoft Spartan" doesn't seem corporate enough. On the other hand it'll fit right in with Firefox & Chrome, which also have non-descriptive names that are pan-inoffensive yet interesting...

I guess a better name would be Microsoft iInfectu.

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the one hand "Microsoft Spartan" doesn't seem corporate enough..."

Maybe they should call it Microsoft Trojan. That brand seems to offer safe browsing and in other areas of life.

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Gonnorhea with assistant Clippy^h^h^h^h^h^h Aids.

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft Spartan" seems to be akin to calling something like "Obese Anorexic".

Small, Impotent Greek?

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand it'll fit right in with Firefox & Chrome, which also have non-descriptive names that are pan-inoffensive yet interesting...

I'm an Athenian, you insensitive clod!

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[tlhIngan]

Isn't this how the XBox became the XBox? They released the code name of their internal project, people kept using the name, and then they just stuck with it?

On the one hand "Microsoft Spartan" doesn't seem corporate enough. On the other hand it'll fit right in with Firefox & Chrome, which also have non-descriptive names that are pan-inoffensive yet interesting...

Well, the Xbox was really internally called the DirectX Box...

Though, you'd have to wonder if maybe Nadella is secretly a Halo fan or something. I mean, it was odd enough to have Cortana. Sure video gamers know who she is, and it kinda-sorta makes sense, but you'd think some sort of corporate self-censorship would've made it a nice bland name.

Then there's Spartan... of the many different names you could use to call a web browser, even one using the same Trident engine IE used...

(Project SPARTAN is/was the secret project behind supersoldiers like Master Chief).

I'm wonder what next - what thing might Microsoft call say, the Warthog next?

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, just because they didn't screw women doesn't mean they were impotent.

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[Anonymous Coward]

which also have non-descriptive names that are pan-inoffensive yet interesting...

Crap - I was going to plug hard for Microsoft Cloud ButtMonkey.

Re:Microsoft Spartan?

[youngone]

Will Microsoft Spartan go down well in the Athenian market though?

Introducing Microsoft Definitely Not Internet Expl

[Anonymous Coward]

Introducing Microsoft Definitely Not Internet Explorer

They're killing the wrong brand

[ks9208661]

They should kill the Microsoft brand instead.

Re:They're killing the wrong brand

[Atrox666]

They've been trying for years but they need to re-org the company at least twice before delivering anything.

Re:They're killing the wrong brand

[rwv]

I'd have to agree that the "Internet Explorer" in "Microsoft Internet Explorer" isn't the part the causes me not to trust it.

On the plus side, Microsoft still can't figure out how to compete with the big boys in the Mobile platform environment so they are successfully relegates to backend server infrastructure, offices, and home environments for people who aren't compelled to care to much about running competing software (i.e. Mac, Linux, OpenOffice, Mozilla, or Google). I do admit to dealing with Microsoft in these three environments... I'm still glad they are virtually locked out from Mobile, though.

Re:They're killing the wrong brand

[Dan East]

They should rename themselves ComputerWare. Think about it.

Re:They're killing the wrong brand

[Anonymous Coward]

But they already done it with Windows 8 and the Metro experiment. Office was almost killed by ribbon UI and Office 2013 with CAPSLOCK MENU's and removal of clip art finished the user exodus to other tools. Nowadays even a wiki at intranet is more productive documentation platform than the recent MS tools.

Re:They're killing the wrong brand

[ckatko]

As someone who has to sell, install, and support Microsoft enterprise products: You are preaching to the freaking choir. If you ever hear the words "data migration" and "Navision" in the same sentence, do yourself a favor and find a new job. Because no company is paying you enough to have your butt hurt that much.

Re:They're killing the wrong brand

[freeze128]

Right. It doesn't matter what they call the new browser. When you're trying to troubleshoot a problem with a typical end-user, and you ask what web browser they're using, they will just tell you "Microsoft" anyway.

Re:They're killing the wrong brand

[Big Hairy Ian]

But then where will I get my blue screen from

Re:They're killing the wrong brand

[ks9208661]

Death.

Spartan

[Anonymous Coward]

What they should do is call it Spartan... and then keep it Spartan.

If they want to add new functionality to it later, do so only in the form of add-ons that can be either enabled on first-run or downloaded later. Otherwise, it should be as light as possible, with UX and protocol/standards support being the only priorities. This was what Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox had intended, so maybe Microsoft can get it right.

-eganist

Re:Spartan

[Anonymous Coward]

What they should do is call it Spartan... and then keep it Spartan.

You went on to mention Firefox, but that's what came immediately to mind when I read "keep it Spartan". If the Mozilla Foundation could not turn back feature-creep in what was supposed to be its minimal browser, I have no hope at all that Microsoft can pull that off.

Besides that, if Microsoft drops the name Internet Explorer, I won't be able to use my favorite name for it: MSIE. Yes, the messy browser.

Re:Spartan

[X-Ray Artist]

IS THIS SPARTA?!?!

Re:Spartan

[gl4ss]

feature/ui mess up creep started with firefox as soon as it became obvious it was more popular than what they had before and all the "UX xxxperrrttssszz" at mozilla started to fight over having a stake in it(to continue receiving money, no less).

The new name is

[nobuddy]

"Microsoft C'mon! Seriously, it's not IE. We promise."

A shame, in a way...

[ClickOnThis]

...because this video will become less funny.

Re:A shame, in a way...

[antdude]

What about today with Chrome and others?

Re:A shame, in a way...

[Anonymous Coward]

That video cannot possibly become less funny.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

A thorn by any other name hurts just as bad

[Art3x]

In other news, Microsoft is also renaming Windows to something else, although they're not sure what. The version number will start at at least 20, though, to further distance itself from Windows 10.

Microsoft is also seeking to ditch the names Bing and Microsoft.

Re:A thorn by any other name hurts just as bad

[governorx]

...Cortana ...Project Spartan

So.. since I see the trend (HALO) and windows wants to be cool they will rebrand Windows to Master Sergeant and sub windows will be Grunts.

-gov

That's impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

The previous CEO of Microsoft assured European regulators that IE was so deeply embedded in Windows architecture that it could not be replaced.

Re:That's impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

The claim was that it could not be removed, not that it was irreplaceable. This browser will likely continue to do all the behind the scenes processes that IE currently does.

Re:That's impossible

[Daltorak]

The previous CEO of Microsoft assured European regulators that IE was so deeply embedded in Windows architecture that it could not be replaced.

It's not impossible at all -- Spartan is a copy of the IE engine code, repackaged as a Metro app and will be updated on an ongoing basis through the Windows App Store model. Anything that doesn't work in that space like ActiveX/COM, Browser Helper Objects, etc. are all stripped out.

IE11 will also remain in Windows 10, with good ole' MSHTML.DLL and all that other cruft that developers (and parts of Windows itself) have been taking hard dependencies on for 15+ years. It will receive security updates, performance improvements and so on, but it will not be updated at the pace of Spartan.

Maybe shipping two browsers with the OS will upset some people, but this should actually work out pretty nicely.

Re:That's impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded as informative? It's as if you and the people who modded you didn't even read the TFS:

".. IE will still exist, and stick around for compatibility issues.."

Aside from the minor fact that the TFS is about "Windows 10" which presumably wasn't around at the time the "previous CEO" assured those European regulators, because you know.. an entire new OS might involve significant architectural changes?

I know it's /. and hating on Microsoft is one of the great pastimes here.. but really..

Re:That's impossible

[Zaurus]

It's not impossible at all -- Spartan is a copy of the IE engine code, repackaged as a Metro app and will be updated on an ongoing basis through the Windows App Store model. Anything that doesn't work in that space like ActiveX/COM, Browser Helper Objects, etc. are all stripped out.

IE11 will also remain in Windows 10, with good ole' MSHTML.DLL and all that other cruft that developers (and parts of Windows itself) have been taking hard dependencies on for 15+ years. It will receive security updates, performance improvements and so on, but it will not be updated at the pace of Spartan.

Maybe shipping two browsers with the OS will upset some people, but this should actually work out pretty nicely.

Intriguingly, I cannot tell whether you mean to be serious, funny, or sarcastic. I simply don't know enough about windows to tell...

Re:That's impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

That was more than 15 years ago. Windows has had at least two major rewrites since then.

Let it go already.

Re:That's impossible

[laffer1]

IE11 will also remain in Windows 10, with good ole' MSHTML.DLL and all that other cruft that developers (and parts of Windows itself) have been taking hard dependencies on for 15+ years. It will receive security updates, performance improvements and so on, but it will not be updated at the pace of Spartan.

Maybe shipping two browsers with the OS will upset some people, but this should actually work out pretty nicely.

Apple fan boys should be out in force. Apple already does this. You can use the fast version of webkit aka Safari on iOS or you can use any third party app with a slow substandard browser experience.

Re:That's impossible

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the GP is probably spot-on. They're looking to shed those hard-linked dependencies and force the lazy asshat developers that did those things into fixing them, or at least forcing them into "legacy" mode. Hyper-V will help at the enterprise level. Just refusing to support the old stuff will help at the consumer level.

Re:That's impossible

[Billly Gates]

No he is real.

I read www.Neowin.net which is the anti Linux pro WIndows version of Slashdot.org too :-)

Yes IE 11 is not bad. Not great but is standards compliant and does multimedia well and is decently secure and finally has adblock support. It most certainly is not IE 6 ... but it has legacy nastiness left ala Mozilla pre-firefox with nasty non compliant buggy Netscape code that was not purged.

Spartan will launch a site on an intranet with the other .dll for IE 11 for corporate apps or anything a user or administrator puts a GPO in active directory to white list a site in compability mode.

But MS proudly claims 3,000 bugs where workarounds were put in place since IE 9 have already been cleared. It is going to be a challenge for Chrome and Firefox as they now have crud from a half decade or more in. :-)

Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[i_ate_god]

I don't understand why Microsoft wants to make a browser so badly. The consumer world has moved on to Firefox and Chrome and Safari and this is propogating through the enterprise world now.

What is the business case for having your own browser? So that bing can be the default search engine?

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[robinsonne]

A very large part of Microsoft's business is the enterprise and business world. That's where it matters a lot more than what ordinary people are using to go to facebook and pintrest.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[pr0nbot]

I would guess it's because Google and Apple make the other browsers (apart from Firefox) and will begin to integrate their cloud services into the browser, which could potentially lock Microsoft out.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because is good enough for me. I welcome vivaldi and spartan. Long live the browser wars

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[RabidReindeer]

I don't understand why Microsoft wants to make a browser so badly. The consumer world has moved on to Firefox and Chrome and Safari and this is propogating through the enterprise world now.

What is the business case for having your own browser? So that bing can be the default search engine?

Well Duh. In Windows, the browser must be (squeaky Ballmer voice) "an Integral part of the Windows Operating System".

Because that works so much better than OS's like Linux and MacOS where the browser is a mere application program.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[ShanghaiBill]

What is the business case for having your own browser?

If you make an OS, then making a browser that only works on that OS, gives you customer lock-in. This strategy is most effective if you are the market leader. So MSIE only runs on Windows, but Safari runs on both OSX and Windows.

So that bing can be the default search engine?

That too.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Safari for Windows was discontinued in 2012.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[imp7]

How else will you be able visit https://www.mozilla.org/ without a browser?

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Marginal Coward]

Note that Chrome and Safari are made by two of Microsoft's arch rivals. Evidently they both thought there was a business case for that. I assume that Google, Apple, and Microsoft are generally interested in optimizing the browser experience on their platforms and being a participant in creating future browser standards. And Microsoft wouldn't want to leave its competition in charge of the latter with just a little help from Mozilla, et. al.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[lgw]

IE (across versions) has a larger share than Firefox now, right?

Firefox lost 1/3rd of its customer base in the (almost-) year following the ousting of Eich for being conservative, and is still losing share fast. It's almost like half of America is more conservative than average, or something.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[whistlepig]

It's about vertical integration. They do not want to be dependent on other companies. This is something that many large companies do (e.g., as pointed out Mac and Google have browsers). That said, there are obviously many cases where companies choose to use other company's products. An example would be the automobile industry's relationship with parts suppliers. This helps minimize the number of things a given company does so that they can focus on creating value through their core products. Microsoft appears to have a lot of "not created here" syndrome. I think this may be due to software generally displays the brand name and they want you to know that "Microsoft" has you covered for all of your basic computer software requirements.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[bondsbw]

Exactly! I mean, just imagine what might happen if say Google decided to make an OS that was pretty much just a web browser. Like that would sell!

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly when we start to turn away from those companies to something that doesn't lock us in, or out. All a cycle.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that the rest of the world cared much about American reactions to Eich's dismissal or to who is the CEO of Mozilla. The world is much larger than the USA and Mozilla's users outside the USA are more than the ones inside them. The fall of Firefox has more to do with its small share on mobile and the consequent lack of synergy with the desktop version. When you use Chrome on the phone and on the tablet you might end up using it on the desktop because you want to share tabs and bookmarks. Unfortunately Mozilla still can't get the mobile version to behave as one would expect from a mobile browser.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Pope Hagbard]

Because operating systems come with web browsers these days. If you don't have one, your OS is crippled by design and the users will rebel.

They could bundle someone else's browser, but by now that's pointless.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Obfuscant]

Well Duh. In Windows, the browser must be (squeaky Ballmer voice) "an Integral part of the Windows Operating System".

The problem is that the "web browser" has become more than that. It's now a convenient, handy GUI for everything. The last GUI application I programed (last two, actually) were supposed to be in Perl/Tk but I realized from early on that a web-browser/javascript solution would be easier -- despite the issues of "security" that makes reading local files hard and writing them worse.

What do you do when you've created lots of GUI interfaces for novice users based on your web browser and that web browser isn't there anymore? And the one that is there doesn't have the same, ummm, additions or extensions that you've put into yours? GUIs don't work/look right anymore.

That's a much more simple explanation than a vast conspiracy by a vast company to try to kill babies and stuff. Not that they aren't, but Occam's Razor would point to the simple.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, their browser is heavily integrated into the OS. For e.g., the generic help file system and large chunks of user interfaces use either IE or the underlying Trident HTML renderer, much like individual apps Steam and Adobe Creative Suite use WebKit. MS can't just suddenly drop compatibility with ~10 years of apps which still work fine.

There have been experiments in the past to replace Trident with Gecko (Firefox) at the OS level, but you're looking at a lot of inconsistencies and broken bits. If MS chose a 3rd party browser to modify and support as the "new IE", it would end up just being a new IE, with all the non-standard legacy cruft and reasons for griping we get with the current offering.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[MachineShedFred]

In PowerShell:

                $source = "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-36.0.1-SSL"
                $dest = Join-Path -Path $env:TEMP -ChildPath "firefox.zip"
                $wc = New-Object system.net.webclient
                $wc.downloadFile($source,$dest)

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[drinkypoo]

I don't understand why Microsoft wants to make a browser so badly.

Every modern OS needs browser-like functionality for its own purposes, e.g. displaying help. So you might as well have a browser. They're obviously not going to put Chrome in there, nor at this point, Firefox. So they're going to have to have their own browser.

I, for one, am glad they are not throwing in the towel. They help motivate the other browsers towards standards compliance.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

So MSIE only runs on Windows, but Safari runs on both OSX and Windows.

IE used to run on OSX. The PPC version of IE 5.5b still runs on OSX with Rosettta.

Gates did a deal with Jobs to make IE the default browser on the Mac as part of the San Francisco Canyon Company litigation settlement.

MS stopped the OSX version when Apple introduced Safari.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[shutdown -p now]

Chrome (or Blink for engine) seems like a logical choice. But going that way basically means handing full control over web client stuff to Google (which can be assumed to have their own agenda which isn't necessarily compatible with everyone else's), and it creates a software monoculture where HTML, CSS, JS etc are defined not by what the specifications say they are, but by how Blink implements them. You only have to look back to XP era to see how fast this gets ugly.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google and Apple have learned that integrating their cloud services to their browsers is just a recipe for years of expensive litigation especially in Europe where Google is already fighting and paying through the nose for optimizing their browser and search engine. Not to mention that cloud services are really not that attractive in the mid to large size corporations.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the most popular consumer choice is "default" ...and it always* will be

*unless default ceases to work entirely

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Billly Gates]

IE is A MUST for IT departments. I can manage settings via group policy objects on active directory for 10,000 users on the fly. Put the settings differently in different OU folders for security with just a drag and drop of a computer name. For example at work I have one folder called KIOSKS. It has GPO for IE to run fullscreen in kiosk mode. I drag the newly imaged pc to that folder and BAM done.

Firefox and Chrome can not do this ... still??!

Want to call your mother and tell her how to open cmd.exe and use ftp to download Chrome then?

All these things require IE. FYI IE is not bad anymore. Not awesome, but IE 11 is a w3c standards compliant browser which implements some things like CSS 3 animations better than any browser. No you did not misread that. It may not have all the check lists of chrome but it has a low rights mode which firefox lacks for sandboxing too for security and even adblock plus has an add-on today. MS really has upped their game starting with IE 9 when Firefox ate them for breakfast.

As long as they learn their lesson and it is standards compliant I see no problem. With mobile MS can never monopolize again! Also IE 6 in 2001 was the least buggy and most standards compliant browser at the time. It just got old and Sun and IBM changed the implementations at the W3C to screw MS. It went to shit as Firefox and Safari changed too but IE was left behind etc.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Billly Gates]

IE (across versions) has a larger share than Firefox now, right?

Firefox lost 1/3rd of its customer base in the (almost-) year following the ousting of Eich for being conservative, and is still losing share fast. It's almost like half of America is more conservative than average, or something.

Most people are not computer people. Today they care more about their damn phones than their pcs they rarely use these days accept to do taxes or something. So they have older software and hardware and change less often with their habits.

Firefox 4 was TERRIBLE. It has gotten better than worse again with 30 I think with aura. I no longer use it so I dunno. Chrome is big according to statcounter.com but less so in netmarketshare which overcounts Chinese by large numbers who use Baidu and not Google.

IE has improved tremendously. It is a usable browser. I kid not at version 11 and is standards complaint and fairly secure with low-rights mode sandboxing which Firefox still lacks

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[dave420]

It was a bit more than simply for "being conservative" - he actively sought to deny human rights, based on nothing more than superstition.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[RabidReindeer]

What do you do when you've created lots of GUI interfaces for novice users based on your web browser and that web browser isn't there anymore?

I don't. People who wrote apps that assumed that I was running IE or Flash have literally lost big-ticket business from me because I don't run IE and wouldn't trust it within 100 miles of my money.

I'd feel sorry for all those people who built IE6 web apps, except, well, no. I don't feel sorry for them. I was there when they did it and I warned them it was a bad idea to lock yourself into a monocultural world even then.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[sensationull]

Many developers seem to get this but there seems to be a disconnect that lets the same evangelists end up using chrome or firefox specific extensions and claiming the same incompatibility with other browsers that they said was not ok when it was IE. A lot of web developers who screamed the loudest about the problem are now the cause of its latest iteration.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[i ate my neighbour]

Good script, but doesn't work with proxies.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[david_thornley]

It's almost like /. thinks most of America knows who Eich is, what happened, and uses that to help select a browser, or something.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[lgw]

Yes, I fully understand that's how progressives argue the issue. Conservatives don't see it that way, especially after the eHarmony verdict a few years back. In any case, his personal beliefs are irrelevant. Tolerance is a virtue, one you apparently lack (tolerance does not imply acceptance, merely that you don't actively work to expel people from the community).

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[lgw]

It was pretty well covered on the dextrosphere. It was hard to miss if you read right-leaning political blogs at all, as it was a perfect example of the extreme intolerance on the left, and most people at least have a friend who reads political stuff these days. You pretty much have to, if you're conservative, as the older media is just the propaganda arm of the Dem party now, and most stories that might embarrass the left in any way are boycotted cable/broadcast/print news in the US.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[MachineShedFred]

Good thing that most people that are self-downloading other browsers are not likely behind proxy servers, eh?

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

probably because Firefox is the biggest steaming turd ever layed?

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[david_thornley]

Extreme intolerance? Who was trying to deny whom the ability to get married? You act directly contrary to the interests of my friends and family, and I'm going to oppose you.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[lgw]

Opposing someone politically while not trying to drive them from your community is tolerance (but not acceptance). Tolerance is only relevant when people have beliefs contrary to your own deeply-held values. Save the conflict for appropriate venues, like the voting booth.

When I was a kid, the left was full of tolerance, while the right was casting out sinners, trying to block "the wrong people" from their neighborhoods, and so on. Now the roles have reversed. Tragic, really.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[david_thornley]

Giving a large sum of money to prevent a group of people from enjoying basic human rights is NOT tolerance. He can disapprove of same-sex marriage all he likes, and nobody's going to make him marry another man. Nobody's going to tell his church they have to perform same-sex marriages. Nobody's going to tell him he has to socialize with same-sex couples. That's tolerance. If he'd stuck to that, no problem.

Do you know who'd be a natural ally for the right? Muslims. Most of them are religious conservatives. Do you know who accepts Muslims? The left. This puzzles the ones I've talked to.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[lgw]

Giving a large sum of money to prevent a group of people from enjoying basic human rights is NOT tolerance.

Yes, yes it is. It's not acceptance, but it's tolerance. Tolerance is the willingness to live and work alongside people you dislike while working to outlaw the actions you dislike. Driving people out of their jobs? Not tolerance.

Nobody's going to tell his church they have to perform same-sex marriages.

It has already started, around the edges, with non-Church wedding chapels and the like. Again, review the insanity of the eHarmony verdict. The stat will compel you to provide service against your conscience.

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Win+R cmd (enter) ftp ftp.mozilla.org

Re:Why does Microsoft even need a browser?

[david_thornley]

I dislike people trying to deny other people basic human rights, like the right to marry who they love. Should I be working to try to get rid of people like Eich? And in what way driving people out of jobs less tolerant than trying to deprive them of basic rights? Eich can get another job. Even when my cousin got married in Massachusetts, Arizona did not recognize their marriage, which is unconstitutional as far as I can tell, and certainly worse than losing a job.

Again, nobody's going to tell the church they have to perform same-sex marriages. That would be held as violating freedom of religion, which the courts are not going to do. Note that, in many cases, a business dealing with the public cannot discriminate based on certain criteria, such as race. I bet I can find people around who think that mixing races is immoral; would you support their right to not cater to mixed-race couples?

New name

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Zilla. MSzilla if you like to abbreviate.

Queue all the MS haters

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like going to someone's house and finding all ugly 70s decor. Get over it losers. MS is trying to make good products just like anyone else. The empire days are over.

Worked for the cancer stick people

[Anonymous Coward]

Call it the Altria Browser.

Re:Stick around or stuck with?

[RabidReindeer]

Don't you mean rusty tetanus-infected hook?

I hope it's fast

[Atrox666]

I can't wait to install Chrome faster than I ever have on a new machine.

Re:I hope it's fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Install Chrome? Why don't you just put telescopic panning cameras in every corner of every room in your house with a dedicated feed directly to Google HQ? That's about the ONLY way I can think of to give Google MORE personal information about yourself than you do when you use their central user-information-gathering application (aka "Chrome")...

IE11 with EMET is THE MOST SECURE BROWSER ON WINDOWS, yet somehow, none of the "intelligentsia" (and I'm using that description ironically), ever acknowledge that little tidbit. They all want to pretend it's still 2006 and that nothing has changed since then...

-AC

Re:I hope it's fast

[SIGBUS]

I think they should just call it "Firefox Downloader."

Re:I hope it's fast

[Ash-Fox]

IE11 with EMET is THE MOST SECURE BROWSER ON WINDOWS

It still freezes up for a few seconds when you start it, ignores the address you just entered and visits the homepage regardless. To this day, IE still has an issue registering clicks on hyperlinks when it doesn't think the window is active (when it is).

That's just from the top of my head. A secure turd is still a turd.

Re:I hope it's fast

[vux984]

It still freezes up for a few seconds when you start it, ignores the address you just entered and visits the homepage regardless.

Tools -> Internet Options -> General tab -> Home page

type: about:blank

click ok.

Problem solved. Most home pages are annoying.

That's just from the top of my head. A secure turd is still a turd.

I prefer Firefox myself; but I really have nothing against IE11.

Re:I hope it's fast

[Ash-Fox]

Problem solved. Most home pages are annoying.

Nope, still freezes up, then replaces the link I just wrote with about:blank. Still broken.

Re:I hope it's fast

[vux984]

Nope, still freezes up, then replaces the link I just wrote with about:blank. Still broken.

Mine doesn't give me remotely enough to even click in the address bar before its finished loading. Nevermind time to type in an address.

Presumably yours is loading slow enough that you have time to type something in the address box before its finished starting up; and then it autoloads the homes page after you've typed in an address as part of its start up?

Bug fix for IE should be to not allow text entry into the address bar until its finished starting up; or alternatively, if something is already in the address bar when its ready to load the homepage to just skip loading the home page.

Either way combining a slower computer with aggressive usage -- typing an address before its finished loading is a pretty minor defect easily worked around by simply waiting for the program to finish starting before you try and use it.

The slow start itself is just your hardware not inherent to IE. As I said, mine is nearly instantaneous.

Re:I hope it's fast

[Ash-Fox]

Either way combining a slower computer

All my computers are i7s these days, even my work laptop. All of them exhibit the same behaviour. Doesn't matter if it's Windows 7 or 8.1.

typing an address before its finished loading is a pretty minor defect

Indeed, it should have resolved back in IE5.

easily worked around by simply waiting for the program to finish starting before you try and use it.

Firefox and Chrome both pop up instantly and I can use them instantly. Can't do that with IE, despite it not even popping up instantly. The work around is to not use IE because it's a turd.

The slow start itself is just your hardware not inherent to IE

No, it's not. These are i7 systems with at least 24GiB of RAM. No other webbrowser does this and I can easily reproduce this on any Windows machine I get my hands on.

As I said, mine is nearly instantaneous.

I would only believe you if you are using the Microsoft Design Language variant.

Re:I hope it's fast

[youngone]

I wish I had mod points. This name is both descriptive and true.

Re:I hope it's fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be a DFO error.

Re:I hope it's fast

[vux984]

I would only believe you if you are using the Microsoft Design Language variant.

I'm not even sure what that is. I'm guessing that's the Windows 8 full screen app version?

No, its just a regular Windows 7 PC with an i7, 16GB RAM, SSD, And IE11.

I don't know what to tell you. IE11 starts as fast as Chrome does; if anything I'd give the edge to IE11. However both are comfortably sub-second from launch to loaded and ready to use.

I've got an other older i7 windows 7, with spinning disk drives. Booted it up, fired up IE. Got about 1.5 seconds of the spinning cursor, then the window displayed and it was ready to go in under a second. Exited it. Subsequent launches lack the 1.5 seconds of spinning, and display and load the window immediately; ready to use still comfortably under a second. (And that is a first gen i7 from 2011.)

For the record, Firefox and Chrome were similiar. A second or so of busy-cursor before the window appeared; ready to use within half a second or so of the window appearing.

No other webbrowser does this and I can easily reproduce this on any Windows machine I get my hands on.

Again, not sure what to tell you. I have no stake in lying to you; and I have seen the behaviour you describe... of the IE window loading, and being able to type in the address bar, only to have it overwrite it and start loading the default home page. And I agree THAT is a flaw. But I've only seen it on crappy old low spec computers at the office. I just assumed it was slow computers.

However I do not have issues with IE loading slowly on my computers.

Perhaps its a plugin or addon? Perhaps its something to do with settings; for example perhaps you have it set to automatically look for your proxy settings -- that's known to cause a delay on startup with some systems?

Bottom line, assuming your telling the truth, and I'm happy to take you at face value, then there is something else going on, because IE does not have this issue on either Win7 computer here in my office, nor my laptop, nor that I use regularly, nor my Win8.1 HTPC i have in my living room.

I prefer Firefox myself; but do use IE from time to time, and it's not exhibiting the issue you describe.

I have a name!

[gadget junkie]

How about "Completely Researched Archiving Program"? it would make for an interesting Acronym.

Re:I have a name!

[Fire_Wraith]

I'm partial to Spartan Heuristic Internet Transceiver, myself.

Re:I have a name!

[gadget junkie]

well played sir, well played.

Gamers Bandwagon

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like Microsoft is going to attempt to reincarnate their Microsoft brand with their loyal gamer following.

Re:Gamers Bandwagon

[Anonymous Coward]

Thoughts from the gaming community on this?

Rename Microsoft

[jfdavis668]

Getting rid of the name "Microsoft" may help in the long run.

Defaults

[Anonymous Coward]

the default way users interact with the internet

Just like the Start screen has been the default way users interact with Windows 8?

The reason for the new browser...

[VAXcat]

IE's replacement will provide a more Windows Phone like Internet browsing experience to desktop users. We're all gonna love it.

Re:The reason for the new browser...

[Anonymous Coward]

IE's replacement will provide a more Windows Phone like Internet browsing experience to desktop users. We're all gonna hate it and stay well clear.

FTFY.

Re:The reason for the new browser...

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you're being sarcastic and you mean we're all going to hate it?

If they want to make the rest of Microsoft's products more like Windows Phone, I'm all for it.
That way, I'd never see any of their products.
Just like Windows Phone.

Long

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll probably be Microsoft Windows Web Browser 11 or something like that, given their penchant for drawn-out yet generic-sounding names.

Why wouldn't they?

[Dracos]

At this point the IE brand is so tainted that it's basically an albatross around MS' neck.

Because Spartan is a long-overdue pruning of the Trident codebase (which has been gathering ugly cruft for 17 years) rather than a clean sheet rewrite, it'll still carry a slight IE odor no matter how much they cut out. Even the name Spartan is ripe for jokes about it's feature implementation.

Re:Why wouldn't they?

[ColdWetDog]

it'll still carry a slight IE odor no matter how much they cut out.

That's OK. You can always get bottles of that 'New Browser smell" and spritz it around the office.

Re:Why wouldn't they?

[Billly Gates]

At this point the IE brand is so tainted that it's basically an albatross around MS' neck.

Because Spartan is a long-overdue pruning of the Trident codebase (which has been gathering ugly cruft for 17 years) rather than a clean sheet rewrite, it'll still carry a slight IE odor no matter how much they cut out. Even the name Spartan is ripe for jokes about it's feature implementation.

Hey Mozilla had that pee smell of Netscape which was a buggy POS by version 5. So bad I used IE 6 in 2001 :-)

Firefox in comparison was a pruning too. Spartan is the firefox of trident.

Re:Why wouldn't they?

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Back in windows98 and windows ME days the windows brand was pretty tainted as well. You know the good old days when you did not need a faulty hardware to get a blue screen of death. Today the windows brand is not exactly good, but it is not derided by the common folk either

Re:Why wouldn't they?

[david_thornley]

Consider the competition. During Windows 98, you could get something obsolete, something outre, a Windows computer, or a Mac. MacOS was slicker to use, but technically inferior, and this was a bad period for Macs. Linux was usable back then (I put Red Hat Linux (not RHEL) on an old box and used it as a file server for years), but not for the non-technical. Nowadays, I'll happily recommend Ubuntu or Mint for anybody who doesn't need specifically Windows software, and there's a fair number of people like that out there, but back then it was not ready for widespread consumer use.

Re:Why wouldn't they?

[Daniel Hoffmann]

I was talking only about brand, not if it was good or if there was any good alternatives. Today the windows brand is not AS bad as it once was, the IE brand could pull the same stunt if the browser actually got on par with the competition.

Oblig Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Developer: "A new browser? This is madness. This will just mean more convoluted web standards"
Ballmer: "Madness!? THIS. IS. MICROSOFT!!"
Developer: *avoids chair*

The name is not the problem

[Karmashock]

It is sort of unfair to nail MS too much for IE. The big problem was javascript and really javascript is still a big problem.

I use noscript myself with firefox and whenever I turn it off the absolute garbage that spews onto my pages is amazing. They are nesting one script inside of another inside of another. And it is mostly ads and social network crap.

Look, I'm okay with ads. But the ads need to be DUMB ads. That is, no scripting. You want to put a banner ad with two chicks getting mounted by a water buffalo? I'm actually fine with that. I don't even see it. What kills me is the scripts. That includes the popups and all that crap.

I also refuse to deal with Flash or any kind of non-gif animation unless I personally press PLAY on the video. If I don't press play... do not even begin to download that animation or movie or stream. Absolutely not.

And because of crap like that, I have to micromanage the loading of every page using various tools to keep the various bits of shit from loading every time I go to those pages.

Again, no problem with ads. Have ads. That's fine. But tracking cookies will be rejected, scripts will not be run, and flash animations of any kind will only be launched at my personal discretion.

MS made no effort to control this shit and as a result people hate IE. That is mostly what happened.

Every time you saw some poor bastard using IE he'd have 100 little programs in his tool bar eating up 90 percent of his screen along with endless pop up swatting. And MS really didn't do anything about it.

THAT was the mistake. Fix THAT.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Threni]

The problem was never javascript. Sure, IE was the posterboy in slow, buggy javascript. But it's hard to imagine anything other that static pages (and there's nothing wrong with that) being handled with anything better than javascript. Perhaps you're not very technical, but forget ads and gifs for a moment and explain how you'd provide the same functionality javascript (and ajax and all that goes along with it) would be handled without javascript? Uploading files to a site with a progress bar? Dragging and dropping files onto the browser. Sensible, rich clientside validation of user input (in addition to the back end validation, obviously)? The only alternative I can imagine you giving is some other client side language. The only reason you're not blocking those too is because they're not as popular as javascript; they can certainly produce and handle popups.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem was ActiveX ("let's run fully privileged code via the browser!"), not JavaScript.

Re:The name is not the problem

[hey!]

Well, there's nothing that stops people from doing this, other than that unlike you, they find javascript useless.

And it is *perfectly* reasonable to blame MS for IE. If not MS, than who? First of all, Javascript isn't the only source of Internet security problems. But by being deliberately non-compatible IE javascript created or exacerbated security problems for the web as a whole. If other computers on your LAN have to run an old version of IE because of its quirks, that puts your machine at risk too even if it doesn't run IE.

Re:The name is not the problem

[PraiseBob]

Every browser uses javascript. Mozilla allows people to use plugins, some of which make it much easier to manage js. But bad javascript on a website, can only make that website suck. It's the ActiveX controls built into IE with the idea of breaking web compatibility and getting browser lock-in, along with Browser Helper Objects, which makes the whole browser suck. BHO's are responsible for those million toolbars.

Using IE makes you more vulnerable to malware, because of poor design. There is no fix. IE = Malware in the eyes of techies. No matter what version number they put out, with whatever security enhancements, they have to escape that branding.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Karmashock]

I understand, and there are very few pages I go to that actually need javascript at all. I know this because I passively disable javascript.

The only thing I need javascript for on this site for example is the comment system.

You need it for online banking and you need it for ecommerce... and that's about it.

And to a certain extent those are self fulfilling prophecies because they rely on those things because they exist. Could could have all those things without javascript. It would just require page refreshes.

regardless, a simple fix would be to deny javascript not from the domain you were using. That all by itself would disable about 99 percent of the javascript that you'll find on a page and would disable just about 0 percent of the code you need to use the site.

In any case, there were also a lot of things in javascript that should have been denied. The ability to create a pop up at all should have been denied. There's no legimitate reason for passively allowing any site to do that that is not massively outweighed by the drawbacks.

There are other things.

I'm quite technical thank you... I'm just not tolerant of lazy or sloppy system's design. I believe in absolute controls on absolute priorities. That requires brutal design choices when certain elements of the design cannot be compromised.

MS was sloppy and lazy and it cost them.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Javascript from a website having more priviledge than the logged in user is the real problem. I am quite careful browsing. I use no script, but occasionally have to enable to view a site. In one of these instances i received 3 pieces of malware with NO notice. When I click on something to install it UAC blacks out the screen and lets me know I am doing something "administrative". How is that Javascript has the same priviledge with no user interaction? That is what's wrong
with IE.

My solution: Kubuntu. Fuck windows and their 3 broken patches per month. That way when they do break something I can still do my job.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Karmashock]

IE was formative in the development of the internet and webpage standards. Their attitudes influenced the style of the web that was to come.

Really, install no script and then go for a few random sites and see all the bullshit javascript that pages try to load. Its fucking offensive.

As to IE being malware... activex is definitely a pile of shit. But so is javascript and ajax. The rules under which these scripts are executed needs to be passively restricted to the domain of the site you're currently using. At the very least.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Karmashock]

that merely compounded the issue. javascript all by itself is a problem.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Tom]

It is sort of unfair to nail MS too much for IE. The big problem was javascript and really javascript is still a big problem.

Nonsense. The big problem was the "not invented here" syndrome. I started writing HTML in about 1998 or so, maybe earlier, and IE has always been a PITA because it always had its quirks and wanted to be treated special. Everyone else was at least trying to implement the standard, MS attitude was basically to fuck it from both sides and approaching the Internet with a "you will write this stuff the way we want" attitude.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Karmashock]

That's an additional problem but that isn't why people hated IE.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Threni]

Microsoft's javascript support is just like the other's; slower before but not so much now.

Self fulfilling prophecies? Well, maybe, or maybe it's just an obvious requirement for modern sites. Your list of uses is hardly exhaustive; stack exchange sites use it to great effect; you can't be serious when you prefer hitting f5 to provoke an update rather than...doing nothing and having the site update by itself? Look at google maps today (on the desktop). The limits to the practicality of javascript is...well, there are no limits. It's a programming language; you can do whatever you want with it. Emulate operating systems, games....

http://js1k.com/

There's nothing sloppy about the use of javascript. I think you're a bit of an edge case; perhaps you're better off not using the internet; it really is as fundamental as that.

Re:The name is not the problem

[Karmashock]

as to F5 to refresh a page... I can think of few situations where that wouldn't be my preference. And those situations would be the exception. Which means the passive rule should be that that is how it works while the few sites that do need it get the service enabled.

There are very few sites where I'd actually want it. A site with some sort of database that I wanted to actively manipulate. In any other situation I'm struggling to see the point.

Isn't it obvious?

[ArcadeMan]

It's going to be called "The browser formerly known as Internet Explorer".

What about Inori Aizawa?

[madro]

Kill off IE if you must; but keep IE-tan around, and give her a new hair tie ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Hmmm...

[MitchDev]

Microsoft Shite 2.0?

Tried it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many of the snarky commentators (pretty much all of you) have actually tried a build of Spartan (I know I haven't). I get it, it's fun to pretend to have superior skills and rain insults on Microsoft, but let's be honest, your skillzz don't live up to your trash-talk, now do they?

Re: Tried it?

[corychristison]

I'll give it a shot.

root [~]# yum install spartan-browser
Setting up Install Process
No package spartan-browser available.
Error: Nothing to do

Well there ya go.

Re:Tried it?

[DocSavage64109]

Why should we try some browser called Spartan when Chrome and Firefox have actual features and run fine?

Re:Tried it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox?
run fine?
what the hell are you smoking?

You cannot change the name! This is madness!!

[RevWaldo]

THIS. IS. SPARTAN!!

// (prerequisite additional lowercase text to avoid the yelling error.)

.

Re:You cannot change the name! This is madness!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. I didn't realise how much I subconsciously filter out comment lines (when I understand the non comment). I actually only saw the comment line when reading the post below.

Name: Microsoft Style

[hoggoth]

I predict just before release they will name it "Microsoft Browser", keeping with their habit of trying to co-opt the generic term for a technology but only ending up making it impossible to do keyword searches for their software.

You heard it here first.

Re:Name: Microsoft Style

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, just like GNOME's super-helpful names like Web, Chat, Mail, and Files.

Re:Name: Microsoft Style

[Anonymous Coward]

true of every enterprise software company.

You anti-MS haters are retards.

Re:Name: Microsoft Style

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Exactly fucking like that. How would we get along without you, AC?

Re:Name: Microsoft Style

[Anonymous Coward]

Going along with previous rebranding by MS, I think it will be

Internet Experimenter

Re:Name: Microsoft Style

[Anonymous Coward]

Word

Re:Name: Microsoft Style

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the Motorola Droid android phones?

Re:Name: Microsoft Style

[david_thornley]

Reminds me of the old IBM days, and their naming. A Programming Language. Programming Language/One. Personal Computer. Job Control Language. Disk Operating System. Operating System. Basic Assembly Language. Of course, people didn't google for documentation back then.

FTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

"IE will live on, but only as plumbing for Windows"

And that is why they will never be used again...

Spartans!

[Anonymous Coward]

Spartan, eh? Go Green!, Go White! :-)

See it in action! !

[Billly Gates]

here

Wrong brand

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should kill off the MicroSoft brand. Too many bad memories, the antithesis of quality.

hum

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people bash IE? Name one browser that's reliable, stable, and free of issues?

With FF and Chrome I've had memory leaks, html5 and flash going blank, slow web surfing, freezes, crashes, web page going bonkers like i just had with slashdot(used chrome) few minutes ago. Yeah, for some reason chrome just does not like slashdot and I have always had problems with this website but no issues when using FF or IE visiting the site.

IE displays web pages faster than chrome the majority of the time but choppy when it comes to html5 and flash video. And once in a while it freezes for 5 - 20 seconds when viewing a few web pages but this started happening after I updated my machine about a month ago.

So, which browser is better than IE?

The new name is obvious....

[bobbied]

Microsoft Bing Application.... OR MBA for short.

How do I know? The whole thing has MBA all over it. It will be designed by a group of MBA's, marketed by a different group of MBA's and coded by 10 software engineers who are managed by 100 MBA's...

Re:The new name is obvious....

[Anonymous Coward]

MBApp

Re:The new name is obvious....

[blindseer]

Reminds me of a rather curious coincidence. MCDA stands for Microsoft Certified Database Administrator, but it also stands for Misdemeanor Charge of Domestic Assault.

Perhaps not so coincidental.

Take a page from GNU

[s1d3track3D]

MSNIE - Microsoft's Not Internet Explorer Browser

Re:Take a page from GNU

[Anonymous Coward]

Fail....

Re:Take a page from GNU

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather MINIE: "MINIE Is Not Internet Explorer".

TFA

[s1d3track3D]

While reading the article I misread "Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela" as "Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Crapolla", opps my bad...

WILDCAT IS ON TEH SPOKE

[Thud457]

OMFG have you seen the new Microsoft web browser demo it's like slow and it's telling you all the stuff you did in the first one then the music kicks in and and clippy comes out and gets a gun the earf is on fire and clippy is like fuck this im jumping and HE JUMPS PUT OF TEH INTERWEB with angels singing and he lands on the bad guys and that annoying ai lady is like GO GET EM TIGER! WILDCAT IS ON TEH SPOKE!!!~`1 and theres less polys but rawkin bumb mappings you can view this on a special MICROSOFT xbox disk that comes with EB games store.

Re:WILDCAT IS ON TEH SPOKE

[KamikazeSquid]

Proportional typefaces were invented for a reason, you insensitive clod.

Whatev's.

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft really wanted to change names to distance future products from the negative connotations connected with their old ones, it would have to rename itself, Microsoft, to something else, and Windows.

Just renaming Internet Exploiter to something else would be like the KKK changing their name to the SSS. Still the same crap, just with a shiny new name because they think you're stupid enough to ignore that it's the same company with the same goals pushing the same crappy product.

History of IE result of trolls

[Ravaldy]

Here is what I think the IE history is:
IE all the way to version 6 (inclusive) sucked because they didn't integrate W3 standards property but in their defense neither did any of the other browsers at the time. All browsers had problems rendering content because they all didn't integrate the standard properly either because it was loose or because they didn't fully understand it. This wasn't a problem except IE was integrated into the OS significantly slowing down it's dev cycle (don't ask me why their dev cycles for IE sucked so much since I don't know).

Regardless, the competition (Firefox) did really good at getting it right and became a standard amongst web content developer (prior to Chrome). This means anytime a page didn't render properly in IE it was automatically IE's fault. IE's rendering became much better as of version 7 but I really think the version that made it more than acceptable is version 8. Problem is that content developers got so used to complaining about IE that it was always IEs fault whenever content didn't render properly regardless of their poor coding skills. In my experience most cases I encountered were developer mistakes that were being covered by either Chrome or Firefox's engine since they had a different default interpretation of the miss information in the html/css code.

I have been developing web applications that use HTML, CSS, Javacript, JSON and Ajax for over 7 years now. IE6 was garbage and caused me trouble but IE7 and on didn't cause me any trouble.

So my point is that IE will always have a stain because of past and changing it's name may erase those stains because we expect it to be a new beginning.

Re:History of IE result of trolls

[Billly Gates]

I can tell you many who called IE 10 with bugs too compared to other browsers with IE 11 being the first one which was ok. Some bugs were fixed only to come back in the next version.

IE 7 had more work arounds too even if fixed some of IE 6 you needed more hacks for that version too. JavaScript was something too. IE 7 was truly HORRIBLE. IE 6 was great in 2001. No browser including -webkit conqueror could pass the acid test. Netscape couldnt' either.

IE 7 and 8, 9, and even 10 just played catch up. IE 11 still does not have everything but at least unlike webkit implements more things like W3C properly.

Re:History of IE result of trolls

[Ravaldy]

See, that's the real problem with IE. The past is still in the present where as with Firefox and Chrome the past goes away once a version comes out. IE will always be plagued with this disadvantage which I consider to be MS's fault. Will Spartan be separate from the OS? Maybe, but at what cost?

Re:History of IE result of trolls

[david_thornley]

Backward compatibility is an MS strength as well as a weakness. There's a lot of value, particularly for businesses, in being able to move to a recent OS without updating apps (which may have been discontinued, had the owning company fold, had the source code lost, be internal and the team long broken up, etc.).

Re:History of IE result of trolls

[Ravaldy]

Yes, absolutely. Unfortunately most people don't see past that what they read or are told by an ill informed techy.

Re:Introducing Microsoft Definitely Not Internet E

[ColdWetDog]

The Browser Previously Known as Internet Explorer

My humble suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

call it Mfinity.

What is it?

[AndyKron]

What's "Internet Explorer"? Oh. Now I remember.

Zune?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Zune, or BOB, or Encarta? No? How about .net or NetBEUI? Surely they can pick from one of those. I know for my own use, I use the Chrome browser. The price is very good, its always up to date, it follows open W3C standards, and there is a reasonably good chance that the government isn't spying on me (at least via the browser, through the net is another story).

Spartan?

[nblender]

Isn't Spartan a kind of Apple?

Maybe they're merging...

This is madness!

[Ukab the Great]

THIS IS REDMOND!!!

negative

[Tom]

Microsoft wants to distance itself with the negative connotations Internet Explorer has acquired through the years. They still haven't decided on an official name for Project Spartan, but it will probably have the company name in it.

So, which one of these two conflicting goals do they actually wish to achieve?

The new MS

[danaris]

It is sort of unfair to nail MS too much for IE. The big problem was javascript and really javascript is still a big problem.

Nonsense. The big problem was the "not invented here" syndrome. I started writing HTML in about 1998 or so, maybe earlier, and IE has always been a PITA because it always had its quirks and wanted to be treated special. Everyone else was at least trying to implement the standard, MS attitude was basically to fuck it from both sides and approaching the Internet with a "you will write this stuff the way we want" attitude.

And from what I've seen of Microsoft since Nadella took over, I would be surprised (and disappointed) if they continued in that attitude with whatever they call the new browser—not just because they've been playing nicer with the civilized world, but because they seem to recognize that they have to if they don't want to just dry up and blow away over the next decade or so.

When they originally released IE, they could do that because as screwed-up and frustrating as it was for the rest of us, they were right with that attitude. Now? They're not the big dog on the browser block anymore. If they try to push random crap that neither Apple nor Google support (or refuse to support stuff that both Apple and Google are backing, that's actually in use), it's just not going to fly.

Dan Aris

Microsoft killing off Internet Explorer

[Anonymous Coward]

Project Spartan, huh?

Let me guess...As in:

You WILL use our browser because:

THIS...IS...MICROSOFT!!!

But..

[Anonymous Coward]

But how will I download chrome?

Re:But..

[Anonymous Coward]

apt-get install google-chrome-stable

Project Satan?

[skaralic]

Was I the only one that read Project Satan on first glance?

I was going to say RIP

[benlwilson]

..but DIAF is more appropriate.

IE Slowness of Development and Why People Hate It

[HannethCom]

Some problems in IE were from implementing things before the standard was complete. Other browsers did this as well, but the other browsers would usually change their browser to match the standard when it was complete. Microsoft would not change to the standard to keep backwards compatibility with pages made specifically for their non-standard implementation.

Now I can't blame them for trying to get ahead of the curve, but not fixing things I do blame them for. The really annoying part was Microsoft purposely implemented some parts of the standard incorrectly, so that things wouldn't render correctly in other browsers. The guy who implemented the original IE box model admitted that they purposely did not follow the other browser implementations to break compatibility, but they could claim ignorance since the standard wasn't 100% specific on how it should be done. They also implemented some standards in a non-standard way as they did not agree with how it was standardized. These were kept in place for a long time for backwards compatibility as well.

As for the slow pace of development of IE, they won the browser wars with IE6, so they disbanded the IE team for 4 years. IE7 came out 5 years after IE6, which means that they only spent 1 year working on IE7. Well, kind of. Most of the team ended up working on WPF for Windows Vista and the Trident Engine really became part of the OS. Yes, the Trident Engine was a core component included with Windows before that and integrated in the Explorer, but Windows Vista it became truly part of the graphics subsystem. Thus why IE7 on Windows Vista and Windows XP don't render exactly the same, IE7 on Vista and later have some improvements that Windows XP didn't get because they were part of the graphics subsystem redesign.

Not Apple, 300

[HannethCom]

Microsoft is just trying to make themselves sound cool. After all, the 300 reference is still cool right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Give the Src Code to Apache.org

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol.. but what a fabulous opportunity

Throw the entire Opensource community into a tailspin by announcing Microsoft "Gifts" IE6 source code to the Public Domain...

The legions of anguished out cries would go down in history! .. Remember Me.. For Centuries... MWA HA HA !!!!

Another Chapter for the 'Book of the Dead'

[Anonymous Coward]

Old Zombies never die.. they just "Freshen" up a bit

Lipstick

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting lipstick on a pig is still a pig.

Halo effect?

[GreatDrok]

Microsoft heard about this halo effect around the iPod and now iPhone bringing people to the Mac and totally misunderstood what it meant. Hence, Cortana and Spartan.

I don't care what they name it but it will definitely have Microsoft..... in the name and as others have said, they'll likely stick with the Spartan branding and maybe even pile on the 'Halo' theme even more. Pity Halo itself is a smoking shell these days. Halo 4 was just sad.

Spartacus

[nicoleb_x]

The Spartans are too polarizing, so with a simple play on words they can use the more PC Spartacus. IE made you a slave to Windows but Spartacus frees you, or some such BS.

No chance

[HalAtWork]

But it wouldn't be a Microsoft product/service if they weren't able to change the name every two years

Bwahahahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever. M$ needs to kill off Windows and actually "create" an OS with security in mind. Stop this bolt on bs in the name of oversubscribing its customers to a clunky OS with pretty new UI layers.

Will it be LIVE though?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's massive bureaucracy is always on display whenever they name anything.

"It has to contain the word Windows"

"And it has to contain the word LIVE because Bill had a man crush on Bono, and now that's how we describe the Internet"

"Oh and it has to have a cool new word like 'Zune' or 'Metro' somewhere in it"

"And since the only brand we have that the public cares about is Halo, let's throw in a Cortana... Or.. no how about a 'Spartan' reference." (You didn't think that was an ancient history reference, did you? My prediction is they go with 'Spark' to be even more subtle).

"How about Windows Metro Spartan Live."

Re:IE Slowness of Development and Why People Hate

[Shados]

Some problems in IE were from implementing things before the standard was complete. Other browsers did this as well, but the other browsers would usually change their browser to match the standard when it was complete. Microsoft would not change to the standard to keep backwards compatibility with pages made specifically for their non-standard implementation.

More recently it got to the point where whatever Firefox, and then later Chrome did WAS the standard, like IE once did.

That being, if Firefox broke the standard, the standard changed to match Firefox. Or if IE matched the standard but other browsers didn't, IE took flack for "implementing a stupid part of the standard".

Its just silly now. All hails the W3...Webkit/Blink.

"They Were Only Using IE Because We Forced Them"

[Anonymous Coward]

descriptive titles are the best.

I like Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Trek.

That's my guess.

Why bother making a new one?

[Thraxy]

I'm sure there's some developer out there that has created a browser 5-10 years ago that Microsoft can buy up and slap their name on. Who cares if it works? We're all using Firefox or Chrome anyway.

"Microsoft Sucker"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft Sucker" is the perfect name for the main utility operating in downloading direction.

Re:IE Slowness of Development and Why People Hate

[Ravaldy]

Microsoft would not change to the standard to keep backwards compatibility with pages made specifically for their non-standard implementation

I agree and clearly remember this. But who's fault is this really? The customer and Microsoft's in my opinion. Microsoft should have taken a stronger position and forced changes on the customers. Unfortunately they tried to keep the customers happy which resulted in the exact opposite. The fact is, developers would have complained regardless. MS was never good at telling the customer what is right for them. Google and Apple took very different approaches in that regard.

The really annoying part was Microsoft purposely implemented some parts of the standard incorrectly, so that things wouldn't render correctly in other browsers.

Look. I'm more than willing to believe it but I'll need to see evidence of this. The rumor mill ran strong amongst web developers back then.

They also implemented some standards in a non-standard way as they did not agree with how it was standardized

MS is a big player in the software market and maybe they were right, maybe they were wrong. In this case they ended up wrong because they failed to make the standard change by flexing their power. Look at Google. How many times did they flex their power for change?

Thus why IE7 on Windows Vista and Windows XP don't render exactly the same

The fully patched version of IE7 rendered the same on both platforms.

A turd by any other name

[Anonymous Coward]

The marketing graphic is masking the fact that....

Microsoft "A"

Is clearly "Microsoft Asshat".

Windows to be Renamed Halo OS no doubt

[afaiktoit]

spartan, cortana, pew pew pew.

For the Users!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean when I tell my users to open "Explorer" or even "File Explorer" they'll stop reaching for that big blue 'e'?

New and improved negative connotations!

[Agripa]

Oh, good. Now we can have new and improved negative connotations.

Same monkeys, new tree

[Anonymous Coward]

Also known as rearranging the deck chairs

Late to the party

[bitterblackale]

Caesar was already dead when the last dagger was thrust in.

I vote for

[Anonymous Coward]

Minternet Netxplorer

We won!

[CauseBy]

Seriously I've been waiting for this headline since Bill Clinton was President.

THIS IS SHPARTAH!

[JohnTurner]

Careful, it kicks you down a bottomless pit if you type something in it doesn't like.

Internet Explorer

[Anonymous Coward]

Well just give it to the nerds of the world to fix. Shirt happens.

Project Spartan

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw Project Trojan..... Project Chain Link seems fiitting as well

Project Spartan

[disgruntled.vet]

I saw Project Trojan..... Project Chain Link seems fiitting as well

Spartan?

[Bralgar]

You mean Master Chief? Halo browser I bet. They already use Cortana as their voice assistant.......