Microsoft Previews IE9 — HTML5, SVG, Fast JS 473
suraj.sun sends this excerpt from CNET on Microsoft's preview of IE9 in Las Vegas just now. "At its Mix 10 conference Tuesday, Microsoft gave programmers, Web developers, and the world at large a taste of things to come with its Web browser. Specifically, Microsoft released what it's calling the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview, a prototype designed to show off the company's effort to improve how the browser deals with the Web as it exists today and, as important, to add support for new Web technologies that are coming right now. Coming in the new version is support for new Web standards including plug-in-free video; better performance with graphics, text, and JavaSript by taking advantage of modern computing hardware. One big change in the JavaScript engine Hachamovitch is proud of is its multicore support. As soon as a Web page is loaded, Chakra assigns a processing core to the task of compiling JavaScript in the background into fast code written in the native language of the computer's processor." Microsoft didn't say what codec they were using for the HTML5 video demo, but the Technologizer says it's H.264.
firefox is getting old (Score:5, Informative)
It seems that even IE beat Firefox in Javascript performance [com.com] now. Firefox sure has been slacking recently. There's still road ahead though, Chrome and Opera are leading.
Re:H.264 (Score:5, Informative)
Once free and open Internet? What is Flash then? It's both proprietary closed platform and H.264.
It's of course H.264 but for different reasons - Windows 7 has build-in support for H.264, and Theora kind of lost the war already.
Re:firefox is getting old (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uphill Battle (Score:2, Informative)
Users aren't using IE6 because they haven't been prompted to update (they are with Windows Update), they're using IE6 because it's a workplace and a lot of intranet web applications only work with it. Other than that, Firefox surpassed IE6 in market share already.
Re:H.264 (Score:3, Informative)
Once free and open Internet? What is Flash then?
Not part of the official standard.
Neither H.264 nor SWF/FLV is part of the official standard, but the <video> and <object> elements respectively are.
Re:H.264 (Score:4, Informative)
Flash is an optional addon. There is no optional addon to play h.264. The support for the video is built into the browser, and once it's built in the browser cannot be redistributed due to patents.
There's nothing precluding the browser from using the OS centralized codec repository, to which an H.264 codec can then be added (if not there already).
In fact, Opera 10.50 does just that on Linux (it uses gstreamer). In fact, it also uses its own copy of gstreamer on Windows and OS X, to which you can add codecs if you want to.
Re:Nice try with ACID3, Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
No, you've missed my point: They're excusing something that's part of the test. Nowhere else do they explain away the current score or what's missing. The text on the page seems to give the impression the pause is acceptable or 'as intended'. But it's not - it has failed ACID.
They don't claim it passed ACID3. In fact, after continuing from 39, it never gets past 55. Read the IE9 arstechnica article from a few hours ago to see their comments on ACID3, mainly that they don't put any priority on passing it but that their score is going up as they improve their standards compliance.
Re:Nice try with ACID3, Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
It's scoring a 55. That's a fail no matter what. You're latching on to the wrong point. The important part, which you've glossed over so neatly, is that Microsoft included that 55/100 on ACID3 as part of the actual news. They're freely admitting upfront, "hey, on this test, we're still doing badly, but we are working on improving. It's just not our focus."
Re:firefox is getting old (Score:5, Informative)
But the question remains, how tight will it be to the OS? Would a simple security flaw give a bit of JS access to the kernel?
This kind of thing isn't possible on NT family operating systems since inception. IE does not run in the kernel, and never did.
Of course, it is possible to have a remote code execution vulnerability in JS engine, combined with a local elevation exploit, giving one root access - and from there patching OS files to get kernel access - but that is something that is possible on any OS, and not something you can fully mitigate by sandboxing (since sandbox can have its own vulnerabilities).
Or are they going to significantly sandbox the JS, and try to do everything right (as opposed to just the rendering)
IE has been sandboxing browser engine (including JS) to run in reduced elevation mode (so that it doesn't even have the privileges of user who runs the browser - so it can't access the files of that user, for example) since IE7/Vista.
Re:H.264 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:H.264 (Score:3, Informative)
It's of course H.264 but for different reasons - Windows 7 has build-in support for H.264, and Theora kind of lost the war already.
Pretty much everyone is on board for H.264. AVC/H.264 Licensees [mpegla.com]
773 of the biggest names in media and tech. Canonical is on the list. Lockheed Martin is on the list.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:MS stole stuff in the past. now its easy to do (Score:5, Informative)
What happens if they cut-and-paste OS into their commercial products?
They get busted and have to release their formerly closed source product into OS [microsoft.com].
Problem solved.
MS is visibly arrogant and arguably evil, but stupid? Nyet. Count on their legal eagles making DAMN sure the little fiasco outlined in the linked article never happens again. They may be inclined to do anything they think they can get away with, but this is something they understand they can't get away with.
No, everyone is NOT on board with H.264 (Score:3, Informative)
No, everyone is NOT on board. For example, Wikipedia explicitly forbids MP3 and H.264, and only accepts Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis [wikipedia.org]. If you want to hear audio or see videos on Wikipedia, one of the world's most popular web services, then you MUST use Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis. And as you know, Firefox (one of the most popular web browsers and growing) includes built-in support for Ogg and NOT for H.264. Many sites, and many operating systems (such as Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Debian, etc.) do NOT support H.264.
No, PNG was primarily created to be patent-free (Score:5, Informative)
Re:H.264 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:H.264 (Score:2, Informative)
Technically... But not really. I mean, good luck watching anything on YouTube without Flash installed. Which is what we're talking about here - video playback. If you want to play back video on the web these days, you're basically stuck installing Flash. Yeah, a couple sites here and there use QuickTime or something else... But it's generally flash.
FYI: YouTube has an Opt-In HTML5 video setup [youtube.com] that you might want to take a look at. Until you posted that, I'd forgotten I signed up for it and have been using it since it was available. It's just as good visually, but the videos seem to cache and load a bit faster. YMMV
Re:H.264 (Score:5, Informative)
And some early version of IE (5 maybe?) showed PNG colors slightly incorrectly and with no transparency support, making it pretty much unusable. I still have nightmares about those slightly incorrect colors and keep thinking I should use GIF/JPG instead of PNG.
Doesn't install on XP (Score:3, Informative)
This probably goes without saying, but the IE9 preview does not install on Windows XP.
Re:Firefox not playing h264 is a political decisio (Score:4, Informative)
You don't get it. If Firefox had h.264 support, it could not be redistributed. Period. Everyone would have to download the 'offical' version from Mozilla. No Linux distro could include it. No one could change the code and distribute it. It would cripple Firefox. Why the hell doesn't anyone understand this?
That's not true. h.264 can be implemented as a plugin. Firefox needn't include this plugin by default. There are plenty of third-party h.264 implementations to choose from. Mozilla themselves could even create such a plugin as an add-on, and make it freely available (sans source, if necessary).
Mozilla are shooting themselves in the foot if their present stance is anything but bluster. The h.264 train is leaving the station, and Apple, Google, and even Microsoft are on board. Firefox's market share will plummet without an h.264 solution.
Re:Firefox not playing h264 is a political decisio (Score:3, Informative)
Why the hell doesn't anyone understand this?
Because it's false.
Firefox needs only to ship with generic gstreamer support for it's video element, just as Fennec will be doing. Then you can install any damn gstreamer codec implementation you want, and it'll be available to Firefox. Problem is, the Firefox devs decided they don't want to do that for political reasons, and so Fennec's implementation won't be ported to Firefox. Thank you asshole developers!
Re:H.264 (Score:2, Informative)
HTML5 doesn't standardize on H.264. It may (and I suspect that it will) become a de facto standard, just as GIF became a de facto standard for images with transparency in HTML.
If a better open standard comes out eventually, it may be adopted, just as PNG took over GIF. The spec won't need to be changed.
In particular...
With the distribution of H264 in their browsers, Apple, MS, Google and alike are contending (whether implicitly or explicitly) that they are implementing some kind of web "standard" in their HTML5 video.
That just sounds like putting your words into their mouths to me. I haven't heard anyone claim that H.264 is a "web standard". Yes, all the vendors you've listed are implementing a web standard that is called "HTML5 video", which is clearly specified as the <video> element, with a set of associated attributes to define its behavior, and JS APIs to manipulate it. I don't see anything deceptive about that.
If you can reference any specific claim (by Google, Apple, MS, or anyone else) on the subject that you believe to be deceptive, please go ahead, and we can discuss something definite.
Re:H.264 (Score:3, Informative)
Not really. By choosing to exclusively support a patented proprietary format they are doing it with their actions, no loudspeakers required.
Google supports both H.264 and Theora in Chrome out of the box.
Apple uses QuickTime framework for video playback in Safari, so it'll use Theora codec if it's installed.
We have no idea as to how it will work in IE9, yet. Judging by how IE works today, expecting it to use DirectShow would be quite reasonable - which, again, allows the user to install Theora codecs and enjoy full support.
So, where's the exclusivity?
Re:Slew of recent marketting... (Score:4, Informative)
Looking at MS history, it's been their modus operandi to keep customers from using competitors by promising technologies that they may or may not deliver.
1991: Don't look at other OS like nEXT, Mac, or OS/2. Our Cairo system will have an object oriented file system. . .
1996: Well, Cairo was more of a design prototype. It was never meant to be a product.
1995: Don't look at Quicktime for video. AVI is what you want.
1996: Don't look at Quicktime for video. Don't use our AVI either. Active Movie is the format you want.
1997: Don't look at Quicktime for video. Don't use our Active Movie. Active Movie 2 is the format you want.
1998: Don't look at Quicktime for video. Don't use our Active Movie 2. DirectShow is the format you want.
Re:firefox is getting old (Score:3, Informative)
Opera 10.5 uses GPU acceleration when available.
Re:Slew of recent marketting... (Score:5, Informative)
From the very beginning, in fact. Microsoft got started by Gates and Allen saying that they were working on a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800, when, in fact, they neither had the hardware nor were writing code for it. That is to say, Microsoft made vaporware even before it was founded.
Re:firefox is getting old (Score:3, Informative)