Internet Explorer 8 Delayed Until 2009 204
Barence writes "Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 8 will not be officially released until 2009. According to a blog posting on the Internet Explorer 8 development site, a release candidate of the browser will be released in the first quarter of next year, to be followed by a final release at an unspecified date. This news comes on the same day that Google is considering bundling its Chrome browser with new PCs. Will the IE delay and Google's tactics help to steer users in Chrome's direction?"
Re:how (Score:3, Informative)
google are a marketing company they dont have to get it "right" technically, they just have to make it appear that they got it right
Re:Ummm.... (Score:3, Informative)
I would say IE8.
Internet Explorer tends to be released slightly before the OS is. Remember integrated browser. That means in order to make sure all the new features of the OS are completely integrated they need to make sure the browser works first.
Re:I may dump Firefox. (Score:3, Informative)
Avoiding the issue (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox has been asked for years for better corporate deployment support. The answer was some wiki pages [mozilla.org] and a Client Customisation Kit which is currently listed as supporting FF2. [mozilla.org]
Firefox still ships as an .exe, not a Mozilla branded MSI, despite one being requested in January 2004 (bug 231062). Despite being listed as P1 for FF3 [mozilla.org] there's no sign of it yet.
There is an MSI linked from Mozilla pages, but it is not a Mozilla MSI. With all respect to Frontmotion for the work they have done, if I'm bringing an MSI inside my firewall it has to say Mozilla on it.
Reaching IE's integration level would be beyond most companies but Firefox's level barely reaches baby steps.
(incidentally for those who wish to mod me down "cuz that post hatez teh firefox", this is being posted with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4)
Re:how (Score:4, Informative)
For example, which extensions may or may not be installed. Or what the homepage is set to. Or, disabling the Phishing Filter or enabling the Lookup-Portion of the Phishing Filter. Enable certain privacy settings by default, or disable them.
A feature which requires local administrative privileges, which is not the case in a corporate IT environment.
Lot's. You've obviously never worked in one, which is perfectly fine. But don't attack me just because you don't understand a large part of the global IT economy.
Re:how (Score:5, Informative)
What more do you need in your "corporate environment"?
Considerably more than auto detecting the proxy server and updating - you really seem to be missing the point.
Some very good examples are default Favourites, very helpful in a lot of corporations (have you ever got the shit job of having to add a new favourite to a thousand PCs?), default Homepage, again very helpful, default popup blocker and security settings for known good websites that you have no control over but need to use, and local browser security settings for when you don't want your employees from setting their own proxy server or otherwise mess with the browser setup.
In short, everything you need to be applied to every one (or a majority) of your desktops - you can either have your PC setup bods do it manually, or you can just ghost a new machine and let the central management server do it. I know which I would rather do.
From the sound of it, you haven't had to deal with an corporate environment with more than a dozen or so desktops. Believe me, central management becomes extremely handy when you are dealing with a thousand desktops in multiple locations (or even 100 in one).
On the other hand, Firefox does have an Active Directory GPO template available for doing many of the things corporate admins require.
Re:how (Score:2, Informative)
Firefox can do it. That wasn't the point. The point was central management.
Re:how (Score:1, Informative)
You just edit the user.js file via group policy, you people shouldn't be managing networks if you can't figure out simple shit like configure firefox over a 500+ rollout.
Pathetic, Microsoft fanaticism because you are too ashamed to admit you know nothing apart from a few Microsoft products.
Re:MS strategy (Score:1, Informative)
This comment doesn't seem to take account of the facts:
- IE 7 has been released for over two years, and has been pushed on Windows Update for almost all of that time. I see no evidence that MS is in any way trying to keep people on IE 6. Do you?
- The supported platforms for IE 8 have been described as XP, Server 2003 and Vista, as well as {presumably}, Win 7. Every beta so far has worked on all these platforms. This is all discussed on the IE blog, http://blogs.msdn.com/IE [msdn.com].
- I think how quickly IE 8 gets pushed through auto-update is dependent mainly on how quickly websites adapt to the newer standards-compliant behavior. I think the change IE 8 will make to be in standards-compliant mode by default is a huge win, but it will have a big impact on the rest of the web. The chorus of people complaining that IE isn't standards-compliant will be replaced by another chorus of people complaining that their web sites don't work in IE 8 and demanding that Microsoft revert to the old non-standards behavior. If you don't believe me, just wait ... :-) . But again, every other release of IE has been promptly pushed through Windows Update, I don't see the evidence that this one wouldn't.
- The IE team has been fairly clear on their blog that the goals for IE 8 are standards-compliance including full support for CSS 2.1, Acid 2, and some parts of CSS 3 and HTML 5. These decision were made ages ago, in the early stages of the project. Things like SVG and Acid 3 complaince aren't going to be in this release, which some people complain about, but IE 8 is still a massive step forwards. It's not sensible to cram new features in right at the end of a software project - the IE team should focus on getting IE 8 out of the door and leave these additional standards for later releases.
- We're talking about a few weeks or months delay here, this is not like the browser's been cancelled. IE 8 was roughly scheduled for the end of 2008 {MS generally don't release specific dates}, and now it's been pushed to early 2009. I hardly see this as an earth-shattering change, just the typical delays that most large projects suffer from.
In other words, chill out, sky not falling :-).