Wrong. It doesn't work in IE6, try pasting an address from the Wikipedia article in it's address bar and see. Then try the same with Firefox, and see that it translates the address to some ascii garble starting with xn--.
The problem with being the #1 browser in the world is that if they did decide to fix everything all at once, then they break a LOT of websites.
The funny thing is, they're still breaking pages just by updating smaller parts their of CSS implementation, but only those pages that are in the standards compliant mode (CSS1Compat). It's effectively impossible for them to change the rendering engine without breaking a lot of things for a lot of people, because many pages use user-agent sniffing and not CSS hacks (those don't apply to IE7 outside of quirks mode), or use conditional comments that include IE7 to feed different versions of CSS. This means that even if they achieved CSS support parity with the modern browsers, and fixed all the CSS hacks (as they already did), IE7 would still sometimes get the old CSS meant for earlier versions, and break pages.
This is what they get for taking so many years with fixing CSS in IE! Not that they've improved it much if you look at this chart. The IE 6 and 7 columns look practically the same. So, IE7 is still not a modern browser in this regard. And this is why IE7 just means another bug-ridden rendering engine to support if you develop in standards compatible mode, until IE6 is dead. And looking at how even fifth generation IEs are still around in significant numbers, I wouldn't hold my breath on IE6 going away in the next few years, Windows Update or not.
This made me think. Having basic firewalls on network interface controllers would be so great. We could say goodbye to remote exploits and botnets forever. Too bad they'd probably be way too expensive compared to normal cards.
Does anyone know if it's possible to get rid of the little drop-down thingy that lists all the tabs?
It's called the All Tabs Button. I don't see the pref to toggle it in about:config, but you could add.tabs-alltabs-button { display: none; } to userChrome.css. You can customize most of the browser chrome this way. To find out which elements are called what, open DOMi (Ctrl+Shift+I), load chrome://browser/content/ from the Address Bar and then use the Find Node button to look for the class-names or ids.
It's probably based on some web statistics. Firefox also periodically checks for updates, and and if Mozilla Update keeps logs, they could possibly figure out the relative usage from them. But I very much doubt that's the case.
They are still called extensions, Add-ons is the name of the new manager for both extensions and themes. I think it comes from the Firefox Add-ons site.
I am a bit disappointed about how tabs work now too, but the changes are probably for the best. Scrolling the tab strip with my mouse-wheel was I nice discovery. Too bad it's still not easier for non-developers to customize the interface. Opera lets you change the preferences through a user-friendly dialog, but in Firefox you're required to manually type in about:config, then "browser.tabs" and then not be confused with various programming terms.
For myself, I changed browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to something small so it behaves like before 2.0 and browser.tabs.tabCloseButtons to 0 (only ever displays a close button on the active tab). I'm also thinking of adding some CSS to my userChrome.css to have tabs with system appearance again.
Parent is right on the spot. I also suggest people read Ian Hickson's (he made the test) remarks about Acid2.
The Acid2 test isn't a true test, it's more of a demo, aimed at the public. As a true test it is terrible: it mixes a bazillion things all at once. Debugging that kind of test is a nightmare. Opera engineers, for example, aren't working on fixing the Acid2 bugs directly: instead, I spent an hour or two minimizing the Acid2 test into eleven separate real test cases, which show the real bugs our latest code has with Acid2. These are the test cases that Opera engineers then work on.
So, Acid2 does demonstrate how well the browser performs against the W3C specifications, but it does not measure how well will it perform in the real world (meaning actual existing web sites). Safari was the first to pass Acid2, but it doesn't mean that more sites will render correctly in it. If you wonder why, it's the consequence of IE6: taking approx. 80% of the browser share and so its CSS support being the highest threshold you can go before getting into the avant-guard, and the bleeding edge is not the position a pragmatic web developer would want to find himself in, because it's economically not viable to spend more time on a greater minority.
X11 has inferior font rendering and quality to Windows hands down. XP had ClearType and many well designed typefaces when it came out 5 years ago, and Vista introduces more good fonts. It's the rare thing that Microsoft got right (the other being marketing). ClearType is even arguably better than Apple's technology, though OS X overall font support is excellent.
I can't understand IT professionals overlooking the practical importance of typography. We all spend hours reading text on computer screens, so it's not just about font literate designer types that suffer seeing subjectively ugly things, it's about everyone that uses a screen.
This is why I would prefer someone writing a book on how to search for and find meaningful information in the web, and, as a bonus, how not to act like an all-round idiot when asking for support. It would amount to a whole lot more than rewriting documentation actually available online to book format. I say this because it's harder to look up information in a paper book and what you learn reading normally will most likely be lost in the short term memory anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, WTF is a TLA.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-840477738 8320594019
Here is an interview with Gatto.
What's this? I've been able to use the Norwegian characters in domain names for a long time. There are screetshots over at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_dom ain_name
Wrong. It doesn't work in IE6, try pasting an address from the Wikipedia article in it's address bar and see. Then try the same with Firefox, and see that it translates the address to some ascii garble starting with xn--.
It's even better, most of Firefox's UI and extensions run on XUL and JavaScript, so with a better script engine Firefox itself will be faster too.
As if anyone with a windows box has a choice in the matter.
You can easily disable Automatic Updates, or set it to only download them and then notify you to choose what to install.
Except with IP you copy the bread, not take it away from the shop.
The problem with being the #1 browser in the world is that if they did decide to fix everything all at once, then they break a LOT of websites.
The funny thing is, they're still breaking pages just by updating smaller parts their of CSS implementation, but only those pages that are in the standards compliant mode (CSS1Compat). It's effectively impossible for them to change the rendering engine without breaking a lot of things for a lot of people, because many pages use user-agent sniffing and not CSS hacks (those don't apply to IE7 outside of quirks mode), or use conditional comments that include IE7 to feed different versions of CSS. This means that even if they achieved CSS support parity with the modern browsers, and fixed all the CSS hacks (as they already did), IE7 would still sometimes get the old CSS meant for earlier versions, and break pages.
This is what they get for taking so many years with fixing CSS in IE! Not that they've improved it much if you look at this chart. The IE 6 and 7 columns look practically the same. So, IE7 is still not a modern browser in this regard. And this is why IE7 just means another bug-ridden rendering engine to support if you develop in standards compatible mode, until IE6 is dead. And looking at how even fifth generation IEs are still around in significant numbers, I wouldn't hold my breath on IE6 going away in the next few years, Windows Update or not.
IE5/Mac is unsupported by MS, no longer available for download, and its rendering engine is very different from and more buggy than in IE on Windows.
This made me think. Having basic firewalls on network interface controllers would be so great. We could say goodbye to remote exploits and botnets forever. Too bad they'd probably be way too expensive compared to normal cards.
What are you so excited about? It's only 0.002 jigawatts.
It's probably based on some web statistics. Firefox also periodically checks for updates, and and if Mozilla Update keeps logs, they could possibly figure out the relative usage from them. But I very much doubt that's the case.
They are still called extensions, Add-ons is the name of the new manager for both extensions and themes. I think it comes from the Firefox Add-ons site.
I am a bit disappointed about how tabs work now too, but the changes are probably for the best. Scrolling the tab strip with my mouse-wheel was I nice discovery. Too bad it's still not easier for non-developers to customize the interface. Opera lets you change the preferences through a user-friendly dialog, but in Firefox you're required to manually type in about:config, then "browser.tabs" and then not be confused with various programming terms.
For myself, I changed browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to something small so it behaves like before 2.0 and browser.tabs.tabCloseButtons to 0 (only ever displays a close button on the active tab). I'm also thinking of adding some CSS to my userChrome.css to have tabs with system appearance again.
So, Acid2 does demonstrate how well the browser performs against the W3C specifications, but it does not measure how well will it perform in the real world (meaning actual existing web sites). Safari was the first to pass Acid2, but it doesn't mean that more sites will render correctly in it. If you wonder why, it's the consequence of IE6: taking approx. 80% of the browser share and so its CSS support being the highest threshold you can go before getting into the avant-guard, and the bleeding edge is not the position a pragmatic web developer would want to find himself in, because it's economically not viable to spend more time on a greater minority.
X11 has inferior font rendering and quality to Windows hands down. XP had ClearType and many well designed typefaces when it came out 5 years ago, and Vista introduces more good fonts. It's the rare thing that Microsoft got right (the other being marketing). ClearType is even arguably better than Apple's technology, though OS X overall font support is excellent.
I can't understand IT professionals overlooking the practical importance of typography. We all spend hours reading text on computer screens, so it's not just about font literate designer types that suffer seeing subjectively ugly things, it's about everyone that uses a screen.
This is why I would prefer someone writing a book on how to search for and find meaningful information in the web, and, as a bonus, how not to act like an all-round idiot when asking for support. It would amount to a whole lot more than rewriting documentation actually available online to book format. I say this because it's harder to look up information in a paper book and what you learn reading normally will most likely be lost in the short term memory anyway.
They are "optimizing" it? That is so stupid.
http://img416.imageshack.us/img416/889/ebay9sb.png
Where is the fucking torrent?
It is Ajax, not AJAX.
You can own your 127.0.0.1 just fine.
What keeps you from fixing the problem yourself?
It's Firefox, you idiot.
But I need Photoshop.