Microsoft Drops Hints on IE8 309
benuski writes "Lost in the hype about Microsoft's new Siverlight platform, there has been some information surfacing about IE8. It will include improvements in RSS, CSS, and AJAX support, and will follow Firefox 3 in supporting microformats. Also, the developers are going to try and improve UI customization, which is one of the main criticisms of IE7."
Enough of comparing it to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
UI customization? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Security (or lack thereof)
2) ActiveX
3) The fact that it came from Microsoft
4-50 other things
51) UI Customization or skinning or whatever useless thing that is
Seriously, if that is one of the main criticism, then no wonder IE is the dominant browser on the planet (which I say tongue-in-cheek as I type this in Firefox so I have spell checking).
Information? (Score:5, Insightful)
Extensions (Score:5, Insightful)
Until Microsoft figures out a way for people to create extensions easily, without having to know C++ and COM/ActiveX, they're not going to get people like me back. I don't care about tabs. I don't care about skins. I don't care about aggregators or fancy micro-whatevers. I don't care about security (in the sense that I was secure enough with IE since my IQ is above that of a jellyfish). Without the extensions and the community that needs to build behind them, it's a no-go for me at least. Holy shit, it's 2007 and I still don't have an easy way to turn off Flash on demand. Really, WTF?
It wouldnt be a good comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Enough of comparing it to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, Firefox has a look and feel a lot more like IE than Opera does. I'm not exactly sure in how many ways this fits in, but I know it makes it easier for people familiar with IE to switch to Firefox, and perhaps it also makes Firefox and IE easier to compare than say IE and Opera.
Re:Extensions (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem IE faces is the level to which it is beholden to other companies that rely on it to not allow end users to block their content. If IE were to introduce an AdBlock-type ability into IE they would get their pants sued off by every one of their competitors. Just look at Google--it's completely ad-dependent, and yet, with AdBlock the end user will never have to see "ads by google" ever again. In one fell swoop, leveraging their 85%+ marketshare Microsoft could destroy Google's revenue source. As a monopolist, they can never fix their inability to offer an AdBlocking solution.
You know what I want? (Score:5, Insightful)
I want a little more attention paid to standards. What is the point of developing standards compliant, accessible websites if the most used browser in the market screws it up without crappy hacks? Oh, wait.. Notgetting sued [456bereastreet.com] is a pretty good reason, I guess. Still, the overhead IE creates for web developers (especially ones in areas with a low budget for design work) tends to make things cost much more than they should for the client.
We'll probably just see them get a little above 60% compliance on this round, though. Apathy is great, isn't it?
Re:UI customization? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Extensions (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, Firefox is nice and all but 700MB for three tabs is just a little extreme. I'd jump back to IE in a heartbeat if they gave me AdBlock or an equivalent thereof. Hell, I'll settle for FlashBlock or something like that to begin with.
will any win32 FF users actually go back? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is real and (IMHO) the computing experience for many users right-now.
So are MS trying to pull back users who have turned to an alternative browser, or they are desperately trying to plug the drip drip drip of users who still haven't moved?
Either way they will have to make a hyperspace leap to get ahead of the curve.
I began using FF at something like v0.83 and its now mature, secure and stable.
After occasionally dipping the big toe into linux over the past 5-6 years (Redhat 7.3; Fedora 3, 4, 5), just this week I installed ubuntu 7.04 and have fallen in love with it. Restored a ghost backup of XP to a partition and have booted into it just once.
IE's CSS hassles should have been fixed years ago - MS really needs to do more to stop the millions of users like me that are dabbling and finding that OSS is more than just a viable alternative.
Re:Extensions (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I dont care... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You know what I want? (Score:5, Insightful)
"We were so awesome!"
"Yeah, it was awesome... compared to BULLSHIT!"
Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
competition is good -- what's the next big thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
If Microsoft had been broken into a variety of little companies like the judge wanted 10 years ago, we'd all have much better products now because of the resulting competition.
Now it's time for Firefox (or Apple) to truly think out of the box and blow us all away with the next big thing. What's the next KILLER APP? We all know Microsoft won't do it first.
boxlight
When will they learn? (Score:5, Insightful)
I generally think Microsoft provides solid products and I rarely stumble upon problems with aged products. Look at Office, Windows XP and other operating systems, that are doing just fine.
Internet Explorer is one of the few big mistakes Microsoft has had. IE4 knocked out Netscape and after that, we have seen little and rather futile competition, with Opera being the exception. But even with the release of Firefox, Microsoft has been utterly ignorant. They don't care about perfecting the CSS support and I have little hopes for IE8 after seeing IE7. Sure, it is far better but why is it so damn hard to follow standards?
In my opinion, Microsoft only needs to follow the standards to regain some trust from its lost users and it should have done so with IE7 as it had several years to do what Mozilla did.
UI...? Just give me history! (Score:2, Insightful)
They may switch back; Firefox, don't be complacent (Score:5, Insightful)
Firefox lit a firecracker under the butts of Microsoft (who actually disbanded the IE team after IE6 --can you believe it?), and made them scramble to build a web browser that was a first in the world of Microsoft: it was standards compliant. Okay, actually, it wasn't, but it was a heck of a lot more so than the old IE, and for the first time MS actually paid attention to Web standards compliance. Whatever happens after that, we can thank Firefox for this historic watershed; even if people switch back to IE, it won't be to IE 6, and web page authors will realize that Microsoft doesn't necessarily dictate the standards.
In the same way, though, Firefox can't afford to be complacent. Microsoft has a long history of coming from behind and overtaking. There are quite a few ways in which Firefox could be improved, and if MS makes this improved browser IE8, then I can very well envision people switching back.
I think the main thing Firefox needs to do is manage its extensions. There was an interview on Slashdot in which one of the developers said that there was no need for the Mozilla Foundation to vet and officially support extensions, which I think flies in the face of common sense. The MozFound needs to pick three or four extensions and make sure they work --which would not be hard to do since they work now-- but officially make it part of Firefox. These extensions are: Adblock [Plus], NoScript,
Firefox could do with a few other improvements, and I'm sure other posters will happily list them, but the point is: Microsoft is fully capable of overtaking Firefox again. This is a good thing only if it spurs Firefox to greater heights. I don't want IE to actually end up overtaking Firefox, because I want the dominant browser on the Web to be a cross-platform one.
Too much crap (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm generally rabidly anti-Luddite, but the web seems so broken sometimes.
Let's start over and make content matter. Please?
Re:Extensions (Score:4, Insightful)
Now your only remaining problem is to work out which one of those is actually spyware which will hijack your browser, install half a dozen trojans and send every password you use to a crime syndicate in Miami.
Re:Enough of comparing it to Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know that it ever will be, but I also don't know that it needs to be. Opera has never been aimed at the "everybody and their mother" market segment. I don't think that was even a goal for them.
Opera has consistently been, since the mid nineties, on the dividing line between the major browsers and the minor browsers -- always having a smaller market share than second place, but always rather larger than any of the obscure players. Every webmaster who can name more than three browsers knows about Opera, and everyone who's at all serious about supporting "all the major browsers" tests in Opera at least a little. I don't see any reason to expect any of that to change.
Is it going to take over the world and force IE and Gecko into second and third place? No. But it's not going away, either. It's an _alternative_ browser for a minority of users. It occupies that role by design, and always has.
The reason they're not comparing rumors about upcoming IE features to information about upcoming Opera features is because IE8 isn't aiming to compete with Opera. Microsoft is not bothered by Opera. Opera is a very benign competitor for them, and fairly predictable. They understand its place in things, and it doesn't scare them.
Firefox is another thing. It came, from Microsoft's perspective, out of nowhere. Mozilla was doing what it had always done, occupying the role it had occupied for several years, and then whammo, over the course of a few months there was this Firefox thing, and ordinary users, not just web geeks, had heard about it, tried it out, and were using it. In droves. Its market share broke (by some measures anyway) into double digits and threatened to continue climbing. The release of IE7 was a direct response to that threat.
Further, the really scary thing about Firefox, from Microsoft's perspective, is not just that it breaks up their monopoly on the web, but more importantly that it's open source, and if too many users -- ordinary end users, not IT geeks -- start using and liking open source software, that could have implications beyond just the web browser market. I mean, if an open source web browser became the cool thing everyone had to use, then another open source application (an office suite, for example) could potentially do the same, and *that* outcome could directly cost Microsoft a lot of money. This isn't so much of an issue with Opera.
That is why IE8 rumors get compared to Firefox development information, and not Opera. It isn't because Firefox is better than Opera (though I do personally prefer it), but rather because Firefox is, in Microsoft's view, the primary competition IE must beat.
Re:You know what I want? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me see if I got this...you want Microsoft to pay attention to standards, but only the ones other browsers don't ignore? That's a standard right there...a double standard.
Re:Extensions (Score:2, Insightful)
Not for those with a clue, but what are you more likely to trust? Some random compiled ActiveX plugin for IE or something that appears on Mozilla.org and has been verified?
Until there's a huge community pushing quality plugins / addons for IE that are easy to install and customize (for those with experience) IE is going to remain way behind.
Those with a lot of experience / know-how can further customize their Firefox extensions since they're mostly written in JavaScript and not compiled.
IE8: Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
By the time the first betas are out, MS will have announced that IE8 is Vista only, and given the amount of time they took to produce IE7 (a token effort at best), it'll probably require Vista SP1 to function fully. Another year of development means another 18 to 24 months, probably.
If they want to impress web developers (who are the catalyst for people moving away from IE), they have to stop paying lip service to web standards. Until then, developers will continue to do everything they can to save themselves wasted time and effort dealing with IE, by eroding IE's market share.
As a designer/developer, I don't really give a damn about RSS improvements. This is merely something they can use to bloat a bullet list of improved features. Fixes to CSS, DOM, events, floats, javascript, and making IE into a worthwhile developer's tool would be much more appreciated. And get rid of hasLayout while you're at it.
Re:I dont care... (Score:4, Insightful)
Completely OT, but actually, I'd imagine you could. I'm not too sure about making a silk purse out of a sow's ear, though. I guess you'd need some kind of silk pig? Mythbusters need to step up here, both of these are long overdue.
Ahem. Back to the issue at hand, this particular turd has proven to be highly moldable, and polish is what it is lacking. Yes, incompabilities and poor standard coverage is a bitch, but the technology itself is adequate. If you had to make a web page/web app/whatever you had in mind when you wrote your comment, but with the guarantee that all visitors would use the same recent and 100% standards compliant browser, what would your main complaint be?
Core HTML is designed to represent a static document, yes, but the vast majority of the web is representable as such, animated interactive flash ads and embedded multimedia aside. What's new is mostly ever fancier styling, and loading some of that static content in a dynamic way.
I am not seeing the signs of age, but of immaturity. Browsers have aquired new capabilities that have made them a viable platform for more complex content, but early adopters face the hazzle of incompatible and incomplete implementations.
Going from your post, I don't think you really want a better successor to HTML and the browser. You sound like you want something completely unrelated, maybe a zero-install securely sandboxed app delivery system, but you are being forced to implement it as a web app? (Guessing wildly, sorry in advance.) Did you perchance have anything specific in mind as a successor to the common web page? Maybe one could do it in something portable, extensible and modern like XML... Oh, wait.
Re:I dont care... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It wouldnt be a good comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
ie6 to ie7 "update" (Score:3, Insightful)
I can imagine what a ie8 release will bring... more headaches.
Re:Extensions - adblock for any browser (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Extensions (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh yeah? At what IQ level do people automatically detect and avoid websites that can take over IE with an animated mouse cursor?
Re:I dont care... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Enough of comparing it to Firefox (Score:2, Insightful)
Interestingly, while it seems that a lot of people think this is bad (well, it seems to me that Microsoft responding to its competitors is often talked about in a bad light), it's actually good. It's competition in the market. It makes for better programs when there are two competing programs. I'm glad to see Microsoft is pushing forward with IE8 so soon after IE7, personally.
And yes, I run Linux on my laptop and run Firefox on both my laptop and my desktop. I also don't hate Microsoft.
Opera is "designed" for the broad mass (Score:3, Insightful)
As a normal browser for Joe Shmoe and his grandma though, I don't really see how Opera could not compete. It is very usable, at least as usable as the other browsers. It's got this new Speed Dial function (when opening a new tab instead of a black screen you'll get a cached thumbnail view of your favorite webpages to click on - real slick) and supports mouse gestures from the get go. It's definitely got the potential to become the main player. The only reason why it is not as popular is because Firefox has been propagated as the main alternative by most people anti-IE/MS, maybe in part because both those browsers stand for such different concepts/philosophies (greedy corporation vs. open source).
Also, Firefox didn't come out of nowhere. Actually quite the contrary: while Netscape (which evolved to Mozilla) was "doing their thing" (i.e. carving more and more market share from Mosaic and other browsers in the early days), whammo! - suddenly there was MS IE pre-installed as the default browser on Windows 95. Suddenly every MS box ran IE because there was no real need to run another browser (and it was faster too). The only edge that Mozilla had and what makes it the favorite alternative browser now is that it was and is open source.
Re:You know what I want? (Score:4, Insightful)
And what is wrong with that? The W3C aren't responsible for JPEG, that was standardised by ISO. Does that mean that web browsers shouldn't implement JPEG?
You are talking like there is a wall between the W3C and the rest of the world, where implementing a non-W3C technology means that you must inevitably throw away W3C stuff. This is nonsensical. You can implement W3C specifications and non-W3C specifications simultaneously just fine,and this has been the norm for as long as the W3C has existed.
Huh? You are talking about something that the OP already pointed out was already implemented by the other browsers. How is keeping up with everybody else an impossible expectation?
Re:Extensions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Enough of comparing it to Firefox (Score:2, Insightful)
"it also makes Firefox and IE easier to compare than say IE and Opera"
this is a bit like "let's compare race cars by taking a look at vw-golf and opel-astra and not compare them to the porsche, because the porsche is so different".
bad example, but without another coffee I can't get up with a better one...
Opera's Niche (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm going to divide all computer users into three categories:
* Power users who know how things work
* Adventurous users who might try changing their setups
* Normal users who go with default settings and never try to customise
The concept of software customisation is fairly new, and everyone from the third category is still adapting to it. Changing your computer's background is one thing, but changing the way your web-browser acts is another thing altogether. It ventures into the realm of programming, with which the third category is unfamiliar. They're simetimes even scared of technology, because they would have no way of recovering from their mistakes.
How does that relate to Opera? Opera has too much customization. The default installation has too many buttons. It has this strange toolbar that appears below the address bar with top 10 and bookmarks. The side panel has notes, transfers, and links. Even though to groups 1 and 2 this seems normal, to group 3 it's too much to learn, when there is a simpler alternative around the corner: Firefox. It's very similar to IE, its features are much more hidden, and it doesn't give off an aura of complexity.
In order to get Opera to the same state, someone needs to spend about 5 minutes customising it. But here's the paradox: group 3 users never bother with customisations, and it just doesn't happen. Opera developers don't care, because they realise that people are slowly migrating to groups 1 and 2. But group 3 is still better off with Firefox.