IE7 Announced for Longhorn and WinXP 755
sriram_2001 writes "There is now an official announcement from Bill Gates on Internet Explorer 7. It will be available in beta form this summer for Longhorn and XP SP2. The IEBlog has commentary about the decision making process that went into the new browser version." Coming on the heels of the June Beta announcement for Longhorn, if things go as planned it will likely be here in early summer. The new browser's early arrival was first discussed last year.
I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they'll do it right this time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. It's been a long time since Microsoft blinked (Score:4, Insightful)
Catch up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I doubt that owners of websites/advertisers would appreciate such a move.
Re:Yippee (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate Microsoft too, but let's be fair. Firefox didn't invent tabbed browsing, Opera did. If IE has "stolen" tabs, then so has Firefox.
There's nothing wrong with adding features developed by the competition. That's one of the most important parts of competition.
So Bill buys himself a reprieve. (Score:3, Insightful)
They just better get it right this time.
Otherwise the pendulum swings over to the browser with the Netscape Pedigree.
Now... how ironic would *that* be...
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yippee (Score:5, Insightful)
valid CSS and FULLY supported PNG? (Score:5, Insightful)
Market speak translated (Score:3, Insightful)
What he means : "Damm firefox took a lot of market share. Even with our monopoly people are downloading this better and free product"
Mircosoft intended to use its domenence in browsers to control the desktop. IE distribute apps with IE/Longhorn and proprietary extentions (.net) that only worked on windows.
Firefox's success caught them off guard and now there running to catch up. I think MS was hoping to bundle ie7 with longhorn, causing massive corporate forced upgrades, but delay after delay nixed that idea.
Probably not... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow. It's been a long time since Microsoft blin (Score:4, Insightful)
It is quite rare that a company releases a product that is so perfect that they do not need to create a new version. Such is the case here, IE can always better... and so can Firefox. Down the line when the next version of Firefox is released... is it their way of saying that their own product is weak?
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:3, Insightful)
Just one request (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow. It's been a long time since Microsoft blin (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm afraid Berkeley isn't very representative (Score:5, Insightful)
Kudos to Berkeley, but they are the exception in most cases, and this is no exception to that rule. :)
As long as IE is even almost as secure and almost as feature rich as Firefox, it will probably win the browser war. That is, unless and until Linux wins the OS war (or at least makes a bigger showing).
About that word "lead". I don't think it means what you think it means. :) (Ob. quote.)
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:4, Insightful)
Who wants to bet we'll see 'tabs' in IE7
Geez people. You've been bitching how IE doesn't have tabbed browsing. And if Microsoft adds it you're going to bitch that they stole the idea.
Microsoft just can't win with you idiots.
So what.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell MS to call me when they have something new to offer. I'll be over here with Firefox that already works better and keeps it's security holes patched.
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe that it's just an innovative idea and there's nothing wrong with M$ incorporating it in their browser - as long as they don't try to patent it
Re:Wow. It's been a long time since Microsoft blin (Score:5, Insightful)
1. IE7 Ends up being pretty decent with tabbed browsing, increased security, and some sort of nifty integration with other MS stuff.
2. Firefox 'market share' continues to increase, but begins to lose footing as MS begins to focus on IE once again.
3. Browser battle ensues for all of a year and a half.
4. The 600 lb gorilla continues to pour part of its billions into marketing, automatically including with its OS, etc., etc.
5. Firefox hangs up its towel after a long hard battle. The general populous wins for a time, however, because IE and the last version of Firefox are what everyone needs.
6. MS neatly places all of their IE developers back in cryogen, to wait until the browser monoply is again challenged.
7. IE rots like a dead dog until another browser project starts up and begins to gain ground. The general populous loses.
8. Goto Step 1.
Haven't we all seen this story before? I *really* hope that someone else takes a strong enough hold to keep everyone in competition, but the way the Netscape dynasty played out, things aren't looking good.
You can do it Firefox!
Re:Wow. It's been a long time since Microsoft blin (Score:1, Insightful)
MS said that IE would only be updated when it is released for 'Longhorn'. They denied that this would change. They changed those plans...why? Seems like they admited something.
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:2, Insightful)
Not gonna happen (Score:5, Insightful)
It's terrible for security, but MS's approach to security has never been to contain threats. Their approach heen been much more all-or-nothing; ActiveX signed certificates means that the program is either trusted or it's not.
Security is always a double-edged sword. Users hate it when security interferes with them, and if it gets in their way before they see the benefits of whatever you're selling them, they'll pick something less safe but whose benefits are more clearly visible.
It's vaguely possible that in Longhorn they might alter some of those balances between security and performance, since
Re:Yippee (Score:2, Insightful)
My optical mouse started going wonky on me awhile ago. The system would lose it. In Windows this meant a hard lockup and pushing the big red button to get out of it.
In Linux, (assuming I was in a GUI) it simply meant dropping to the command line and possibly reinitiallizing the mouse. No hard boot, no lost work.
There are good reasons for building things in a layered, modular manner (and see the infamous Torvalds-Tannenbaum debate for the arguement that even Linux does not go far enough with this approach), and, at its core, despite some of the claims by MS to the contrary, Windows NT/XP was designed just as layered as Linux. All the tie ins where tacked on at a later date for marketing and "user friendliness" reasons. Thus they're not only tie ins, they're kludgy, workaround tie ins that go against the design philosophy and core architecture of the OS itself.
But then MS is also a company that will apply a workaround patch to the OS to fix a problem with a bug in a commercial application, so what do you expect?
To a certain extent they are constrained to do this by the commercial nature of their enterprise. The developers of Oracle or Starcraft are just as much, or more, the customers of MS as the end user and they need to be kept happy.
With OSes and applications distributed as free source, there is, of course, no need to take this kludgy approach.
KFG
You mean. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
No thanks, I'll stick with my 2K system which happily runs Firefox.
Re:Too little too late? (Score:3, Insightful)
Plain truth: people will just naturally gravitate for what's convenient. Dealing with all the BS with IE, it was just so inconvenient that it was less convenient for the average noncomputer-using-joe-user to search, download and install a secondary browser. And these are the same idiots that have trouble 'downloading pictures from their digital cameras to their computers.'
If longhorn launches with a browser that is comparitive to firefox or anything similar, then there would be no real good enough reason why people should switch, and the only people using firefox will be the hardcore firefox zealots, or linux users.
Re:IE is so closely tied to Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
IE is tied to the OS in the sense of the widget toolkit and the user experience. It is used in a variety of places to provide rich formatted content. It does not run in kernel-space and it is not required for the kernel to function. It is impossible to separate IE from windows since the widget is much too commonly used both by Microsoft and third party applications.
So lets do this again: The OS is not the kernel, the OS includes a huge amount of user-interacting code. This UI code makes use of IE in many ways. Removing IE would require tons of software being rewritten, not because it is directly a "core" feature of Windows, but rather because of proper software reuse going on in a lot of Windows software.
Re:Wow. It's been a long time since Microsoft blin (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beta Release? (Score:5, Insightful)
The early releases of IE were rushed to allow microsoft to bundle their own browser with their OS. Let's ignore the whole DOJ thing though...
The first versions of IE sucked. There's absolutely no way around saying that. They were horribly written, barely standards-compliant, and buggy as hell. Unfortunately, once Microsoft realized that the web browser would become an integral and vital part of the OS, it was already too late.
You see, Microsoft prides itself upon backward compatibility. And they're damn good at it too. I can still run programs compiled for Win95/3.1 on my XP box. No other OS today will run a program designed for an Operating System 10 years old while still having the features one would expect from a modern operating system.
Same thing goes for their web browser. They have customers using ActiveX that they ARE OBLIGED TO SUPPORT. The absolute worse move a company can make is to alienate its customers (SCO and the RIAA have learned this the hard way). And, to be frank, Microsoft is pretty nice to its users compared to other software vendors. Let's not forget that a lot of corporations are using ActiveX for much of their in-house development. They can't just rip it out; IE would lose most of its features that way. Netscape Plugins / Firefox Extentions are not necessarily any more secure.
Now that Microsoft has their woefully buggy ActiveX implementation, it has certain quirks that programmers have grown used to. If microsoft squashes a bug, they risk breaking compatibility. Same thing goes for standards compliance -- back when HTML4 and CSS were in their infancy, Microsoft chose to support them, but did a crappy job at it. This set the precedent that now since developers had designed sites around these quirks, THEY COULDN'T FIX THEM. Some legitimate programs may inadvertently use security holes in the browser. Closing them up will break compatibility.
That's one reason why this beta concerns me. If it has its own quirks, developers will start coding around them, and microsoft will once again have dug itself into a hole.
that's what was easy for apple when it made OS X and Mozilla when they rewrote their browser. They were starting fresh and had virtually no expectations and were able to COMPLETELY break compatibility with older versions for the sake of standards compliance. NT could have been just as fast and secure as OS X or Linux had Microsoft chosen to dump compatibility for Win9x apps. NT started out as a lean, fast, secure operating system. It has the capability to do Unix-style file-permissions which would close up 99% of the security holes present. Implementing a system like that would, however, break compatibility for older programs which expect the operating system to allow them to write to any portion of the drive. Instead, microsoft had to maintain backward compatibility and painstakingly close up every tiny security hole.
Microsoft's not stupid. I would be VERY surprised if IE 7 wasn't a huge improvement over 6. They've been working a long time on this release, and they're well aware of the competition from firefox. If it's secure and standards compliant, the reasons to use firefox become far less compelling.
In short, IE sucks today because the first betas sucked, and that's what the developers based their apps off of.
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did IE become the dominant browser? because Netscape stopped at 4.5 while IE kept updating and improving. Once IE got far enough ahead (about 5.0), it stopped still in the water, only releasing versions because of security bugs. So why is Firefox gaining popularity? Because IE hasn't done anything new since 2000, and doesn't have the kick-ass features Firefox has.
Surrendering would involve using something other than IE as the default Windows browser.
Improving it significatnly (which MS has been working on for about a year now, with not much to show for it besides popup blocking) is a step to stem the tide of defections to Firefox and win back the 5% Firefox has taken from it.
Re:Probably not... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nitpicky, but your employer can only *ask* you to sign an NDA. They can't *make* you do anything. Of course, if you like the whole 'getting paid' thing, not signing may not be the best option.
Re:IE.Net? (Score:3, Insightful)
is tab browsing any better? (Score:2, Insightful)
I, for one, find tabs in a browser annoying. Mostly for fact that I got used to closing whole window which is faster with a mouse then closing a tab. (I browse with mouse and don't go to keyboard most of the time)
I get my 'tabs' in taskbar if I opened multiple windows. Same thing, different location.
Re:Beta Release? (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft broke all kinds of things when the introduced Win32. And they broke a lot more when they introduced NT.
My experiences with "progress" from Apple and Microsoft definitely don't echo yours.
I do agree, however, that they have largely coded themselves into a corner with their half-assed design approach. They always seem to produce just enough to claim they have some capability X without really thinking it through and making it tight and elegant.
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:1, Insightful)
What's the difference with having tabs at the top as opposed to having a marker on your taskbar? (Apart from tabs taking up more screen real estate.)
And I never understood why it would ever be needful to have 50 browser windows open simultaneously, if that's your justification.
I guess it's all those people who never figured out how to "Open Link in New Window".
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it sad how some here on Slashdot fish for negatives against Microsoft, then get modded up for them? I'm glad your post was modded up.
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:3, Insightful)
Criticizing other people's spelling doesn't do much to make you any more credible.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I think mostly because IE came pre-installed with the OS on new computers. Most idiots out there came to associate Internet = IE. They don't know the concept of different parts and protocols of the internet...they don't know about other 'browsers' or how to download and install them. This was a few years ago when the 'Web' was new in the public mind. And most people weren't too internet savvy.
Problem is....still lots of idiots like that out there today, probably more so....
Shortsightedness (of tabbed-browsing) (Score:5, Insightful)
Mozilla added tabs, that was also neat.
Konqueror added tabs, this was not neat! KDE's people, unlike Opera's or Mozilla's are in the exact right position to have a bit more of a vision, and encorporate tabs into KDE's general facilities, and not just a specific program (web browser).
Instead, KDE's people choose to incorporate tabs separately in Konqeruror, Konsole, and other programs, such that non-KDE applications cannot benefit from it.
Now it seems as though Microsoft is just as short-sighted and added tabs to Internet Explorer instead of adding tabs to the core window-switching facilities (by drawing a tab under title bars of a new concept of "window-group" that contains multiple windows of same applications or such).
What I believe should have been done, is something more along the lines of what was done with Mouse Gestures in KDE. Mouse Gestures in KDE are handled by a general facility (KHotKeys) such that not only Konqueror can benefit from it, but any KDE/non-KDE application.
This is what should be done with tabs!
Re:Beta Release? (Score:2, Insightful)
If this was truly about Firefox competition, they'd improve IE across all the platforms and not just for users of XP SP2 and the long-rumored Longhorn.
IMHO, this is going to be used to try and convince Win98/2000/NT users that an intolerable (and never to be fixed) security situation will be tolerable with firewalls, upgrades, AND the new operating system WITH the new and improved browser.
Now let's think about backward compatibility. The reason it was so important was that otherwise their customer base would only upgrade at purchase of new equipment, and may balk at that, if the legacy application was too critical. Microsoft's biggest competition is itself and the fact that its established base is happy, well satisfied, well devoting as much mindfulness to Windows as it prefers.
I say if you want to roll-out IE7, do it, do it right, support the old platforms (and reward those customers' inexplicable loyalty), then tell us all when it's here, and God bless you for the effort.
If I'm right and this is only about moving the herd to the north pasture, then the fact that Firefox is available and can run on these legacy Windows platforms will put Microsoft in an awkward position as they trumpet the message with text (or subtext) that IE6 and legacy platforms are inadequate, maybe dangerous, even as they dance around when someone points out that the alternative is here, now, and won't cost a dime.
Transparent PNG support? (Score:3, Insightful)
Longhorn and XP converging (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, actually, it won't be too different from the Windows you're probably be using now.
That's because Windows XP is becoming Longhorn. No other major operating system has gone four years without a new release. Windows XP has been the longest lasting, most successful version of Windows ever.
It's amazing how much it has changed, though. Look at the wireless interface (two major revisions), the media player (two major revisions), the firewall, the web browser, the security center - even the kernel has had massive upgrades and changes.
The Security Center was a Longhorn feature. So were the changes in Internet Explorer. So was the
Literally dozens, if not hundreds of fetaures and enhancements that are part of XP were originally planned for Longhorn. Now we learn that Internet Explorer 7, Avalon, and
If what we're seeing now is what Longhorn will be like, then I'm definately going to want Longhorn. XP SP2 is a dramatically smarter, more secure, better version of XP. Hopefully Longhorn will continue with that legacy and become the best Windows yet.
Of all the operating systems out there, Windows is the product I like the most. I've used OS X, many Linux distributions, and even quite a few "novelty" operating systems like QNX and BeOS. No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS.
Yeah, that's right. I like Windows XP.
Re:I wonder what MS has stolen from firefox (Score:2, Insightful)
No, but they did steal some from WordPerfect.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
It's true. I think it was rated funny for MS "never doing anything good ever in computer software history", but even if IE 7 won't be better than Firefox (and let's hope it is on par! competition is good), it might still get a few new features that the Mozilla team can copy. If it weren't for IE, Firefox wouldn't have had identical yellow "info bars" instead of annoying popup boxes for example. Or maybe the functionality down to the color choice and identical look was a pure coincidence.
Re:Wow. It's been a long time since Microsoft blin (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a fucking zombie which they haven't the guts to kill because marketing won't let them.
Nothing to see here, move along.
no mention of standards (Score:4, Insightful)
unfortunately i don't see much hope. in ie6, they could break backwards compatibility by adding the strict mode / quirks mode doctype switch. that trick isn't going to work again. so while they may add css selectors and javascript methods that are missing from the current implementation (e.g. the child selector, hover state on objects other than anchors, document.addEventListener())), i don't think they'll do anything that would break existing sites (e.g. hasLayout, the broken float model, boxes espanding to fit their contents)
but i can always hope.
Re:Yippee (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
As for why IE became the dominant browser, you're only telling half the story. IE up to and including version 3 sucked big time; Netscape Navigator wiped the floor with it. Then IE 4 was released, and suddenly Navigator was the one looking a bit sick. Netscape then compounded its problems by throwing away the codebase and starting again from scracth; by the time they finally managed to get NN 6 out, it was far too late. Everyone but a small hardcore group of us had switched to IE, and with good reason. IE 4 was at least as good as NN4, but IE 5 trounced it (and I speak as someone who went NN->Mozilla->Firefox; I have *never* used IE as my primary browser). NN4 crashed frequently, had to reload the page to resize it, choked on moderately complex table structures, and the rendering engine was dog slow for all but trivial pages.
In short, IE became dominant for two reasons:
1) it's bundled with Windows, so every Windows user already has it
2) it was just plain better than the alternatives for a long time
Sorry to burst your superiority complex, but people being idiots had nothing to do with it.
Re:So what.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, we do. I think what you mean is that we shouldn't need IE7 to fix security holes.