A First Look At Internet Explorer 8 RC1 271
bogaboga writes "TG Daily reports that Microsoft quietly released the first update to its IE8 beta 2 to its closest partners last week. This new version only scores a dismal 12/100 on the Acid 3 test, though the score improves significantly if one leaves the [browser] window open for at least a minute. It is marked as 'Release Candidate 1.'"
real FP (Score:0, Insightful)
damn he hoped me. but really if m$ cant get their users to update/upgrade whats the point of a new version?
But does it fix the critical vulnerability? (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn, did I really not know? (Score:5, Insightful)
Coincidentally, I just watched Blade Runner on my Sony Superbeta hi-fi, still looks fantastic after all these years. Suck it, Blu-ray.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, IE 8 still sucks, but it sucks less then IE 7, which sucks less then IE 6.
IE 8 has some decent rendering improvements, a built in XSS filter, and lots of other changes.
In standards compliance it still sucks versus all the compition, but as long as it helps kill off IE 6, I'm happy.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
In standards compliance it still sucks versus all the compition, but as long as it helps kill off IE 6, I'm happy.
As someone doing web design for a living for the past 10 years I can tell you that I'm really not happy. At all. I put standards compliance much higher than any gimmick like XSS. If firefox still had all the Extensions (which is hard to live without) but was not standards compliant, I would hate it, a lot.
Another IE that is not standards compliant, means or a new set of rules I cannot use on my code, or another set of hacks (already ahve one for 5, 5.5, 6 and 7
Re:Why It Takes an Extra Minute (Score:3, Insightful)
Not following standards costs us (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure IE8 will be broken in slightly different ways from 6 and 7. So all this really means is we will have to implement hacks for three different versions of a shitty, non-standards-compliant browser for the foreseeable future, instead of two.
Re:IE 10 (Score:5, Insightful)
By the time IE 10 comes out, it will look like what Netscape 2.0 looks like to today's market. Even today, users hanging on to IE are reminiscent of the die hard users of Netscape 4. Netscape 4 was awful in comparison to IE5, but since it was the only viable alternative to IE, it hung around for quite a while. Life got a lot better when the Internet purged NS4, and it will get a lot better when it purges Internet Explorer.
The only difference between the Netscape 4 debacle and Internet Explorer is that Netscape didn't have the resources to develop a better browser. They ended up needing to spin off browser development, thus resulting in Firefox in the long term. Microsoft has no such constraints. They have nearly everything they need to make IE a better browser, but they don't want to give up their stranglehold on the web.
Well too damn bad. It's only a matter of time before IE loses its majority market share. The more the IE percentages drop, the faster the uptake of alternative browsers.
IANA Coding Guru, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Being that M$ tied their browser to their OS to avoid a court judgment of having an illegal monopoly the main reason they're in this pickle in the first place? You can't nimbly fix bugs or create features if what you do on that level ends up crashing your OS on another level.
Seems to me they've screwed themselves in the long run. They avoided having to removed Internet Explorer from Windows, but now their browser sucks on ice, is bloated, slow and filled with bugs that affect the OS. All of this could have been avoided (not to mention the continued $ hemorrhage of having to pay programmers to work on this) had they just concentrated on a decent OS and let others create the browsers. Instead they have (and still) pig-headedly insist on taking over or competing with every bit of software that touches their computers.
Re:Even simple HTML can crash IE8 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IE 10 (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it was. Show me any mature product that isn't.
But i cannot imagine any circumstances where the best strategy is to scrap and replace everything.
This isn't about purity of codebase, which is what the OSS adopters you mentioned concerned themselves with.
This is about a commerical software company who chose to cease shipping their flagship product while they redeveloped it.
If they had to do it, they should've maintained and upgraded the NS4 base with 4.x releases while the new product was in development.
Re:But does it fix the critical vulnerability? (Score:2, Insightful)
Update: 12/16 21:11 GMT by KD : Microsoft will issue an emergency critical update for IE tomorrow.
If it's fixed in IE 7, why wouldn't it be in IE 8?
Re:Why It Takes an Extra Minute (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Even simple HTML can crash IE8 (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing should crash anything.
Re:Good (Score:1, Insightful)
ROFL
Man, I can't even pick a small part of that to quote. That whole thing is hilarious. It's been years since I've seen anyone post rubbish like this.
I won't even address the analogy. Anyone can fabricate an analogy on the spot to fit any viewpoint they wish so I stay away from them. But good lord man, you'd really have to struggle to come up with one more completely off the subject than your's.
A web page is built with a markup language. If your web browser can't speak the language, while several several others speak it just fine, why would you use it?
Re:Good (Score:1, Insightful)
Feeding the troll from work...
Browser developers don't directly serve end users any more than Bosch directly serves automobile drivers (they make spark plugs and the like). The browser is only a tool for accessing the information you need, and only part of the whole operation. The browser is half of your interface to this information, and the web developers are giving you the other half. Standards exist to ensure that the two can talk to each other effectively and with a minimum of effort. I can go to any store and buy spark plugs that fit my car, Toyota doesn't have to custom fit them to my engine every time, and the plugs from my 2006 are the same size as the ones from the current model-year.
Standards are to the end user benefit _because_ they help the web developers. If I have to spend x hours coding workarounds for IE4/5/5.5/6/7/8, FF1/2/3, Netscape Navigator, Safari, Opera, et al; then that's x hours I've _wasted_ that I could be using to make _your_ interface to _your_ data more suited to _your_ needs. Seems most of the browsers have agreed that standards compliance is a worthy goal.
Since I'm not a commercial web developer, I have the freedom to discriminate in favor of the standards. I make sure my HTML and CSS validate without any serious errors, look good in the compliant browsers, and are at least minimally functional in IE 6 and 7.
No, on second though, I see what you mean. Web standards are meaningless drivel being imposed on the masses by the intellectual elite as retribution for all the wedgies in gym class.
Re:But does it fix the critical vulnerability? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why It Takes an Extra Minute (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, if you didn't sign up for the course in the first place.
Re:Why It Takes an Extra Minute (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes I think that the only real definition of "geekdom" is "a solid understanding of cause and effect".
That's why when they get a compromised system or otherwise suffer, I don't see them as victims even though I'd rather they not get compromised and I'd rather they not suffer.
They are making a trade-off and are taking a risk of experiencing security flaws for the sake of convenience as the browser is already installed and knowledge of its quality and security history is not needed to use it. They have set their priorities and made their choices and now they experience the results. Really, what rational person (technical or non-technical) expects to have good results when operating an extremely complex machine that they don't understand? Is there anywhere else in life where you can take the very first option to come along without ever looking at your other options and then consider yourself to have made a good choice? That the average person can routinely use a computer this way and have everything work out as well as it does is amazing, but rather than appreciate this we instead scratch our heads and wonder why certain problems (like botnets) just aren't going away.
Maybe this makes me unusual, but I am happy with both Linux and FireFox even if both of them never become anything like mainstream. They are actively developed and have enough of a userbase to ensure this for some time to come, they do what I need them to do, and they run the way I want them to run. I can't say with any certainty that I'd derive any direct benefit from the sort of ubiquity that Windows and IE currently enjoy and I see a certain risk of stagnation if that ever did happen.
Re:Why It Takes an Extra Minute (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, get off my lawn.
IE8 doesn't need that much more to be useful (Score:3, Insightful)
Add some common stuff from CSS2 and 3 and I'd be relatively happy with it:
border-radius
multiple background images
border images
good opacity support (on a par with FF, so I can specify background opacity and not force the same opacity on child objects).
CSS3 columns
There are some selector issues people want that would be great, too.
At the least, turn on some things that would allow js/css libraries to overcome the shortcomings they KNOW they're gonna leave in there. At least make a way for others to work around the limitations.
But, all those things would be *useful* and good for developers, so we know what's gonna happen, don't we?
Re:But does it fix the critical vulnerability? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just the other day I was modded troll [slashdot.org] for saying Microsoft doesn't keep to standards in the new IE and invent their own standards.
Looks like I win Micro-mods. Pathetic that you need to mod down the truth.