New IE7 Information Announced 620
Brandon writes "Looks like the IE team is trying to catch up to some of the major OS browsers. They have finally added proper PNG support and have fixed numerous CSS bugs. The full post is on The Official IEBlog." From the post: "We're doing a lot more than this in IE7, of course, and we're really excited that the beta release is almost here - we're looking forward to the feedback when we release the first beta of IE7 this summer. Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to beta."
The ones that I hope get fixed (Score:5, Interesting)
My pet peeves with IE that make my life harder when I write web pages:
Sounds like they are fixing the .pngs for sure. I hope the two css tweaks that I want make it in.
Wow Alpha Transparency (Score:3, Interesting)
middle-click for tabbed browsing (Score:5, Interesting)
Too little...too late (Score:3, Interesting)
No... Microsoft burned quite a few bridges with alot of people and unless they can turn that PR machine around 180 degrees, people will continue to see them as bullies who are looking out for nobody but themselves.
Even if IE7 turns out to be the best product ever created by mortal man, people will immediately assume it sux (minus MS zealots of course).
They need to reinvent themselves in the eyes of the consumer, the business and world.
shall (Score:4, Interesting)
IE7 would be perfect if... (Score:5, Interesting)
At any rate, Microsoft should put their resources into making one killer browser. Make it as lightweight as Netscape 2.0 was, yet support the latest CSS kung-fu. Implement all of the latest widgets and hoohaws as plugins so I can remove ActiveX support if I want. And above all, make it cross platform. Use a library like FLTK so it can be used just about anywhere.
Doesn't Microsoft realize they could easily make the end-all browser that'll end up running on almost every palmtop, cell phone, set-top-box, automobile, and personal computer?
Thank God! (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember winsock? (Score:5, Interesting)
No... Microsoft burned quite a few bridges with alot of people and unless they can turn that PR machine around 180 degrees, people will continue to see them as bullies who are looking out for nobody but themselves.
They got caught with their pants down in 1993-4 with the internet and TCPIP revolution, too. "It's good enough" certainly does sound framiliar. This was a multibillion dollar company that somehow MISSED THE WHOLE INTERNET THING. They pulled that one off and came out of it smelling like roses.
They got caught with their pants down AGAIN in 1997 with the widespread acceptance of Java and the beginnings of true cross-platform computing. They pulled turning that event into a stillbirth and came out of it smelling like roses.
So, here we are in 2005, and they've been caught again with a stagnant product in IE. Not just caught, but being actively made to look stupid by comparison by the third party browsers, and on top of all this, they have OSX and Apple breathing down their necks. I think the wake-up call has been heard.
I'm not a betting man, but I know where I'd be putting my dollars.
IE will always be behind (Score:3, Interesting)
Gecko's needs fixing too, you know (Score:2, Interesting)
Gecko polls servers for changed content when moving through history. As far as I know, Opera is the only major browser that gets that part of HTTP/1.1 right.
http/1.1 specification [w3.org]Re:Suggest they un-integrate IE (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:nuts to -moz-border-radius (Score:4, Interesting)
If they were actually going to support the proposed standard, surely anything other than naming it in the standard way is embrace-and-extend (or, in this case, embrace-and-rename)!
Re:Too little...too late (Score:2, Interesting)
Too damn right. I'm glad I don't use Windows, where the integrated web browser literally causes giant demonic phalluses to erupt from chairs and take people up the ass while they work. Nope, I use KDE, in which the web browser is... uh... integrated, and... is also the file manager... and the help system... and... uh...
Re:They want feedback? I'll give em FEEDBACK (Score:3, Interesting)
Putting an ad-blocker (pop-ups are fair game) on something as popular as IE would cause very serious disruptions to many, many websites (ie their revenue stream gets completely cut). Not to mention the inevitable lawsuit if doubleclick.net was in by default.
Well, that's sorta the whole point though. MS is working under the pretense of being a service to their customers, not a service to industry honchos. If that's what they really want, then fine lets force them to be honest about it.
I think the request for it being GPL'd is wishful thinking too. Maybe you need to calm down
I know they will never do that too. But once again, there the ones freaking out about how the proprietary coercive model gives more value to the customers than the open free one. Well, I call bullshit, show me how making IE closed adds more value to the customers ... especially for linux users, mac users, and others. I'd really just love to hear it.
Re:Suggest they un-integrate IE (Score:3, Interesting)
The guts of the browser should never be touched by the operating system just like the system files. User preferences are stored in the user folder.
Of course, IE just like the rest of windows is vulnerable to various permission-related bugs in which the core guts CAN get screwed up by an errant program -- of course, this is true of any part of the operating system. I for one actually LIKE the concept of the HTML rendering engine being a core part of the operating system.
Who gives a damn about IE anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
Their only hope is to keep making deliberately flawed products - and keep their consumers hooked. The consumer knows their products are bad, but nobody else (at least, nobody with a sense of self-worth and pride) is willing to produce a broken product.
For example, if IE 7 and Firefox supported the exact same standards, people would use Firefox because it does the things that Microsoft dare not do - free source code, cross platform (they're still stuck on IE 5 for the Mac), platform neutral plugin support and far faster turnaround for bugfixes since the community has so many eyes on the code. Small wins for Firefox, but they are wins nevertheless.
The only good version of IE was version 3. It was going up against the well-established Netscape. They manged by making it leaner, faster and better. They had no legacy customers hooked on their product - and had to prove that they were worthy. Today they are lazy and their main goal is to maintain their supremacy and suppress the peons - not to wow them back into the fold.
The worst example of this would be, as far as I'm concerned: ActiveX. The tech might have sounded cool on paper - but in practice it was a disaster. It introduced a new type of executable to uninformed and uneducated users who were simply unable to comprehend how dangerous it was, and a raft of thieves and liars who were trying to take advantage of it. As far as security goes: Worst. Feature. Ever.
Putting ActiveX in a browser capable of accessing the internet is like storing apples in a bucket of medical waste: you'll be infected with something nasty and be completely fucked within a very short space of time. But Microsoft didn't care, so long as they had more corporate buzzwords to achieve platform lock-in with clueless customers.
And this corporate character oozes out their products. If Microsoft was a person, he would be a compusive liar, thief, bully and control freak. He would be unable to hold a conversation without trying to take something, and would be instantly hatable.
I use Microsoft Windows XP because I am forced to and am held hostage by the platform - but I am a bitter, angry hostage with brutal vengeance on my mind. Unless Microsoft makes a radical change to it's corporate attitudes, I will never willingly use IE again.
IE domination beneficial? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Repainting the Deckchairs on the Security Titan (Score:4, Interesting)
What did you switch to? Mozilla?
I don't think that Mozilla is exactly a model for security. At my company, we've had to deploy three complete updates since the release of Firefox 1.0.
It's clearly not "perfect".
Of course, IE is far from a model citizen, but IE6-SP2 is much better, and *security* is the focus of IE7 according to the developers.
I think that Microsoft can build a competitive browser. They just need an incentive to do so.
Now they have that incentive. Firefox has given it to them.
I, for one, welcome the new browser wars.
Re:Acid2 (Score:5, Interesting)
Amen (Score:1, Interesting)
Truer words have never been spoken in regards to IE. Version 2 was a pathetic joke, lacking anything useful. In comparison, Netscape 2.0 introduced the world with frames, Java, and Javascript. IE 3 was the only browser ever made by M$ that even attempted to have anything useful. After the Active Desktop chaos introduced in IE 4 (which rendered other browsers inoperative once installed and rendered Win 95 and NT unusable once IE 4 was uninstalled) I never looked back at IE. I thought for sure they shot themselves in the foot when that happened, but bundling it in Windows 98 only made consumers ignorant of the existence of competition.
Satan works the same way, thriving on ignorance.
Re:Remember winsock? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure if it's quite correct to say they missed the Internet... it's more like they underestimated it and made a bad decision about dealing with it. Instead of embracing the open-ness of the Internet, Microsoft decided to try and undermine and compete with the Internet by effectively creating its own, Microsoft controlled Internet.
Remember The Microsoft Network? At the time, Microsoft managed to make some exclusive deals with certain entities (the official Star Trek franchise was the one that comes to mind), so that they would only provide online content on the Microsoft Network and nowhere else, forcing people to pay money to Microsoft if they wanted access.
Re:Too little...too late (Score:2, Interesting)
And I think you might be underestimating them. I visit a couple of game bbses whose users include a lot of fairly computer-clueless twelve year olds (clueless as in "RAM? I have more than enough RAM to play this game. 80 GB, to be exact"). And yet when you ask them, the majority of these kids are already using Firefox. They've picked up from their friends at school or from more knowledgeable users on various bbses that IE is the reason their computer keeps getting infected with spyware and slowing to a crawl, and that Firefox will let them spend more time using their computer and less running cleanup utilities. And they're wonderfully matter of fact when they talk about it -- of course they use Firefox. They're not idiots, are they?
I realize that these kids aren't representative of all computer users (if nothing else, it's a lot easier to reeducate kids than their parents...), but I think there is a reasonably widespread growing distrust of IE. I do agree, though, that if the new version of IE is more secure there will be far fewer immediately recognizable benefits of switching to Firefox, so next year's twelve year olds will likely just use the browser pre-installed on their new computer.
Another reason? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Microsoft is worried about the way Firefox is being extended and turning into a true thin client. Just look at what Google has done with maps, GMail, etc. With AJAX (or whatever they are calling it), FireFox becomes a serious long-term threat to Microsoft. And the folks there aren't stupid. As Bill Gates said in The Simpsons, "Homer, I didn't get to be the richest man in the world writing checks" (or words to that effect). Microsoft has a bunch of nerds on the payroll too, toiling away. They see the looming threat and are responding now instead of waiting (like IBM did when it failed to recognize a similar looming threat from Redmond ;-) ).
I would like to hear points/counterpoints, if any.
Scrolling TBODY (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess there are two things in the whole world I want. The second is for IE to show me a big nasty error instead of my web page if it is not compliant with the DTD. If browsers worked that way the whole web would be in better shape.
what I'm worried about is... (Score:3, Interesting)
This would make it impossible to support IE6, IE7 and other standards-compliant browsers while still allowing them to (rightly) claim that they're compliant. Would they do this ? Hopefully not.
Good Grief, M$ was born to Suck. (Score:2, Interesting)
A vaporware announcement is not an improved product. It's not beta and what's announced is not as good as freely available alternatives. If if were a fifth, I'd be drunk all the time.
During the browser wars I used Explorer instead of Netscape because I really did like it better. Certainly they have the hackers and the resources to make the best browser if they want to.
Some people sleep on nails, go figure. They have the money for a mattress but prefer the pain of broken CSS, PNG, no tabs, with all the ease of 0wnership Winblows brings.
With stuff like Mepis [mepis.org] which installs on any hardware in twenty minutes, is there any reason to run Winblows?
If Microsoft really does release a product better than Firefox, it will be sad to see the underdog lose, but really the consumers will win.
Microsoft has never released anything better than anyone else and that's not about to be changed by another silly promise. Their stated business plan is to buy into, "mature" to avoid development costs and being a "loss leader." Do you really think M$ will deliver next year what you can enjoy right now in free software? The developers left long ago so there are no more "loss leaders" for M$ to fuck over. They may have hired a few extra people last year to try and make up for it, but that's like pissing into the free software tsunami. If Sun and AOL were to pull the plug on OO and Mozilla, Microsoft would still be wiped out by the thousands of developers working on KDE, Gnome and dozens of other alternatives.
Re:middle-click for tabbed browsing (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They want feedback? I'll give em FEEDBACK (Score:3, Interesting)
When has that ever stopped them? (Score:2, Interesting)
Good lord, when has *that* ever stopped them from embracing and extending - heck, they're doing it RIGHT NOW when it comes to implementing protocols on .NET.
Now, don't get me wrong, some cases, the standards are *VERY* thin on detail and could lack features that could be deemed important - hypothetically, a wireless protocol that doesn't have a secure enough encryption algorith as one example of this.
With that being said, the lack of improvements, and a sudden surge of interest in developing IE further has NOTHING to do with all altruistic stance by Microsoft, but more of a reply to the threat from Firefox.
Firefox by itself isn't a threat, but when you take into account Microsofts long term view of their long term view of .NET, XAML, their application server technology, remotely hosted applications, delivered to the webbrowser, using IE specific technologies (as apposed to the current thin client/dumb terminal model) - you can see how Firefox could turn out to be a royal pain in the ass if they don't box it in, and reserve it to the alternative platforms.
Re:min-width and hacks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Suggest they un-integrate IE (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:So long, Firefox -- NOT!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course IE7 has potential to disrupt Firefox's share. However I doubt it will affect share much at all.
In order for Microsoft to steal share from FireFox it needs to improve and innovate to a point that surpasses Firefox. Right now, I believe that IE7 is playing catch-up to FireFox and Microsoft will not introduce anything innovative enough to bring share back to IE7. Microsoft will only be able to slow the tide of people leaving IE.
Remember, people are using FireFox fo the following reasons:
In the first two cases, IE will not win back any share. The feature crowd will only return if Microsoft truly innovates(doubtful in my mind.) The last group of people will only return to IE if they can trust Microsoft to fix all of the problems. Considering Microsoft's record since they made "security their number one priority" over a year ago (or has it been 2?) I also doubt this happening.
And remember, the reason IE has the most share is because it was on the computer when the user got it. People resist change. That same fact will keep some user from changing from Firefox back to IE. So, no, Firefox will probably not lose much share unless development stops on it over the next 4 years. (Ooops, who did that before?...)
Maybe Microsoft is starting to feel the heat (Score:4, Interesting)
Symptom
When you are using the SAP GUI for HTML in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, the "progress bar", which describes the load progress for the page, may in some cases continue to display activities although the page is fully loaded, and it never confirms that a page has been completely loaded.
Other terms
Microsoft Internet Explorer; IE; HTMLGUI; load; webgui; login page; status bar; status bar; loading progress; blue horizontal bar;
Reason and Prerequisites
This is caused by a visual error in the Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Solution
SAP has consulted closely with Microsoft, to eliminate this error. Unfortunately, Microsoft is not prepared to implement a correction and suggests workarounds that can be implemented in SAP software (SAP ITS). All workarounds proposed by Microsoft are not acceptable due to the considerable quality-related risks posed for all SAP customers using the ITS. There is therefore no solution for this error, other than changing Browsers (the problem described above does not occur with Mozilla / Firefox).
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:min-width and hacks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:nuts to -moz-border-radius (Score:2, Interesting)
The main difference is that Mozilla corners are circular (one radius), while W3C corners may be elliptical (an x and y radius).
I'm working on correcting that difference. My JavaScript rendition of a solution can be seen here: http://verens.com/demos/borders/borders.html
Kae
What difference? (Score:2, Interesting)
Somehow I can't believe that the 80something percent (yeah, sure, depending on the site we're talking about) are going to miraculously switch to IE7 so that all our problems as webdesigners suddenly go away.
IE7 may be a good product, it may really be a very good product (and with all the competition that MS is facing right now I'd be really surprised if they didn't produce something fairly good) but it won't make up for all the crap MS has thrown at us with the last versions of their browser.
charon
Re:Remember winsock? (Score:3, Interesting)
Name one million+ hit site a day (other than Javasoft) that uses applets. For server stuff, the JVM ran just fine on windows from day 1.
Microsoft has never been a leader, but they pave the trail others blaze. The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.