The information published in this post is now out-of-date.
—IEBlog Editor, 21 August 2012
Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.
First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer. This new release will build on the work we did in Windows XP SP2 and (among other things) go further to defend users from phishing as well as deceptive or malicious software.
Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: “Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment.”
I think of today’s announcement as a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”
Why are we talking about it today? Because our customers and partners have asked us, with increasing urgency, what our plans are. We want to convey our intentions to our customers and partners clearly and in a timely way.
I’ve gotten questions about the ship date. Yes, we have a date in mind. I’ll talk about the date after we get feedback from customers and partners. We’re going to release a beta and listen, then refresh the beta and listen some more. We’ll ship when the product is ready.
I’ve also gotten questions about support for Windows 2000. Right now, we’re focused on XP SP2. We’re actively listening to our major Windows 2000 customers about what they want and comparing that to the engineering and logistical complexity of that work. That’s all I can say on that topic.
Please know that the IE team is working hard. We’re eager to improve and better secure the web experience for the hundreds of millions of IE users around the world. We delivered on our part of XP SP2. We are actively delivering on our part of a great 64-bit Windows client. We continue to deliver on security updates for customers (across several versions of IE (back to IE 5.01) and Windows). We’re going to deliver on IE7.
Dean
Why the Web Needs Color Management
http://www.color.org/wpaper2.html
Standards support is, right now, the most important thing for IE, as far as I’m concerned. Although admittedly, since I don’t actually use IE, I don’t care for usage enhancements, I only care that the pages I create work.
Steve Ballmer said it best: "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"
@Dan: That’s just the point, isn’t it? You are a highly experienced computer user and, with the help of *an additional piece of hardware* and no less than *4 different software products running locally*, you managed to make your IE secure.
For comparison, I have no antivirus software, no software firewall, no pest hunter. I rely solely on my Linux router and its firewall to protect me from direct attacks, and I use Mozilla/Firefox for browsing. And guess what: I never had any bad stuff either!
Face it: Mozilla is about as secure as IE + 4 supporting applications. And that’s not a good sign for IE. And most of the web users, even though in possession of half a brain and not being lazy, simply do not understand enough about computers to secure IE. In fact, I find your insinuation offensive. Not to me, but to people like my sister, my mother, and various other people I know, who are definitely intelligent and not lazy, but simply lack technical knowledge and interest. What would you do? Deny them access to the web? Tell them to RTFM and secure the computer?
As for fonts: Mozilla has an easy to use option in its font configuration to disallow pages setting fonts. Exactly what you claim it lacks. And if memory serves me right, it had this functionality since pre-1.0 days.
Please write IE 7 in c# dot net. I would like to see microsoft eat its own cake. DOTNET apps are rock solid and never need a reboot. I wish I could say the same for IE henceforth.
PS: Remember I said this first !!
Good point, Leo.
First, all you IE7 fans have to thank mozilla.org for this gift from Redmont. There would be no standalone IE7 if Firefox was’t available and popular.
Second, if Microsoft does not want to support older OS versions, it’s their problem. As I do not plan upgrading to XP, I don’t care about this vaporware. Not at all. Especially as I already moved to Mozilla camp.
Third, with a beta in summer dont’t expect a final IE7 before Christmas. By the time Mozilla & Firefox will implement the rest of CSS3 (at least the parts published so far) and as lot of other goodies. Remember that Firefox is not a sitting duck but a moving target.
/This is great news! Just in time too. /
HAHAHAAAA!! Almost four years behind all the others and you call it just in time. Whahahahaaa!! Wake up buddy. Behind the shiny icons is the same crap they made five years ago. Just use it, be safe for a week or two and get a clean install. Again.
I welcome the security improvements, but there’s no mention of web standards. Will CSS support be updated? Will XHTML support be updated? In fact, will anything regarding the rendering engine be updated?
If the answer is no, then IE7 regardless of security fixes is just not going to cut it… Picking through my standard html and css trying to force IE compatibility is just plain irritating. I no longer bother – if it works fine. If it doesn’t, I point users to Firefox, Opera or Safari.
Hopefully you guys will take a long look at the competition and take note. Look forward to the beta…
can’t wait to ditch firefox.
I’ve betaed every version of IE since I grabbed IE 4 on a 14.4 modem, so of course I’ll be getting the IE 7 beta when it comes out.
Don’t bet on me using it as my primary browser, though. Previous versions only had to fight their predecessor for a place on my Quick Links bar, which was always easy. But this time, it’ll have to beat Firefox in usability, tweakability, security, and standards compliance–all places where Firefox is currently killing IE.
Good luck, guys–I expect this will be an interesting battle.
Standards support is, right now, the most important thing for IE, as far as I’m concerned. Although admittedly, since I don’t actually use IE, I don’t care for usage enhancements, I only care that the pages I create work.
Steve Ballmer said it best: "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"
@Dan: That’s just the point, isn’t it? You are a highly experienced computer user and, with the help of *an additional piece of hardware* and no less than *4 different software products running locally*, you managed to make your IE secure.
For comparison, I have no antivirus software, no software firewall, no pest hunter. I rely solely on my Linux router and its firewall to protect me from direct attacks, and I use Mozilla/Firefox for browsing. And guess what: I never had any bad stuff either!
Face it: Mozilla is about as secure as IE + 4 supporting applications. And that’s not a good sign for IE. And most of the web users, even though in possession of half a brain and not being lazy, simply do not understand enough about computers to secure IE. In fact, I find your insinuation offensive. Not to me, but to people like my sister, my mother, and various other people I know, who are definitely intelligent and not lazy, but simply lack technical knowledge and interest. What would you do? Deny them access to the web? Tell them to RTFM and secure the computer?
As for fonts: Mozilla has an easy to use option in its font configuration to disallow pages setting fonts. Exactly what you claim it lacks. And if memory serves me right, it had this functionality since pre-1.0 days.
OK, this is undoubtedly "great" news. But for whom, BTW? Just sit down and waste a few seconds on thinking of some possible security threats corporate IT staff like me have to anticipate each and every day: Doesn’t IE pop up a few times too often on the list of notoriously bug-ridden software? Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mind IE at all, though lots of my fellow colleagues undoubtedly do. I just try to avoid it like the plague. Just listen to some non-moron admin and –hey, pronto!– you will see why and how much resentment IE has earned itself within less a decade of its being "on the market". With SP2, the situation has even gotten worse for MS provides (a feeling of) security by having IE bugging you with lots of highly irrelevant questions–especially nervewrecking for developers who know their job; but that IE won’t budge. Oh, IE, will you just shut up! Or just allow me to bypass these so-called ‘security features’ without having to sacrifice the rest of SP2! See, all an admin needs and wants is a browser that’s compliant, safe and easy to use in user as well as mission-critical environments–IE on the other hand barely fulfills just one of these rather basic admin’s requirements. Also, most admins can’t afford to keep tailoring their content to meet a certain browser’s needs in terms of code; so we want a browser we can use freely on the most common platforms, i.e., Windows, Linux as well Mac. Do this and we’ll love you.
Dare we hope that we will be able to install more than one version of IE on a system going forward? You know, like we can with every other browser out there? It would be a huge help for those of us who need to test in various browsers but can’t afford to buy a new PC for every test.
i like to download the newer version of msn
Also wanted to stress STANDARDS COMPLIANCE, better css and dom support, PNG support, along with everyone else.
If the opportunity is missed yet again to finally properly implement these features properly, and to finally engineer a standards compliant browser, IE will officially be dead to me.
Simple, indeed. I use whatever platform is the best for a given task: linux for scientific programming because of unreached availability of free developement tools, and linux for easy and effective net management. Windows for presentations because I cannot find something as easy and powerful as PPT+TexPoint for my work. Surfing with IE6 is a mess, you simply cannot go out with it without getting pissed by silly spyware and so on. I think it’s absolutely crazy being obliged to run a crap firewall (ain’t easy to find one which is both free and good), an antivirus, a resident anti-spyware (forget "microsoft antispyware", which is clearly a joke) plus a good scan by "AdAware" just to be sure. Crazy. I am absolutely not against microsoft "because it is microsoft"… I just face the reality: SP2 or not, patches or not, Internet with IE6 seems like inferno – and it should not be, isn’t it?
Let’s see what IE7 (and maybe Longhorn) will bring us…
That seems good news but I think it will produce as systems slow down as Windows Media Player 10 update.
A dramatic weakness in Version 6 is the fact that you cannot set the print option to Landscape and have it stick. I would hope that this is correction in Version 7, otherwise FoxFire looks increasingly attractive.
WHAT? ARE YOU SERIOUS? I’m with Firefox all the way. Don’t even try to sell the DOM inspector. Don’t even try to sell all that stuff that’s already FREE. I’m not waiting for IE7. I’m waiting for Firefox 1.1 PR, 1.1, 1.5, 2.0, and future versions.
IE7 is just a Firefox 1.0 ripoff. A wannabee. A downgraded version.
OPEN SOURCE should not be copied by other bigger companies. It should be kept to developers!
I would not be considered crazy if I said that IE7 would be like IE, but more like Firefox.
Here’s a proposition: Just make the software that you’re good at. Give the Opera/AvantBrowser/MozillaOrganization the other stuff.
And what about Thunderbird? Are you just going to upgrade your Outlook again? Please….
Now, the problem is that Firefox is already targeted for spyware in the progressing year. But then Mozilla will take action again. Open Source is good because you can tweak it and tweak it.
I wouldn’t be considered crazy if I said this, correct?
With IE 6 and WinXP SP2, if I print most webpages to an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, the right side of the webpage will almost always get cut off.
I can print these pages fine in Firefox.
Will IE7 fix these printing problems?
Why are transparent PNGs such a big deal? I had no idea they were that prevalent. I join everyone else on my hopes that IE7 fully complies to web standards.
When are you going to have a new IE Mac release?
Please, please, please….
I’m one of those who get crazy writing cross browser web apps, please stick to the standards!
…or you will be loosing othe market shares.
I wonder If there is a Roadmap or a plann about the changes / Releases or something that let us know what’s comming? I’m almost sure IE7 won’t Include Tabbed browsing and maybe not IDN implementations, si, But what will It be? Full support for PNG? JPG2000?
I need to develop a site (Long Term development) and I would like to know what to spect for.
Thanks In advance
I think a new version of IE is especially usefull for the ones who are very loyal to MS products and haven’t made a browser switch yet. I don’t think Mozilla or Opera users will switch back.
I knew it, I absolutely damn well knew it!! There was no good reason to hold off releasing a new version of IE. Gary Schare’s comments, (Director of Windows Product Management), that no standalone release of IE would be available until the release of Longhorn, were a complete load of crap then and remain a complete load of crap to this day. "Increased security threats and an eroding market share following the launch of Mozilla Firefox" are exactly the reasons why I knew the decision would be reversed and I feel vindicated. IE7 should be made available to Windows 2000 (it’d be silly not to), but thank God common sense has won the day!
And if anyone from MS reads this – for Gods sake please rewrite IE from the ground up ‘as much as you can’ while still keeping it compatible with Windows XP and Windows 2000. The fact that Gary Schare uses Maxathon as an interface for IE says an awful lot about the current state of the IE interface.
I think the "Feature" I’d like to see most in the next IE is for it to seperate itself from the OS. Windows the Operating System, and other Microsoft products need to be seperate. This would highly increase your security. If IE was not built into Windows, like it is now, most of the spyware and adware problems would be much less severe. I’d also like to see Active X 2.0 or something…where the security actually works and can not be bipassed. Until then, all the machines in my company will remain with IE "security" settings set to the highest capacity and Firefox as their default browser (same goes for Outlook express too!).
Just give this browser a new name, so that it does not fall in all the tar pits (read: workarounds) which are extra built for IE with the UserAgent detection …
I hope that it will better comply with the standards, so that in feature everyone can use the browser which he prefers and is not bound to this crappy IE.
I think one thing can be said here; ‘Microsoft, this is your last chance. Get it right. Please.’
I believe that you can do it.
Any readers of Gladwell’s tipping point here? This is a classic tipping point situation. Mozilla was for the enthusiasts. Firefox killed one of the main complaints about Mozilla — it’s perceived slowness — and with the spread of that meme came the early adopters. With Firefox 1.0, the Early Majority is building.
Firefox Mavens and Salesmen are out there proselytizing to their friends. Firefox users are so pleased by the product they insist others try it whenever they have the opportunity to show it.
It’s going to take a lot more than IE7.0 to stop Firefox from tipping.
I dont know why its taking so long; Dean Edwards has already done the hard work for you: http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/intro/
If IE 7 is just security, a lot of people will be very disapointed. Tabs, skins, plugins are all very nice but if you dont fix the rendering engine its all just eye candy.
Give us fixed backgrounds, trans pngs, generated content, psuedo classes on all elements, ability to choose alternative stylesheets without javascript, svg, and mathML support.
I’m glad to see that you (Microsoft) are finaly taking the step to come out with a new browser. I just hope you take the advice that has been posed in this blog. You can talk about "security" all you want but if the new version dosen’t have proper support for standards like your competitors (Firefox) you going to continue to loose the respect of the web developers, which in turn is going to trickle down to the users because the web developers are going to tell them truth. I can be redundant and repeat what most peole are posting to fix, but I think you get the picture. Good luck and I hope to see a well-performing product.
To assist me in my browsing to mozilla.org and download firefox that is.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/images.php?imageid=9307
I’d like to see IE become a decent browser…
I’m not expecting a browser of "Opera-quality" but just something which would render homepages as they should be rendered.
And get rid of the pop-up stopper notice! A pop-up blocker is used to block pop-ups INCLUDING annoying/non-sense notices.
Why Yahoo!’s position on Firefox, Microsoft’s announcement of IE 7, and "Tiger" could spell trouble for Firefox.
Maybe now my CSS and XHTML valid web page will display properly in some version of IE.
>>we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners
Shouldn’t that read ‘we listened to customers, analysts, business partners AND DEVELOPERS’.
Oh, I’ve got that ‘cold blood’ thing going on.
PNG alpha, css2, SVG, guys! Let someone else do the design for you. It’s called ‘standards’ for a reason.
Hehehe
IE6 was crappy, and delivering IE7 on a rush will be a very funny way of changing the perception of the browser by his users…
Oh yeah I can STRONGLY suggest something…
PLEASE fix the rendering engine! It is a must!
i just want to try ie 7
Sverri, there’s an option in the popup blocker setting that controls showing the Information Bar (aka goldbar). It’s on by default, but you can turn off showing the goldbar easily enough.
Is microsoft going to get into the infinte beta software world? As you wrote "We’re going to release a beta and listen, then refresh the beta and listen some more. We’ll ship when the product is ready…"
I’m starting to see Google (beta) this (beta) that and never get enything working production quality. Sounds like you guys are trying to imitate others which is odd considering your (MS) past history.
You need a licence to use GIF’s. You can sell the viewing of GIF’s. PNG is much more advanced but is free. Billy don’t like that. And then we are were we allways end up. THEY make more money and YOU get the old stuff, the malware, the spyware etc. IE had a very bad reputation and it’s not going to change because 7 is a lucky number.
"included for free in Windows"
Yeah, right. We all know Microsoft is a charity company and research on new products is paid with money from Bill’s own pockets.
C’mon, wake up and smell the coffee: the price is included in every Windows license. You just download updates for free. And for a good reason: to keep you locked in.
"Avalon/WinFX is a TOP priority for Microsoft. Those messy HTML/CSS soup for Microsoft is not a long term platform."
Someone is in need of a reality check. XML-based solutions are far more verbose than any html form today. And CSS is a good way to keep presentation style separate from the application logic. I don’t know what Avalon styling system will look like, but even though it likely isn’t CSS, it probably will be something quite similar…
I am excited to see what is actually released. I have developed sites for many years now and have always tried to make the same code work on ALL major browsers. If it doesn’t work/look right in IE, FireFox or Opera I usually make modification to make it work as close to the desired effect, and lately it has been IE that has been the cause of trouble because of lack of "standards" compatibility.
Proprietary IE stuff I will never use. So don’t make it.
Web developers scream: STANDARDS! Start with CSS, please.
<br>
<br>(Or we will keep recommending other browsers that make our developer life easier, and believe when I say my customers listen to me).
Too late… already switched to Firefox.
More security is nice, but please: Work on standard support. CSS2 and stuff like that. And do it right, for once. Just brand a FireFox build for all i care.
Microsoft, You crappy browser is pissing me off in a day to day basis. Please, please make the hurting stop.
Look at all these immature and lame little firefox fanboys come to take a pop at IE7s proposal.
All I can say is look to the past, who pioneered GUI web browsers on windows Netscape and IE… who had the shiteist rendering and lack of support for true DHTML… oh was it netscape?
Who enabled the average joe to create a website that looked perfect in the MAJORITY of computers running IE Worldwide out of the box….
Dont get me wrong I use firefox myself BUT all you little tards making immature stupid lame comments on issues you dont know about just piss myself, others and probably MS off…
Yes firefox is good but it has its shortfalls AS DOES IE…
Hopefully IE 7 will address these but NOBODY KNOWS, so give feature requests, etc BUT STOP ACTING LIKE RETARDS SAYING oh… ff beats IE anyday for the rest of eternity…
I’m happy to know that Microsoft is taking the step to come out with a response to Firefox
Please Microsoft. Add PNG support!
Also wanting better standards compliance. I’d get my work done far quicker if I didn’t have to keep adding in hacks for PNG transparency, multiple ways of add events and suchlike. CSS likewise. Why on earth I can’t :hover over text or images?!
For compatibility. Windows 2000 is perfectly capable of doing whatever XP can, you should know. Why restrict usage to those on Windows XP (and then, only SP2 for that matter)?
It’s like Microsoft randomly denying Windows 95 users IE6, but Win98 users could use it. Win95 is almost exactly the same as 98.
It will only work if IE7 actually has everything FF has- and more. I do not really mind which company i browse with, as long as it is what people want. IF you’re someone who tried and didn’t like FF (I like both IE & FF) at least be grateful to the mozilla guys for ‘getting microsoft to get off their asses and do something’. One last thing… Make it compatible, had a lot of trouble getting IE to work as well as other browsers, during design and coding.
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¦Josh Brennan¦
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Good to hear…
Just remember while working on v7 that its STANDARDS and CONSISTENCY that are important. I don’t mean to pull out the soapbox here but if we are going to make any strides towards a semantic web we have all got to start playing on the same page. It won’t happen if site designers consistently need to invent and deploy browser hacks to make things work.
Oh, since the ASP.Net team is planning to have xhtml 1.1 set as the default rendering you might want to consider having IE 7 support "application/xhtml+xml" without gaging and cleaning up the CSS implementation (borders on outside, (min|max)-(height|width)support, etc) before worrying about things like tabbed browsing and integrated RSS support.
I do honestly like you guys but sometimes I have to wonder how much of the grey in my beard is from dealing with my brother and how much is from dealing with quirky MS implementations
Obviously better security and protection from spyware/malware is welcome. But since we can get those things outside the browser, we still need to run stand-alone spyware/malware apps.
I want to echo every sentiment here about improved web standards support and better graphics standards support.
I also want substantial user interface improvements. You can do all you want with standards or security, but I’ll never go back to using a browser without tabs.
@vetinari
> “This is just good business sense. Microsoft’s first duties aren’t to its customers, but its shareholders.”
Ya know, it’s quite possible (we’d have to check) that some of Microsoft’s shareholders are also Microsoft customers.
But the “bottom line,” as they say? No customers, no shareholders. I guess this confusion is to be expected, though, from someone who, obviously, doesn’t know the meaning of the words "monoculture" or “standards.” Try to remember this: monoculture = bad, standards = good; monoculture = closed, standards = open. Think you can handle that?
Microsoft is, in our society and economy, free to commit whatever (legal) silliness it wants when it’s affecting only its shareholders and customers. But, the Internet Community is (collectively) neither of those. Microsoft doesn’t (yet) own it. Despite manic attempts to get into the game late — after Billion Dollar Bill opined, quite publicly, that it (the Internet and Web) would amount to nothing. For example, MSN didn’t conquer the Web (as I’m sure was intended). Hotmail (a Microsoft acquisition) has been successfully beaten back by the likes of Yahoo! Mail and, lately, GMail. Google’s search engine is so far superior to anything Microsoft has been able to acquire it makes my day every time I think about it. Was IE the first successful Web browser? We all know it wasn’t. Historically, before the Net, there was Quicken vs. Microsoft Money. Gates is often (unfairly, I think) criticized for being a “tight wad” when it comes to philanthropic activities. Here’s an example where Gates tried to give Money away and almost nobody took it! In all of those cases (and countless others), Microsoft reacted. It didn’t innovate. Indeed, when Microsoft does take the initiative, it’s usually to take something useful back, not to provide something new and useful. For example: killing free access to Hotmail through Outlook Express. Now that was a real "innovation."
Being a good Netizen means abiding by and, in the case of developing products to be used by other Netizens, implementing the community’s standards. Not your own. Got a better idea? Take it to the people who approve the standards and present your case. It isn’t a perfect process, but at least it’s an OPEN process.
Our friend vetinari is definitely kissing the right corporate hinder. Like Microsoft, vetinari probably doesn’t know the difference between the words innovation and acquisition either.
Here’s an, admittedly gratuitous, tip for reading Microsoft press releases: Whenever a Microsoftie says "innovate" substitute "acquire;" "innovated" substitute "acquired;" "innovation" substitute "acquisition." It’s, usually, also appropriate to append the qualifying phrase, “and, then, screwed it up” to any of these substitutions. Of course, these are non-standard uses of the word "acquire." Oops, did I say "non-standard." I meant, of course, "proprietary" (or, in Microsoft-speak, "compatible and extensible").
From Day One, Microsoft has either "appropriated" or purchased (usually at the seller’s disadvantage) its technology. The original BASIC (the product upon which Microsoft was founded) was appropriated from Dartmouth College with no attribution to Professors Kemmeny and Kurtz (the TRUE innovators of that language), only claims of "ownership" by Bill Gates in an open letter published at the time. MS-DOS? Bought from a small (one-person) Seattle company for $50,000 — AFTER Gates knew IBM was going to license it for the new IBM PC. Windows? Licensed (v1.0) from Apple (of course, Apple appropriated it from Xerox, so what goes around comes around in that case). Then, of course, there’s IE. Licensed from Spyglass. The list goes on and on. In fact, I can’t think of a single SUCCESSFUL technology ever marketed by Microsoft that they actually innovated. Microsoft innovation has been more on the order of "Bob." Anybody remember Bob? I didn’t think so. Even that was based on work done by some very brilliant Stanford University professors whose ideas were simply perverted by Microsoft’s implementation. Very sad.
For those of you poor, deluded souls hoping that IE7 is anything other than patented Bill Gates-style F.U.D. (U.S. Patent No. 66666666 issued to Microsoft Corporation) to head off the strong assault Firefox (and universal dissatisfaction with Microsoft’s years of ignoring pleas for plugging security leaks in IE) are, yourselves, victims of that F.U.D. Think about MS Word. How old is MS Word? About 20 years. Does it still have bugs in its basic page rendering algorithm? You betcha! In the end, though, Microsoft has a great come-back to any claims that it makes crappy products: “Hey, we just bought the stuff!”
If I were the Firefox or Opera folks, I wouldn’t worry too much about IE7. If, as claimed in this post, it’s an extension of XPSP2, it will be it’s own worst enemy. Microsoft backed itself into a corner with the technical inadequacies it built into the COM architecture. One result is the ham-fisted security “upgrades” perpetrated by XPSP2 and recent IE security patches. Microsoft has been trying to extricate itself from its own bear trap with .NET, but COM was so “successful” it’s like a very clever virus that can’t be killed even by its creators. I’d be willing to bet more than half the “new” .NET stuff being built out there would simply not work without COM interop. It’s quite ironic, don’t you think? The one technology Microsoft may actually have come up with on its own (although, it, too, is a derivative – I won’t give them full credit for anything given their track record) is, now, biting them in the butt big time? I love it!
Microsoft should just fund FireFox development instead of spending more money on IE.
I forgot to say complete the support for css2 and all those thinks you already know (Including the Xforms W3C recomentation).
Best Regards.
While I am a personal and not a business user I am picky about what goes on my systems. As just a regular user I have some complaints and have found most PC owners I talk to have the same complaint. The complaint is that most developers weather it be OS, Game or other type of program are in to much of a rush to supply the demanding public we are. Yes we complain when something seems to take forever to be released but most of us are willing to wait for a BUG FREE product. It seems to me with a lot of the programs I have purchased I spend more time installing updates than I do actually enjoying the product. Yes I realize that the large companies are there to make money but it makes more sence to me to have a bug free product and happy customers than it does to release a product with a mess of bugs that have to fixed by continual free download patches and a complaining comsumer. I run a low end older system and I also have a mid range newer system as well as a laptop all with the XP Upgrade installed. In the last year I have spent approximately $8000.00 on PC products in the software category for my 3 systems and will spend thsat and more again this year. I would really like to see my money go for a more quality oriented product then a quanity oriented product. I am not that tech oriented or understand a lot about some of the PC related issues but know enough for hardware upgrades and for the most part how to find the culprit to a problem and sometimes able to fix it myself. I know new software undergoes a teating phase as it should but would like to see the systems used for testing more low end out of the box type systems so the testers can locate and experience a lot of the bugs us endusers seem to find after a product has been released and that way the developers can repair these bugs so a more bug free product can be released to us high demand consumers. Whatever wait we experience and complain about would be worth it in my honest opinion. I play a lot of Microsofts Zoo Tycoon and we have a saying " Happy Animals = Happy Guests " well here’s one for developers and companies to consider " Happy consumers = Rise in Sales and Profits"
Just a simple everyday endusers comments
Microsoft anuncia que sacará una beta de internet explorer 7 este verano. Aunque lo nieguen, está claro que esto es una reacción a la amenaza que Firefox está representando. Parece ser que en Microsoft han visto el fantasma de Netscape…
There are a lot of things mentioned here that people would like to see in IE7. However most, if not all, are already avialable in other browsers. Plus, if it wasn’t for Firefox, IE7 beta wouldn’t be coming out this summer. IE7 wouldn’t be out until Longhorn comes out some time in 2006. So, if you can’t wait until this summer for the beta of IE7, give Firefox a try.
Here is the link: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
If that involves making Firefox a decent browser, sure. But since it isn’t, I’d rather they crush it.
AHAHAHA! You’ve got to be kidding me. You actually welcome IE 7.0. Go figure this blog is on an MSDN based site. When Internet Explorer 7.0 comes out I can pretty much guess (acturately too albeit) that it will be riddled with security holes that hackers will find within about 1-2 months if not quicker. Do I use IE, of course some sites still force you to use IE to view the pages correctly. Although I do perfer FireFox for the majority of the time. Why IE 7 now? I don’t understand why anyone would need to ask this. Microsoft is lossing its grip on the browser market and better put something out soon or that 10% will turn into 50% by the end of the summer. The model of wait until a new OS release for a new browser release is absurd. Internet explorer should have been upadated when new standards were finalized and took hold. Sure Mozilla has been around for a while, but so has IE and look which one has more features and security built in. Although I am well aware that Firefox is not immune to attacks.
Preuve que le marché (peu porteur…) des navigateurs est relancé, Bill Gates a annoncé vouloir intégrer une nouvelle version de IE au système d’exploitation développé actuellement par Microsoft (Longhorn). Il se pourrait même que la version beta soit …
Opposite of Sequitur
[log]
= IE7, for realz? // Seth Thomas Rasmussen
lol, IE has 90% of the browser market, Fire fox has a few percent and people think microsoft are in trouble. Very funny reading these posts.
looking forward to your new browser. Hope that you will make the beta’s avaible to the public like other browsers do, it allows for the most complete feedback.
Good luck and thanks for all your continued hard work.
<p>Leo en <a href=’http://www.alt1040.com/archivo/2005/02/16/internet-explorer-7/’>Alt1040</a> que Internet Explorer 7 saldrá pronto en <a href=’http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx’>versión beta</a>.<br />
El autor dice: ¿a quién l
lo necesito para probarlo
If they’re going to call it "IE 7" there better be more than just security upgrades. There better be new features, full support for PNG, CSS, and other technologies, and much more. Otherwise, it really is just IE6 SP3.
As for me, I’m eternally thankful I’m using Firefox on a Mac.
ok, standard "XHTML, CSS, Etc support" requests aside, the biggest thing i’d like to see out of IE7 is ECMAScript4 support. Microsoft did a good thing in basing large bits of JScript.Net off it. I say you should beat Mozilla.org at its own game & get full support out. For those of you who dont know, ECMAScript4 / JavaScript 2.0 is a major update to the language. it introduces a large number of features including true class based inheritence, namespaces, real types, and a strict mode. anyone who’s tried to do anything heavy-duty in javascript knows these things would make life significantly more sane.
OK. If it’s slimmed down, lean, quick to adapt to change like FF, security conscious and has some really cool features to make it better than FF, then perhaps I’m prepared to look at a beta – out of curiosity, you understand. Surprise me, you’ve still got the revenue! And if it doesn’t work, who’s to say MS can’t reinvent itself again in five, ten or twenty years’ time?
Good to hear that the stable door is going to be firmly closed in a few months time.
What horse?
Why would anyone bother with IE if the only enhancements are security related? There are plenty of secure alternatives which also have much more standards support. If you had really listened to what people are saying, you would be greatly improving the rendering engine as well. Until then, IE will be inferior to every other modern browser in existence.
I have one thing to say:
If all the browsers used the same freeking geko engine we wouldn’t have this flipping problem.
All these coporate crybabies need to have it there way! I can here them now whining like little bitches. Why do you need your own engine?
And the biggest thing; Why do allow such garbage?
I just know that IE will screw us with this new release…I guess it gives us something to do?! Here comes another headache!
-ryan | web designer
The amount of man hours wasted trying to fix a “user friendly” application which should not be even released, and the amount of time it takes for M$ to fix it, it is hard to believe the number of people still uses IE or for that matter Windows. Folks, don’t you think it is time to give other OSs a try?
In my experience as a security consultant, we ought to be thankful to M$ for all their screw ups for keeping us busy. However, everywhere I go, I usually try to point out an alternative solution. [Surprisingly!] there are a lot more alternative solutions compared to eleven years ago when I started.
New browser may bring back some of their users, and will definitely create enough security holes. If you HAVE TO run Windows or IE, spend some time on security reading and making sure you are not completely exposed.
Ever viewed ebuyer.com without CSS enabled? (turn it off with th webdev toolbar in firefox):
"Please note:
The content here at ebuyer.com is accessible to every type of browser, however, this browser appears to not support any of the basic Web Standards. To view the site as it is intended please feel free to upgrade your browser from either of these. Mozilla, IE6, Opera or Netscape"
I like ebuyer for this because they mention Mozilla before IE6 :).
One day i’ll end up writing something like that for people using IE.
(My previous post was targeted @bob).
NorthPole, there is no need to repeat yourself.
Very funny reading about Fire fox.
IE – rulezzzzz!
Please, please, please take on the very real requirement of the web standards. Sure keep your own tags, they give added functionality but stick to the standards for the core stuff. Just look at the number of comments on this, its in plain english, this is what WE want.
-Best of luck with the new browser.
Hello, Mr Tommy Roach obviously hasnt used firefox.
Have you seen the development blog, or perhaps the bugzilla, omg updated daily, so shut up.
Microsoft will struggle as always when it comes to good applications, because THEY JUST CANT CODE EFFECTIVELY, or ..good..
Why did Microsoft waited more than 3 years to deliver a new version if the IE? Now they say we listen to our customers and due to various reasons bluh bluh we’re developing the new version.. Years made IE a very fat cat. Just sitting all the time. Now there is a new player, a fox..
Semantic Frenzy » Rumours about IE7
Freedreams » Inmenso Excremento 7
MS needs to make standards compliance priority #1. If IE7 doesn’t have DOM2, CSS2 and at least some part of CSS3, XMLHTTPRequest as a NON-ACTIVEX object that is syntax compatible with every other browser out there (how hard can this be for a company that practically oozes billions of dollars??), and Javascript 1.5 (hello, try/catch?! good lord IE6 is out of date!)… Tabbed browsing is a distant, distant second to standards compliance.
The sad thing is, we’re likely just going to see some sad security update and probably the introduction of some new Active-X or XAML-related vendor lock-in nonsense. I’m not holding my breath.
MyIE2 is the BEST browser to ever come out…
MS wont ever come near it!!!!!!!
Dont update to this IE7,go with the best!!!!
The Dude
It is ultimately good that MS is updating IE7.
But frankly, its far too late.
Firefox is simply _the best_ browser there is. Even Opera rocks IE6 to the ground. Anyone played with its voice-functionality in Op8?
Im not sure I could develop a site without using Firefox’s developer toolbar extension.
Some really good, pro-firefox talk on this page. Its great to hear it. I couldnt give 2 monkeys about IE7. Firefox 1.0 is here now.
> I think of today’s announcement as a clear
> statement back to our customers: “Hey,
> Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”
Hmm, I think you can beter formulate this sentence like: "Due to the unexpected, rapid, growth of alternative browsers, MS is forced to .."
I would like to see the browser not so integrated into the OS. I’m sure the idea is to keep us all from using firefox, opera, or whatever, but it doesn’t work and is therefore useless to "force" us.
Also thanks for giving the firefox developers more incentive to further kick your ass
IE7? Look, if you guys are going to bother releasing another version of IE, do the world a few favors:
1. Add REAL PNG Support
2. Add REAL CSS 2 Support
3. Add REAL DOM 2 Support
4. Add REAL XHTML Support
Just to let you know, I’ve stopped using IE6 for months now. If you ever hope to have me pick it up again, FIX THE D**NED THING!
Good news. Competition will keep all camps up and running.
I switched to Firefox a while back due to its feature set. If you want to get FF customers back, please comply with open standards, put in a rich plug-in architecture, and add in an option for tabbed browsing. Working on security is great, but don’t forget to bring your feature set and standards compliance up to par, or there will be no reason for us to switch back.
Please Please add tab browsing!
why MS bother to make IE7 when there is Firefox??!?!?!:)
better make something windows works fast, stable and secure.
oooh i see IE7 is somthing like by way of an apology that longhorn i delayed another year:)
blah …
:)))
Since when is a service pack a web browser !?!?!?
Sorry for this rant… but as far as i’m concerned… MS = they would love you to subscribe for everything = their holy grail.
And why do get a checkbox "install msn toolbar" when updating messenger??!!!
it should be unchecked default!
back to FireFox
everybody is talking about feautures that are present!!!!! why do you ask for:
1. Add REAL PNG Support
2. Add REAL CSS Support
3. Add REAL DOM Support
4. Add REAL XHTML Support
5. Leave ActiveX
6. More Fast
7. More based on standards
8. Tabbed browsing
why?
WHY ARE YOU USING IE?!?!?!?!?!?
MSIE does everything except what you want it to do, and firefox opera whatever other browser does what you want and more securely, so why do you want those feautures? just stick with your other browser and let microsoft live on his perfect "secure" world
<< I think all the people here going on about how it would be nice for IE to fully support css etc and then ranting on about how good FF is could do with not being so quick to judge. Sometimes the most basic css doesn’t work in FF and does in IE. >>
Mmm… try a simple CSS’ :hover effect on a DIV, on Internet Explorer this doesn’t work at all and you need JavaScript. Stick with Firefox (or Netscape 8).
anything about tabbed browsing?
<p><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx">Word is</a> Internet Explorer 7 is coming this year.</p>
<p>*Yawn*</p>
<p>So far no one has given a reason to use it. Plus, since it’s from Microsoft, you know it’s going to be buggy.</p
Please also support Windows2000.
Gott love the diverse reactions regarding FireFox. From my personal experience, most of the people who dislike FireFox are basically "bad" programmers/developers who preferred when they could get away with awful IE-hacked garbage. Now people, and more than just creative types, know what web standards are, and request them. You actually have to know HTML to get a web page to work right, imagine that.
Anyway, unless IE7 can be developed as a cross-platform application (OSX, XP, 2K, etc.) then it’s not going to gain back the market share. OSX users are growing, and the last IE for Mac, despite being ahead of it’s time, is still riddles w/ errors. (My apologies Tantek).
Microsoft does NOT care about every day consumers. That’s been obvious every release of Windows back since 95 (3.x was great for its time IMO)
It’s been said over and over again… fix the render problem. Implement CSS2/3 support. As a web developer, as many have said, it’s a real pain to build a site that’s cross platform compatible and compliant simply because IE doesn’t have a clue when it comes to CSS.
Until that’s fixed… IE won’t be winning back too many web developers.
P.S.
… a :hover effect that changes the background color (for example)…
Forgive my cynicism, but somehow I think this will just make my life as a web developer harder than easier. I’m truly fed up of making sites support the outdated, buggy IE – please take this opportunity to embrace standards as well as security issues.
I hope you guys read all this.
oh yeah here’s another one:
why does MSN messnger insist on lauching Internet Explorer?!? (eg click on "check your mail")
***even when you set another default browser***
ohyeah… transpartent PNGs would be nice too
)
(umpteenth time I guess
Since it will not support W2k in our corporate environment we will continue our conversion of all computers to Firefox.
Hello, I have a question about IE 7: Is it going to support any platforms other than WinXP and Longhorn? I currently use IE 6 with Linux (using Crossover Office wine 4.1) and it works quite well. Will MS be supporting Linux users with this release also?
And the other question is about PNGs. When are we going to get correct PNG support? This should be an almost-trivial fix and it is years overdue.
All browsers have their downfalls. I really do hope IE7 practices proper rendering but it seems that the only thing that will be addressed is security. I <i>thought</i> the security issues were supposed to have been already addressed in IE6.
Regardless, IE7 will need to have more features built into it (easily customized, tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, etc.) to be able to even attempt to coax back the users that abandoned (and are continuing to abandon) IE in favor of Firefox/Opera. Everybody I know that uses Firefox is so used to their extensions that when they use IE it ticks them off. They won’t be giving up their extensions or Firefox any time soon. Trust me on that.
Please add Full CSS2 and/or CSS3 Support
I use firefox with a few plugins , adblock being one of the most useful.
Adblock lets me tell my browser to never display specifc items from a certain source.
Like when you go to cnn.com or something and there are ads there , you can block just the ads and nothing else.
Cnn.com works just fine with tha ads removed.
If i was useing dialup it would be a even more important capability because all the ads on pages are sometimes a larger chunk of data than the whole rest of the page.
My personal system has xp with internet explorer , windows media player , outlook express and a bunch of other junk stripped out.
search gooogle for nlite if you want to do it.
The only thing i ever need to use ie for is for bank of america website.
Ive got another computer in the house that has ie still that is for people that come over.
If i have to use the BOA website , which is like every other month or so i use that.
For peoples computer i work on , friends and business, i recommend firefox to use for security and useability and only use ie if the page will not work on firefox , banking pages being the only ones users i know have a problem with.
good
Ok it’s summer. Where is Internet Explorer 7? It was supposed to be in beta by summer….
I’m a longtime Microsoft web developer who finally switched to Firefox for most of my browsing. Though it seems to spawn itself a little slower, and there’s a couple of bugs that I found slightly annoying, the convenience of the browser won me over. I enjoy being able to resize text to any size, even if it is specified in pixels with CSS. Tabbed browsing makes managing intense browsing sessions so much easier. All kinds of cool developer add-ons make my life easier.
I still use IE for testing site appearances of course, and I have to use it for certain Microsoft/MSDN "IE only" only web applications. It’s going to be hard to switch me back to IE as my default browser unless they lift wholesale all of the cool and convenient features of FireFox. If only IE7 had come a little earlier…
Yes, security may be the announced reason for this new release of IE, but I think Firefox is one of the major reasons…I suspect Microsoft is a little worried.
IE7 developers — not sure how much motivation you have to do this, but if you do one thing, please make sure that IE7 can handle CSS/XHTML standards correctly. IE6 already does a fairly good job, but just make extra sure that IE7 implements standards correctly. (This is also your chance to fix the few things that are not handled yet by FireFox). That way if IE maintains it’s domination over the browser market, fellow developers everywhere will be grateful and respectful to you!
If you can’t get your managers to agree, maybe you can sneak it in! We developers have to maintain some sort of integrity besides what the managers and marketers say.
Thanks
OMG, Microsoft forces us to use IE? How silly can you be. Yes it is part of the OS to … drum roll … allow other MS products and 3rd party products to not have to reinvent the wheel.
Being an avid Firefox user on Windows, I find the idea that MS prevents us from using another broser silly just due to the fact that so many of us ARE using another browser.
Allow simple plugins like firefox does. Also allow better control over what plugin affects various filetypes. Kill activex support.
Those of us who use tabbed browsers based on the IE6 core will be looking forward to the implementation of tabbed browsing in IE7, if only because it will force plugin developers to rewrite their code for MDI interfaces so we can use them in our own tabbed browsing environments. For Pete’s sake–we might even use IE itself if it comes to that!
Continued
For ie to be my main browser again it would have to have this:
Pop-up/under blocking.
Adblock capability.
No integration with the os for storage of temp files , passwords , history and such.
That is the storage for those files is in one folder and i can delete it anytime i like when im not running the browser.
Not like the current ie which the only way to see all of the files in the ie temporary folders is from another operating system.
Ability to archive websites like the firefox spiderzilla plugin does.
I dont see this happening anytime soon.
IE7
So we’re going to get an Internet Explorer version 7 this year (in beta). That should theoretically be good news but we’ll see what features it will support. I doubt they’re going to do any kind of tabbed browsing (which is what makes Firefox …
Great news!
Hope to see a secure, W3C-comp. browser!
Wish you good job, and, please – make it to be standart CSS-friendly
D0h… Kinda interesting that no one from IE posted anything about updating standards in IE7. Sigh… why must developers learn to code two different standards?
Behind the competition as usual! Firefox, or any flavor of Mozilla for that matter, Opera, Safari (Mac only), are all leaps and bounds better than IE. There is really only one major problem with IE though, and that is an almost complete lack of standards compliance. Even the IE for Mac does a better job of standards compliance than any version of IE for Windows. Get with it, Microsoft!
STANDARDS, STANDARDS, STANDARDS!!!!!!!!!!! CSS2, CSS2.1, CSS3…I don’t care which one, just pick one, and implement it throroughly. I don’t ever want to have to code TWO websites again, just because IE sucks. I want to use all of the cool standards available to me, without having to detect which browser is being used, and dumb down my code for IE users.
I’ll say it again, just in case you missed it…
STANDARDS, STANDARDS, STANDARDS!!!!!!!!!!!
0
Good, because IE 6 really stinks. IE needs to be improved really badly.
IE’s days are over. The browser would have to be rebuilt from the ground up in a component, open source manner in order for it to beat Firefox. This will of course never happen as Microsoft doesn’t create software that way.
Funny… I design websites, testing in Firefox, and they display as intended in most major browsers. I design websites, testing in IE, and they display as intended in IE. Our company has already booted Microsoft out of most areas. It’s only a matter of time until IE is gone also. I guess if enough deep pockets give Microsoft the boot then maybe they’ll design a decent browser (among other things).
This one’s funny:
"I use IE because Firefox does not conform to the Win32 GUI Defaults; to me, those defaults are just as important as web standards."
Right, and I suppose you don’t use MS Office either? MS doesn’t have any proper UI guidelines because it would be immediately how inconsistent their own apps are.
<p><img src="http://online.tu-graz.ac.at/prod/img/ie.gif" />So, it comes…</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx" class="bb-url" target="_blank">IE Blog</a> Internet Explorer 7 will be out for testing in
Sounds like Microsoft was not hearing complaints from users before firefox stepped on the stage.
Why Microsoft has always been unctuous like this?
Please include proper support for CSS and XHTML. It wasn’t long ago that developers hated Netscape because of the way it displayed pages. Unfortunately many of us now feel that way about IE. I could live without "tabbed browsing" but it would be nice to include that as well as some of the other add-ons that Mozilla provides.
Obviously improved security is essential. However Firefox has some issues with security as well (they just don’t get the same amount of press). If IE was succeptible to homograph attacks like Opera, Mozilla and Firefox then it would be on the front page of every news website. I realize the problem has more to do with IDN than the browser itself, but IE doesn’t have the problem.
Who cares? Just add Avant Browser http://www.avantbrowser.com/ as your IE6 front end and you’ll probably still be light years ahead of IE7.
Full CSS2.1 compliance would be nice, but in any case, please don’t forget proper display: support, including display: table. It would allow creating tabular CSS layouts without misused <table> elements or floats. Thank you.
DAVE MASSEY:
Add download manager.
Skin support.
Capability to add plug-ins to the browser.
RSS Feeds!
Better support for CSS1-2-3!
PNG Support
ABBR Support!
Tabbed Browsing!
This announcement is just lip service. It’s a feeble attempt at damage control because IE has been slammed for legitimate reasons all over the press lately.
A beta release this summer? Give me a break. This is too little too late. The damage is done, the marketshare is being lost, and there is not a lot that an update targeted at XP SP2 exclusively will do to fix anything.
Yes, I wish I could be more optimistic about this, but MS’s track record to this point has been anything but stellar. Optimism will have to be earned.
Internet Explorer 7 Announced! Glory! – Elliott Back
We actually had to finally recommend to our viewers that the switch away from MSIE to a more standards-compliant browser like Firefox, Safari, or Opera.
Certainly if MSIE 7.0 comes out with true standards support we’ll change our recommendation. If it’s just a rehash of 6 with a couple of hasty security patches, we’ll keep on recommending something that’s more standards-compliant.
Will IE7 include support for JPEG2000 using JPIP now that both are ISO standards?
Yes this is excellent news.
Main thing standards! 4 as webmaster always must check site both in IE and in Opera and Firefox. If all are make standard to me will more simply develop sites.
Think about how long it took users to upgrade from Netscape 4…painful thought, isn’t it?
Well, get ready for another 7 years of browser statistics watching hell.
too late.
bye bye IE.
I like Firefox.
A few preliminary words…
My experience with IE 6 since its release has been fine as paint – all I have to do is not browse like a moron and weird crud stays off my system. It has serviced me very well, and there has never been any chance of me switching to a second-rate browser with a tortoiselike development process. As long as IE remains the driving force in WWW capabilities and makes it easy for me to interact securely with a sometimes dangerous global network, I will stick with it.
That said, I look forward to IE 7. I expect the same take-my-breath-away innovation that Microsoft has repeatedly demonstrated over the years in the full breadth of its products. I won’t pretend to know what’s in store, because no matter what I guess, I will be pleasantly surprised. I always am.
My only concern is that you provide REAL standards support.
Try REAL support for PNG. PNG supports alpha tarnsparency. There is no need, nor even desire, to add any nonsense "filters" for such a feature. The image itself supports it and clearly IE is capable of using alpha transparency…you guys just opted to cripple it so that the use of alpha transparency would require special IE only code which will not work with other browsers…basically you’ve made things a pain in the ass for developers and many of us are sick of it. Please follow what your company had said it believed in the past, "embrace and extend." All you’ve done thus far is extend…not embrace which ultimately limits the ability of developers to offer creative solutions. Give us strict standards support. Definately give us alpha PNG support. After all, it works in Explorer – why not Internet Explorer…especially since the two are supposedly integrated. Maybe one day I’ll consider using your browser again. Until I see that happen, I’ll keep using Firefox (which incidentally has multiple pages open using tabs which keeps the clutter on my taskbar down).
You need:
1. Better plugin support
2. Alert of changes to hosts.txt ask users if they want to revert back to a previous version or empty it completely. Also alert them if there proxy settings have been changed.
3. Sheild browser from external spyware processes (Dont allow IE to be subclassed at all if possible.)
4. Integrate your new Anti-Spyware with the release some how.
5. Better pop up blocking – quite a bit is getting through the XP SP2 block.
6. Revist your Internet Options page. It looks a bit archaic for most users to want to mess with. Firefox has a much more inviting interface.
7. Make the browser conform better to web standards not IE standards. Ex. jx90.com for a long time showed up poorly in IE but great in all other browsers. I had to alter my code so that IE would accept it as well as other browsers.
8. Download manager of some sort. Getting a disconnect of some sort shouldnt force someone to redownload an entire linux or xp 64 bit beta iso just because they were knocked offline or had the connection time out for some reason. Who amongst us cant remember cursing at IE when on dial up after spending hours downloading a file only to have IE timeout for some reason or your ISP kick you offline. How long have download managers been around? Why has microsoft failed to integrate this? In reality I saw no improvement in IE since the release of IE5. It seems like you just keep rehashing the same old code base hoping users will fall in love with your new progress bar style or "pop up blocker" that are well over due.
Until most of these items are met I dont see why anyone would stop using another browser such as firefox. Every single person I know who uses IE that is not a computer brainiacc complains to me about "i hate the popups and the ads that keep coming up it makes the internet so slow". You know what I do now. I install firefox or tell them to install firefox and I never hear them complain again, I do get compliments though for the recomendation. It’s almost to the point now where I intend to start telling people which linux distributions to try out. Mandrake is darn near as easy if not easier to install than any microsoft OS and with firefox/thunderbird/open office they really dont need any of the burden’s of using largely ad and spyware target M$ products. Until you do some real work on IE and the OS I intend to continue spreading firefox as far as possible. Also.. another note on the OS though it really doesnt go here is there had BETTER be a 2000 style UI in whatever your next release of windows will be. There are plenty of programmers/engineers who dont want to switch to XP because it looks like it belongs with the kids toys and it is a complete resource hog with the default install and updates.
Thanks for your time,
Another X-IE user
Good news, but Microsoft should issue a version for Windows 98 too. Loads of us still use it, in the Third World too. I started using Mozilla since there was no IE update for Windows 98, was delighted how it reduced the Spyware menace, found it worked as well as IE and decided to give OpenOffice a go. I’ve been telling friends not to waste money on Microsoft Office when buying a computer for teens who will do hardly any word processing etc. on it…. If Microsoft had bothered about us Windows 98 users I would n’t have even known an alternative existed but I’m now just waiting for some Chinese company to produce a cheap and cheerful version of Linux to buy a new PC.
My theory is that MS is downloading the source code for FireFox and slapping a big ol’ lowercase E on it. Haha.
Seriously, MS never responds to anything unless they are desperately trying to keep market share…or gain it. Don’t let Billy fool you. This is about market share, not security.
A single rendering engine based on web standards will be a good start (senior web developer talking here). Complete, 100% compliance with W3C standards for CSS, XHTML etc. Full CSS2.1 and as much 3.0 as you can cram in. Make the box model work they way it should without me forcing it to using doctypes. Make it so that as I write a CSS style sheet for my sites (25,000+ pages) that if I see it work correctly in Firefox/Mozilla/Safari etc I won’t even have to look at IE’s version … it’ll look EXACTLY the same. Proper PNG support you silly folks! Standards, it’s all about standards. secuiry too. IE usage might rise above 70% again if you make this happen.
The language of this post makes it seem like the author kept invoking in his mind "keep framing this like we listened to our customers" because it’s mentioned five times.
Sorry if I’m a little negative, but as a web designer, IE is a nightmare.
I spend a good part of a day happily designing away, following standards, and naively using Firefox to test my pages, and then I spend the rest of my day aggravating over IE nuances that make my pages break. This resorts to about fifty searches on Google for the right hack or solution. Half of the time, the solution doesn’t exist, and I have to just re-architect it.
We are looking forward new browsers: Gbrowser, Yahoo browser project, living Firefox, … Age of IE is over. Don’t loose your time for IE upgrade. Simply promote Firefox. Long living market competition.
In all honesty… I’m seriously disappointed that neither this blog entry, nor the press release put to paper any firm decisions. I’ve seen a lot of people whining about how their sites don’t work in IE and this and that. Those people aren’t good web developers, and coding a site that works in only one browser is bad no matter how you slice it.
IE has had plenty of time to get its crap together and hopefully they do it right with IE7. Beyond that, I do not see proprietary standards as such a problem because, first and foremost, IE is aimed at delivering the best end user experience, even if the code is non-standard. So, say some person didn’t write perfect code. Do you want some garbled unreadable mess? Or do you want a managable web page? I’ve had to use and come up with tons of work arounds for both browsers, and the fact of the matter is that FireFox, while a decent piece of 1.0 software, is exactly that. It’s 1.0, and I will contest that it does not deliver a better end user experience on a site coded by someone who has no idea what W3C-standards are.
All I really want, out of any browser, is a good end user experience. That, to me, means PNG alpha tranparency, full and proper CSS support, and a good end user experience.
Moreover, IE7 is long overdue, and I hope to all hell that if they plan to spend another three years with the same piece of software, that they will at least look far enough forward to cover possible forthcoming technologies.
The ignorance about standards here seems to be because some people are wrongly associating standards as being anti-Microsoft and pro open source/apple. This is only the situation at the moment because IE has not had its archaic rendering engine updated in any significant way for around seven years.
It’s about one thing, seeing Microsoft support the standards they agreed to support years ago and allowing web designers to use the newer standards to create attractive sites without trying to hack our way through a million and one inconsistencies.
IEs proprietary technologies were arguably once innovative but for the last 5-7 years IE has been completely stagnant. It’s therefore laughable to talk about the W3 being out of step. IE6 is a mess and nothing to be respected now, IE7 is MSs chance to keep pace with everyone else or perhaps even show everyone who’s boss.
It’s either that or browser wars #2 which would be a sad devolution from where we currently are.
Add my voice to the crowd that is advocating cross-platform support for your new browser (clue: the Internet is cross platform).
How ironic to watch Microsoft marginalize the 800-pound gorilla that was Internet Explorer by dropping Mac support, ignoring Linux, and scoffing at the standards that make the Internet cross platform.
So you guys are going to develop a new version of IE that runs solely on XP? I love it. Now you’re even snubbing your nose at your *own* operating systems! Sounds like you’re going to end up with a sweet little niche product there.
If you want to create a winning Internet browser, don’t develop for XP; develop for the Internet. Which as we learned above, is cross platform.
Please, please, please, Dean — read all of the posts on this page and ask yourself, "Is Microsoft *really* listening to users?" You know, it’s not too late to start.
<p><a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx">Word is</a> Internet Explorer 7 is coming this year.</p>
<p>*Yawn*</p>
<p>So far no one has given a reason to use it. Plus, since it’s from Microsoft, you know it’s going to be buggy.</p
Please include better support for CSS. And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE support alpha PNGs… WHY is it that hard?
Make IE support CSS2/XHTML/PNG. I’ve been trying all morning and afternoon to get my new layout working in IE (it uses CSS/XHTML/alpha PNG) with no luck. I shouldn’t have to put up with BS like this.
dom2 events and css opacity please.
Firefox is still going to be better, one main reason. As more people use IE the more attackers will write code for IE, its that simple. Firefox is vulnerable and so is Mozilla
Today, in his keynote for the 2005 RSA conference, Bill Gates announced, among other things, that Microsoft would be releasing a new version of Internet Explorer (IE7) for the XP SP2 platform.
Just today I spipped into a bug in our web application (which has multiple frames) and found it browsing with Firefox, whilst IE6 is the primary target platform. With IE6 I would have had not a single chance finding that bug…!
@The MSIE7 guys: better catch up with Firefox or IE will loose more and more users…
Easy way to meet the deadline for delivering IE7 ? – MICROSOFT BUYS FIREFOX –
Webfroot » Internet Explorer 7 on the horizon
This blog post provides nice humor… You say, "Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message..". I ask, where the hell were you for last half a decade?
Anyway… entertainig to read this diplomatic bluberbs and all nicey feel good "we care" things.
"a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you"
lol.
I don’t think I will ever downgrade to a Microsoft product anymore. Open Source simply rules.
Hey My current IE has dissappeared off my pc alltogether! Where it has gone has me stumped. However I just did a ‘Search" for it on my pc but nothing. Therefore I am using Firefox. I am looking forward to IE7. Is there a date for this to come about. Looks like I will have to keep searching for the current IE as I don’t want to re install XP as it sucks having to contact Microsoft to re register XP….that in itself SUCKS!
Great!!
HI MY NAME IS SEAN EVERY DAY I GO ON THE NET AND GET A POP UP THAT COMES WITH A TROJAN DIALLER VIRUS
IM SURE INTERNET EXPLORER WILL FIX THIS
BUT I THINK A MAJOR PROBLEM IS DIALLER VIRUSES AND IF THERES ANY WAY TO UPDATE XP SO THAT U CANT RECIEVE A DIALLER VIRUS
EVERY DAY I GET HACKED THROUGH MY REGISTRY
AND RECIEVE TROAJAN DIALLER VIRUSES
THE VIRUS ATTACKS MY INTERNET EXPLORER 6 FILES
YES I HAVE SERVICE PACK TO BUT AS HACKERS ARE HIGHLY ANNOYING IM JUST HOPING OF A WAY TO STOP THESE VANDALS I GET ALL THE LATEST ANTI SPYWARE AND UPDATES FOR WINDOWS AND AVG MY ANTI VIRUS BUT NOTHING HELPS
HOPE THERES A WAY ROUND IT
COSE MICROSOFT ROCKS
I’m sorry, but this announcement is useless. Microsoft has continued security enhancements and still haven’t committed to any new features. I’ve switched to Firefox until MS gives me a good reason to switch back.
MS has a history of ignoring other systems; will I be able to import my Firefox bookmarks? Will I have tabbed browsing, even if the answer is "yes" Microsoft needs to come out with a faster more feature rich browser, bringing them up to par still won’t be enough as most hackers target IE and any bugs will rapidly have exploits written to take advantage of them.
So while this is good marketing, it’s empty marketing until they tell us what they plan to add.
yeah, "show this frame" is great feature
…and the web developper
…and editCSS
…and HTMLtidy
very cool extensions!
I’ll shut up for now
well.. refusing standards is like refusing evolving, or refusing futur.. nonsense!
funny stuff to see a hightech company being technologically late of some years.
good to see them reacting hrhrhr!
PNG and W3C CSS compliance for GODS SAKE PLEASE!!!!
Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows…
Security 360
I see that MS has officially confirmed what has been known for sometime, there will be a new version of Internet Explorer. Ho hum. It doesn’t matter to me because I don’t use it except to access the Windows Update site. Otherwise, Firefox or Opera works just fine for…
I’m not a geek. although I respect geeks. Just a heavy Net user. Sorry, I will never go back to IE, 7 or no 7. There are a few sites Firefox is not good for, and I will use Explorer for them. That’s it.
You lost me a long time ago. You just didn’t care for too long. Now you do? Hard to believe that.
Wow! Congrats on the (however extremly behind Mozilla’s browsers it may be) browser guys! I hope you will be up to the challenge of keeping up with all the open source people. I will be expecting, with all the other people:
1) *Full* CSS 2 & (when it comes out) CSS 3 support
2) Tabbed browsing
3) Mouse gestures built in
4) **********************
Adblock feature similar to Firefox’s. I mean, with 107,465 downloads you can’t be wrong that people want something to block Flash and Gif ads. (see http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/adblock)
**************************
5) FULL PNG SUPPORT!!!
6) Version for advanced users (i.e. geeks like me) that lets them easily screw around with configuration files (you won’t even have to have support for it, we’ll just fix it ourselves.)
7) Remove support for annoying JavaScripts (eg "Click ‘ok’ to set http://www.searching.net to your home page: [ok] [ok]") You should also allow easy right click access to disable JavaScript.
8) Release open source version??? (Okay, I know it’s totally against your philosophy, but you could like, include only with the professional version or something… That way retards wouldn’t be intimidated or whatever you’re scared about… I mean, it’s already free…)
9) More XML support and stuff
10) It is also annoying that when IE blocks a popup, it gives you a popup telling you that it just blocked a popup. Get rid of this!
11) Allow users to put in their own extensions and themes… You won’t have to worry about viruses in them with the supposed virus protection you’re including.
12) We of the browsing community also demand that we be able to customize IE more (eg location of address bar and things like that)
13) The last thing I ask is that in full screen mode you should be able to see the address bar. It’s damn annoying when you pop in to fullscreen mode and can’t tell IE where to go.
Thanks for hearing me out and letting me vent, even though there’s a 1 in 10,000,000 chance that you’ll actually read this. Keep up with Firefox!
you wouldn’t get dialers if you stayed off "them kinda" sites
N.N. Thayer said:
"My experience with IE 6…has serviced me very well, and there has never been any chance of me switching to a second-rate browser with a tortoiselike development process. As long as IE remains the driving force in WWW capabilities and makes it easy for me to interact securely with a sometimes dangerous global network, I will stick with it."
You misunderstand – the development process becomes tortoise-like because of the IE bugs one must work around when using standard development techniques (CSS, XHTML, eg). Why code for other browsers using standard development techniques? Because with the popularity of other browser on the rise, it makes no sense to code for one browser, unless you *like* to pigeonhole yourself and potentially kill everything you have done. Thusly, developers get frustrated with IE for not playing well with others.
royalrodent.com » Internet Explorer 7 Beta Arrives This Summer
You are all on crack.
I hate IE, but, why did the web become a success in the first place?
It was an open community, people could write their own pages easily. All these people who whine about standards, wake up and smell the coffee. Standards suck, very badly. The web spread because people were free to do what they wanted, not take part in a W3C dictatorship.
The browsers of the day which commanded market share called the shots with regards to new features. Netscape did it’s fair share of this (LAYER tags anyone) and so did IE (document.all)
It is the job of the browser developers to adapt their programs to render the competitions latest extensions, it is up to them to develop new features.
Some of everybody’s proprietry extensions have been ‘adopted’. It’s like the OS wars, things like alt-tabbing feature in just about all desktop environments now.
If all web browsers rendered pages the same and did the same things, why would you need an alternative to the one in the box?
Everyone who harps on about standards, would you really want every word processor to do the same things? LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD – STANDARDS WILL NEVER WORK.
IE is dead, Firefox is king, what is the deal with xml anyway – it’s just markup – it’s as usefull as proprietry word format documents!!!!
woohoo IE7 ..great news too hear….
Please fix PNG transparency…make the web a better place to live in
Sounds great! (sorry to hear it is only for XP)
So, BY DEFAULT, JScript, VBScript, and Active-X will be turned off!, correct?
Can’t wait till it will be safe to use IE, at companies that won’t allow software upgrades.
Best part is, all my DOM/ECMAScript/XUL Applications will work without changing a line of code! (or will they?)
Wow, who would have thought that IE would almost be able to catch up to Firefox.
perhaps IE7 will use the gecko engine….
With a IE-esque interface.
And sites that use ActiveX will need to be registered with some Microsoft depository, by paying an exhorbitant sum of money. So, all ActiveX codes must be downloaded from microsoft.com or local machine only. This service can be called OnlyOne.NET
That’ll curb some security concerns…. and extra revenue for MS
At the RSA conference, Bill Gates announced that there will be an Internet Explorer 7. The expected date for a pre-release version is summer of this year. The focus appears to be on security and spyware. It’s good to hear…
I would also add that you add syntax highlighting for viewing the source in web pages, that would be really nice.
Please fix web standards (CSS, PNG, etc.) and remove IE from Windows. That would be a significant improvement.
Das Thomas Promny Blog » Internet Explorer 7 kommt
At the RSA conference, Bill Gates announced that there will be an Internet Explorer 7. The expected date for a pre-release version is summer of this year. The focus appears to be on security and spyware. It’s good to hear…
Do me and everybody who builds websites for a living a big favour and render CSS according to the specs. Otherwise I’ll just have to keep the Firefox badges on my work and keep badmouthing IE — I’d rather not have to work five times as hard to get stuff to work in IE than for all the other browsers combined.
A commitment to standards will go a long long way to making the web an easier place to earn a living on.
Boy do I love adding on to my previous posts. I just wanted to add also that stealing code from other people is no longer quite as bad as it used to be. I mean, OS X already went ahead and stole most of BSD’s code, and they’re open about it, so why shouldn’t you? I mean, if you stole code from Konqueror or Netscape or even Firefox I wouldn’t care. I would also like it if you no longer base it on Mosaic. If you don’t believe me, just go to Help –> about Internet Explorer. I qoute:
"Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc.
Contains security software licensed from RSA Data Security Inc.
Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
Multimedia software components, including Indeo(R); video, Indeo(R) audio, and Web Design Effects are provided by Intel Corp.
Unix version contains software licensed from Mainsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Mainsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Mainsoft is a trademark of Mainsoft Corporation.
Warning: This computer program is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this program, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law."
Just see for your self people.
Once again I’m working late fixing web site problems only present in IE. There are entire sites devoted to helping developers make IE work more like a standards-compliant browser.
It’s a shame that Microsoft’s potential to advance the Web is wasted on greed. Please embrace standards for everyone’s benefit. Please fix your CSS engine.
NOTE: the blog is running slowly right now and it may take a while for your post to show up.
Please avoid double posting – if it didn’t error out when you posted, then trust that the post will (eventually) show up. Give it a while.
Thanks
Bruce
I’m not sure I see the urgency. Dean Edwards has already released IE7 – see http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/ for details. It’s simple code that you can insert into your web pages that makes IE standards compliant.
Now that IE is "standards compliant" (not that it wanted to be), an IE7 release (for Windows XP and Longhorn) just to add tabbed browsing doesn’t seem compelling compared against Mozilla Firefox on Mac, Linux, and Windows.
At the RSA conference, Bill Gates announced that there will be an Internet Explorer 7. The expected date for a pre-release version is summer of this year. The focus appears to be on security and spyware. It’s good to hear…
Do yourself a favor and sit this one out. I’m sure there’s nothing I could say that hasn’t already been said, but your monopolistic trade practices suck and coming back into the game right now only demonstrates the pattern. When they come after you guys next time, this will be good evidence of predatory practices.
As for me, I’m happy to have Fedora Core 3 running native on AMD64 after ten years of windows. It’s stable and fast. I’ll go commercial again as I get closer to production, but it won’t be back your direction as long as you guys continue to bully the marketplace.
I like Firefox a lot, but I’ll be the first to admit that some FF zealots sound a lot like — well, Mac zealots, or sports team zealots, or TV…
Oh nooo, another version to be compatible with…
Bring It On | K-Squared Ramblings
how long will it take before they release a security patch for IE7?
a week? or maybe 3 days?
This is only good news because the dumb users who bother with IE will be more protected. Less business for me, but fixing computers after users screwed them up with IE is not something I like to do anyway.
@N.N. Thayer:
"How about that Linux e-mail client that looks so much like Outlook? All the GUI functionality that slowly wedged its way into GNOME, KDE, etc.? Automatic updates? So much of what you see on Linux is just a pale imitation of what Microsoft has already done."
Someone forgot that MS ripped off the whole window-based GUI thing from Mac! Doooop! Embarassed!
I’m never switching back to IE nomatter what they do to it. No matter how good looking of standards compliant IE is, if it kills all of its competition again then 5 years from now we’ll still be using IE7 and web browsing technology will be years behind what it could have been with competition. The best thing that could happen would be having a bunch of web browsers with fairly equal market shares because that would cause the most competition.
I wouldn’t use IE any day! IE’s popularity isn’t the only reason it’s insecure, there are SO MANY secuity holes reported and it takes Microsoft AGES to release PROPER patches. Poor people, they have to give up the internet and computing because of IE and getting viruses/spyware/adware from it. I DON’T get why ANYBODY would WANT to use IE, they’d have to be OUT of THEIR MINDS!!! It’s a waste of money to protect IE when you could just use a SAFER BROWSER! People tell you to switch to Opera or FireFox because they don’t want to spend money and hours to fight spyware so they try to help people to switch, I wish people would just understand….
good
Webstandards please!…
CSS!
The web design community’s chorus of support for Firefox will only increase if IE7 continues the relativistic approach to web standards displayed by all previous versions of MSIE, the web designer’s bane.
"…can’t we all get along?"
Having standards and complying
with them is the best way.
This isn’t an excuse for
some of the heated comments above
- a bit forgiveable if you’ve
ever made a web page using IE, only
to discover what it looks like later in
a real browser like Firefox –
but a standards compliant IE7, available
on any platform, would go along way to
reducing their number.
I wish you guys in Microsoft have already learnt about XHTML, CSS, PNG and all this stuff we people call ‘standards’ so that IE7 is not as lousy as all the IEs so far..!
If you’re not going to support client-side XSLT 2.0 in IE 7, I could really care less.
In fact you guyz ought to be ashamed for pushing an XML based future at the end of the millenia, and then dump the idea when the going gets tough.
Sooooooo is Microsoft REALLY committed.
NOPE.
Too little too late.. Sorry but i think the ship has sailed. Firefox will be taking over by the time you release ie7 and fix all those new bugs.
give me a break, anything but another set of promises about ie being secure blah blah, save the wasted time telling us about launches and beta’s and actually deliver, make sure u put tabbed browsing in the thing, until then ill stick with firefox/avant/opera microsoft are very lucky major portals like yahoo are so entrenched with delivering compatibility to ie otherwise yer browser would truly be finished by now. good luck, judging by yer past efforts of beta’s its gonna need it . love n light carlco xxx
http://secunia.com/product/11/
Lovely isn’t it? MS can’t even fix the security bugs that still plagues IE.
Yet another good thing about Firefox–it’s apparently forcing MSFT to give people a slightly less horrible browser.
Hilarious.
Firefox finally got Microsoft’s goat, milk, cheese, and all! I am using Firefox to enter this comment, and I have 0.0 chance of ever switching back to the miserable browser that IE has become.
You lose the browser wars, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer company.
Mr. anonymous: Standards do work. Standards are the reason HTTP works, why TCP/IP works, why your CDs are compatible with the many CD drives out there.
If a CD can be compatible with every drive, then a website should be compatible with every browser. Please review what a standard is. It’s the bare minimum that everything of a particular type must comply with. Nobody out there can, or even should, tell Microsoft not to add proprietary features on top of the standards, so long as the standards aren’t broken in order to do that.
However, almost everyone agrees (desperately desires, actually) that Microsoft should comply with the basic W3C Recommendations that exist. It’s the responsible thing to do.
I’ve been working on a standards-based conversion of a major retail site, and we have run into a number of IE anomalies, the most painful of which has been issues with the float attribute.
These two pages list most of the issues we encountered:
http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/dup-characters.html
http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/common.html
And of course, proper .png support would be cool, too.
This is such a illusion that MS is trying to make with IE being any good for intranet/web apps.
IE is too slow to make responsive web interface, has its bugs and quirks and bunch of custom extensions that aren’t anything extraordinary these days.
Alternatively you can write standard code that works everywhere with no hassle (except IE). It’s easy (cheap) to deploy. No need to upgrade Windows and download patches/upgrades. Just 4mb Firefox/Opera download and you’ve got your workstation set!
Even if W3C standards cannot handle some areas, you can write Firefox extension that has more power than ActiveX control (works with browser, not with page instance), but is still easy to deploy and is portable across platforms!
IE has lost its market here.
MS has lots to catch up. You won’t get CSS2 working in 6 months unless you plan to embed Gecko engine
If you just fix the PNG and CSS issues with IE6 on Win2000 (release IE 6.2?) I’ll be a happy camper, along with the rest of the WebApp developer world.
Predictions for IE7:
1. We’ll see full CSS2/3, PNG support
2. ActiveX is out (supported for backwards compatability); managed ‘applets’ are the way forward; .Net 2.0 framework will be mandatory
3. The managed code support will sink its roots deep into IE7’s internal workings, making any cross-browser .Net development wait until somebody recreates the IE7 API in Mozillaland.
4. Tabbed browsing will appear in a more streamlined, user-friendly (user-proof) form than Firefox/Opera, but won’t go all the way to iRider/Sleipnir’s hierachical page trees
5. A shiny new layer of security protections will be present, and will be soundly defeated within 2 months of release; MS won’t patch IE7 in time to stop the Next Big Worm
6. Though great standards support will be added, there will be enough mangled interpretation of standards and new MS-created standards that web developers will soon wind up in the same position as before: coding for IE7 and "non IE7" browser worlds
7. Post-Longhorn, there won’t be a new MS browser product until another browser product hits 10% market share (and don’t tell me they’re releasing IE7 "in response to their customers" — if that were true it would have been out 3 years ago)
All Microsoft has to do is take Firefox, right click and rename to IE 7.0 and integrate it into the OS and I will be a very happy boy. I was a firefox skeptic too, until i tried it. It has its shortcomings, but tabbed browsing and the speed at which it loads web pages increases productivity greatly.
I don’t understand how everybody is demanding these features in IE7 when every other browser supports these features?
If Microsoft’s idea of innovation is to rip off ideas already in practice for three years, why bother…
Every user demanding PNG support and Tabbed browsing should have already switched to a browser that *does* support it…
GodaiNoBaka, http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx#373230 has said it best with his third point…
BestBuy and other retailers which offer to beat the lowest price are simply followers in the retail market… don’t support this kind of business and move to the companies that offer the best price fair and square…
IE7 is nothing but a follower… don’t get your hopes up…
Why not make this a real blog and respond to directly in a post some some of the repeated comments in this thread?
plz send me ie 7
Us developers can whinge on for as long as we like about standards compliance and how we wont move from FF or Opera but the sad facts are that its not about what browser we use, its about what browser Joe Public uses. Isnt that why we code for standards compliance and ALWAYS ALWAYS debug for IE??! Does anyone dare ignore IE? They would be foolish to do so.
Microsoft can release IE7 with no standards compliance and we will still have to develop for it because the huge proportion of standards-unaware people on XP/SP2 will have IE7 downloaded for them by automatic update.
Whats my point? Lets get as involved as we can… Every web developer on the planet needs to download and thoroughly test IE7beta and provide helpful and constructive criticism. Lets end the whinging. WE ALL NEED A STANDARDS COMPLIANT VERSION OF IE, EVEN IF WE DONT PLAN TO USE IT OURSELVES.
Nothing to say.
Whatever Microsoft Give new enhancements to the IE7 release, it will have more loopholes than it previous release.Compared to Fastest webbrowser Opeara till now the IE not best.In size and so on.
Any way all the best,nobody get angry when using the IE 7.
Another vote for standards compliance… hey, why not make an office app with all the active x type stuff and then have a separate standards compliant web browser?
Terry
Haha, this is actually quite ridiculous. Still no word on such a simple issue as PNG-alpha support (http://www.petitiononline.com/msiepng/petition.html).
/Vidar
"Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all."
Well, I’m running Firefox on FreeBSD. Is MS planning on making a version for *BSD or *nix at all?
I hope Microsoft looks at the web community complaints and suggestions or it will become the next Netscape 4.x. The first thing Microsoft should do is for Bill to stop giving his money away and fire Ballmer.
When will MS relise that the world does not revolve around them but around everything else. US webdevers go by standards not individual standards but world standards that ALL use not just a small population. Microsoft should take apart Firefox and copy as much as it can off it and learn why there winning in the popularity contentest
I’m not thrilled on any kind about this news.. What Bill Gates will screw up this time? I’m sure this is not just an upgrade, it will probbably block other programs/companies that came up with these new ideas to monopolize browsing. Thank god for firefox!
This is good news, I think.
Will you work with the other browser vendors to standardize on… standards? Whomever ends up driving a standardization of browsers will be a hero, in my mind. In some cases it might mean bringing the "other guy" up to your technology, if you’ve got the goods, and the other guy does not. Sharing or standardizing on the current standard.
It is a crying shame that implementations of standards and language (e.g. ECMA script) vary to the extent that one needs to write different pages/code for the different browsers (particularly IE v.s. others).
Can you imagine how many thousand… perhaps million man-hours have been wasted due to the lack of a standard? The impac of these decisions boggle the mind.
If you standardize and the ‘Net and the world’s economies will leap forward.
Push one-off browser technology and you’ve hurt everyone, and held the world back – its not esoteric, we’re talking bread and butter, and less of it for the world.
Imagine the current IT world without standard x86 architecture.
Might we still be watching Big Blue install software on mainframes?
Happy developing,
Songzilla guy
Please don’t gimp javascript
I would say that if you guys plan to deliver a major new version you should take this very good opportunity to re-write (or update, whatever) to fully comply the w3c standards, as currently is partially supports many of CSS features, for instance.
thank you
Please license Presto from Opera. It is a lot faster and more compliant than Trident.
I hope Microsoft will make my privacy and security a higher priority than the interests of its big businesses customers. When will they realize that my privacy and security are more important to me than interoperability? I can find a way to do just about anything without a computer, but once companies are watching and tracking my every mouse click and key entry, I can’t recover my privacy!
"Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners"
That would be a first… Microsoft is just losing market share to Mozilla, and *that’s* what has been nagging Bill… Simple as that!
J.
What’s everyone so worked up about? There are lots of good browsers out there that beat IE hands down on speed, compatibility, security and whatnot. Don’t be blinded by MS saying (as usual) that *this* time it’s going to be better – it never is.
I say just move on people…
The support for standards (most importantly CSS, PNG, XHTML) ranks right up there with security. Please take the time to do this right and don’t release IE7 without proper standards compliance.
nobody trusts microsoft for security, so why would they use an MS browser ever again? I know many people that use firefox find the extensions to be incredible.
All you guys complaining about all the flaws in IE with all the holes….just wait all the other browsers that are coming out will soon have just as much problems as IE….the reason IE has so much problems is because it is the standard among the non techie people and who is going to make a spyware (as an example) for a program that isnt used by a large part of the population? DUH!
i agree with foo.
get a REAL browser.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Rich’s Place » The Firefox Juggernaut Sloweth?
pleeease include IDN support …
my two cents. microsoft is making the normal consumer pay extra with hidden costs that come from being stuck with windows only platforms to impliment the .Net framework, redesign sites by using css hacks, that will probably not render in IE7 and cause many complaints by consumers because their website will not work in the new browser. sites will have to be redesigned again.
i’m not against ms or pro linux, i just think they need to up their business ethics and level with people. alot more consumers would be using IE less if they knew of the extra hidden costs on top of the huge amount of $$$ already spent to buy os, office suit, and other programs that have become very expensive.
so maybe they will actually place css2 support, dom2, png & alpha, javascript, developer tools, in with the new IE, but if they don’t, i’m sure web developers, designers, and all open source fanatics will make sure that people switch browsers, from a cost perspective, security perspective, and usuabilty perspective.
its not nice to mess with the public
well foo, obviously you are interested because you are on this forum…so shh…thumbsdown man…i have tested many of the browsers that have come out firefox, etc etc ….and I always end up coming back to IE……
it would help if IE supported the standards of CSS2 and XHTML fully, also showing Alpha PNG.
It would be very nice for MS to fix the inability to float elements over select drop-downs and to fix printer output positioning. These two bite me constantly as a IE-only developer.
I remember those many years ago when 6.0 came out and I was so excited because it had a ton of "features" that 5.5 didn’t… Then I started to develop for the web and HATED Netscape and programmed only for IE… Now… like Netscape lost me so long ago… IE has done the same… Firefox came out and provides me exactly what I need… without all the spyware and the years of waiting for the new version… I hate spending hours upon hours cleaning the spyware caused by IE off my friend’s and family’s computer… so much so that I make them all use Firefox if they are going to get tech support from me…
I’m even starting to migrate to Linux because my needs are changing and Longhorn is taking forever to come out… I have had XP since the original beta… it’s getting old… Hopefully Longhorn will fufill the needs of it’s customers… it shouldn’t takes me days to hack Windows so it doesn’t have all the crap like Messenger, MSN Explorer, Outlook Express, etc… etc… etc… I don’t hate Microsoft, I just am tired of waiting…
.. is the plague of the browser market. the teams infinite dodging of questions regarding the browsers css, dom and xhtml support merely shows a reader with minumim insight into the current situation regarding web standards, that microsoft is doing absolutely nothing about what the ‘world’ wants you to ‘commit to’. your ‘committing’ text looks to me, like some slogan and body an unskilled copywriter had written. your infinite attempts to set the focus on security issues (which would not have been there, if malware had nothing to exploit), is comparable to politics, where more and more, people seem to point to outside threats to get away with their own mistakes. you have responsibilites to your customers, youre right. what about your responsibility to developers? ah yes, of course.. you don’t have to worry about that, the developers will just get trapped into .net by your marketing. hehe, not true.. more and more developers will revolt in angst resulting from explorers flaws. there will be a time, when other browsers support 3.0, and your browser will get the "please update your web browser" section of the website.
I think this is the best IE from microsoft did it.
(quote)Firefox is still going to be better, one main reason. As more people use IE the more attackers will write code for IE, its that simple. Firefox is vulnerable and so is Mozilla
(/quote)
It’s not the sole factor that makes it an expected target, IE is the default browser on the most mainstream, user-friendly operating system. The least savvy users are there, not even knowing alternatives are available. They are those who are susceptible to answer "yes" to any question they are asked, and not notice something’s going wrong afterwards.
Mozilla does and will have vulnerabilities, still I believe IE will be less secure as long as it does embed ActiveX.
Yes, it’s true! Microsoft announced that they would release IE7 beta this summer. Microsoft says that due to the pressure of the customers and competators, namely Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox, they will release a version of IE7 for Windows XP. Microsoft’s…
Hello,
Regarding the debate about other browsers having as much problems as IE, MsRed states that "all the other browsers that are coming out will soon have just as much problems as IE…"
That statement is entirely incorrect. Opera, and Safari (granted Safari is a Mac based browser) has had no instances where spyware, malware, or dataminers being installed onto the system it is installed on.
I cannot comment about Firefox because I find it when customised to suit my needs, it becomes very quickly as bloated as Mozilla.
Opera and Safari have been been around now for donkey’s years, neither have had the kind of problems that Internet Explorer has had.
SP2 has fixed a lot of issues in IE 6, and it looks like a lot more is about to be fixed.
I imagine that it will be light, and quite robust. So I am anticipating it with arms wide open. Although making me switch from Opera, now that would take some serious work from the Microsoft Developers.
Care to take the challenge?
Xan.
Are there any screenshots available?
I think all the people here going on about how it would be nice for IE to fully support css etc and then ranting on about how good FF is could do with not being so quick to judge. Sometimes the most basic css doesn’t work in FF and does in IE. I’m not having a go at FF, it’s great and the rendering does -as has been pointed out here, look infinately better than that of ie but it’s important to remember how complex both of these programs actully are and how much depth there is in each. thanhtung makes a good point though. Full support of shared standards should come before adding any new features and by making it easier to turn off features like activex and other potential security threats (along with detailed discriptions as to what they do for the layman) you would be responding to the people who download firefox becasue of security concerns.
What about standards comliant to W3C.
Enough already with snubbing of other browsers and not allowing proper rendering… time to come on board if you wnat to start winning back some of the share that ahve been lsot to Opera and Mozilla et al.
It’s getting a mess developing sites for multiple browsers.
I hear the death bells ringing for IE. I can hear the march to the cemetery beginning… Bill and Ballmer leading the pack weeping and wondering why they failed to keep ahold of the browser market.
Face it.. Firefox is a much more fantastic browser. It sticks to the standards and doesn’t make up its own. Firefox is better constructed and more solid than IE has ever been. (and will ever be)
For whom the bell tolls… I smell rotting MSIE.
I’d like to add my $0.02 to the feature request list.
1. Of course the perennial DOM, CSS and PNG standards compliance.
2. White-list/black-list of ActiveX/COM servers that are allowed to execute in the IE process. This should be configurable by group policy. This is implemented in the Mozilla plug-in for ActiveX controls, but is gross. You have to edit lines with CLSIDs in the defaultprefactivex.js file. IE7 should have a more visual advanced dialog for this with sensible defaults.
(In my opinion ActiveX gets an unfair beating. It is a component technology and it is very good at providing component services. XPCom is fundamentally unverifiable, unmanaged code loaded into the Mozilla process space, just like ActiveX/COM. The only difference is the total number of components floating around.)
3. Add an extensions system similar to the Mozilla Firefox one but using a .NET managed code API. And set up an extensions community website. The great thing about the extensions system in Firefox is that it doesn’t require admin privileges to install the extensions, they are profile specific. Having this mechanism makes it easier to have users run as non-admin without feeling like they have no control of the system and hating it.
3a. Create some cool extensions. For example, you will win a lot of friends among web developers with clones of the "Web Developer" extension for Firefox, the DOM Inspector for Firefox, LiveHttpHeaders for Firefox and Venkman-like JavaScript debugger. For the blogging crowd an RSS aggregator extension would be nice.
3b. Make extensions manageable with group policy.
3c. Create an extensions community website.
4. Tabs. This feature is nice, but way over-hyped and generally a power-user thing. In my opinion Opera is much more "right" about how they implemented this than Mozilla. The option of an MDI or SDI interface rather than some weird hybrid makes more sense. Tabs should absolutely tear off into new windows.
(A tear-off tab concept would be nice across the MS Office suite as well. So, while you’re at it you could mention to the Office team that it would nice if Word and Excel could have the same MDI/SDI behavior?! With modern high-resolution and wide screens it is nice to have spreadsheets side-by-side just like documents but whoops Excel is MDI.)
5. Search engines. I know it is going to be important to tie IE7 with MSN search. But please provide an extensible mechanism like Mycroft to make it easy to add define new search engines. The search side panel thing tied to specific Microsoft partners is annoying. You will also make friends if you host a community-driven site to add search engines definitions. (I’ll let you in on a little secret, most people won’t change the default.)
6. The Windows Server 2003 IE secure configuration should be an option that is installable on Window XP.
WHAT ABOUT TABBED BROWSING ?? CAN YOU INCLUDE IT THIS TIME ?
I don’t agree at all with someone saying that the most basic css doesn’t work in Firefox. I have never seen anything that is coded to W3C’s standards not perform properly in Firefox. On every webpage I design I put in code that suggests a user switch to a compliant browser, it doesn’t necessairly have to be firefox, but IE is so far from it right now, I would never suggest someone use it. It only hurts the internet by pushing more for a proprietary design structure which, from a web designers point of view, is a nightmare. Anyways, I though IE was supposed to be a browser, that means updating it to follow standards in place by the man who invented the world wide web. Apparently IE is just a low end security tool masquerading as a browser. Good luck.
CNET is reporting from the RSA conference that there is going to be a new version of Internet Explorer out before Longhorn. Unfortunatly it will only run on Windows XP SP2 according to the article. The article also notes the…
Why not release IE 7 with an up to date Java VM?
-Programmer
I woke up to this news and it has made my day!
I just want to join the others that have already stated that we’d like to see a good implementation of tabbed browsing in IE 7.0. That’s my only real reason for using Firefox – it’s a very useful feature that I turn too when doing comparison shopping (between different merchants) or when I want to keep a review(s) on a tab(s) and then shop on other tabs.
Give me Standards or give me death!
As I read through all the articles spawned by the IE7 announcement (press release), I finally realized something: IE6 is the new Netscape 4.7x. We all woke up one day, and IE6 had suddenly become the browser that is…
TrackBack From:http://www.cnblogs.com/yang_sy/archive/0001/01/01/146954.html
<em>"As long as IE remains the driving force in WWW capabilities and makes it easy for me to interact securely with a sometimes dangerous global network, I will stick with it."</em>
Huh? That’s exactly what it doesn’t do.
Driving force in WWW capabilities? Interact securely? Where have you been the last 5 years?
"Also, for you interoperability clowns out there. You’re always going on about how monocultures are bad. You often use biological arguments to back your points. Well, why are you so keen on standards then? Surely different software and platforms give ‘genetic’ diversity, different standards give memetic diversity."
Yes, why, that’s the answer! The ISO doesn’t know what they’re doing, right? I mean, why write code that will work in all browsers, rather than rewrite the site so that it will work in IE? Redundant work is so efficient!
I woke up to this news and it has made my day!
As an end-user, I just want to join the others that have already stated that we’d like to see a good implementation of tabbed browsing in IE 7.0. That’s my only real reason for using Firefox – it’s a very useful feature that I turn too when doing comparison shopping (between different merchants) or when I want to keep a review(s) on a tab(s) and then shop on other tabs.
mmm, for when will the IE7 be ready?
don’t forget speed! the speed of IE is the only thing that stops me from using it.
Brian
Please add *full* PNG support, CSS 2.1, XHTML ("application/xhtml+xml") and DOM support.
see dean hachamovitch in this channel 9 video
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=17498
what a joke IE is
o
People have already written this, but it’s so important, that I will state it once more.
Please fix CSS 2 support. IE 6 has some bugs in this area (for example, invalid positioning of boxes with borders), other things are left unsupported (fixed background on other elements than body). Please add proper support for XHTML – application/xhtml+xml mimetype should be properly recognized. Please support PNG alpha transparency.
Please. Internet Explorer is famous among developers for its bugs. With IE 7, that fame could become thing of the past.
This is great news, so is this new version based on behind the scenes stuff? i.e. stuff that won’t be apparent to the end user but will be working in the background to enhance and imrpove their browsing experience?
Are there going to be the much demanded features which third party browsers have supported for a while? i.e. tab browsing, a simple built in download manager supporting pause/resume? Great news nonetheless.
Hope to hear more from you guys, keep it up!
FOR GOD’S SAKE – fix it so the status bar at the bottom of the IE window’s doesn’t go away – that has got to be one of the stupidest most annoying bugs ever.
Isn’t IE7 already out? I think it’s called Maxthon:) yeah I know just a shell, but love the features it has.
Anyway security is first, but if doesn’t have:
tabbed browsing,
mouse gestures,
Plus the ability to easily disable or enable Java, ActiveX, Scripts and flash from the browser window, then FF will continue to eat away.
I think it’s going to need a real wow factor to keep people from migrating to FF.
Good luck, and get to work! lol,
…
folks … hold on ….
tabbed browsing? DL-Manager? Paste-here-top-this-swap-out?
I hope Microsoft will keep their word,leaves
additional utility for IE to third parties
production and will concentrate on a improved
rendering and code interpretation instead of getting stuck with the actual engine adding "only" some hot, new features … like tabbed browsing.
those who miss these features could choose browser additions like MyIE2 etc …
BUT INDEED !!!!
YOUR BROWSER_WAR IS BURNING OUR MONEY
Nowadays technology and making IE understand not only open but, too, actual standarts could help decreasing our financial output for
web-development.
hands up for:
>>>>> XML, CSS 2.0, PNG ALPHA CHANNEL ….
Listen carefully … !
grtz
It seems as if there will be a new version of Internet Explorer, dubbed version 7 by the Microsoft IE development team.
I read that Bill Gates said that IE 7 will prevent phishing by stopping URL redirects. Does anyone know more about this? I’m concerned that this is going to break the legitimate and very common use of redirects all across the Internet. Does anyone have more details on this?
Will, I was referring to the development process for Firefox itself, not for websites. In my opinion, IE has delivered more new Web technologies with each successive release than Firefox could even dream of doing. And by "technologies," I do not refer to such trivial things as tabbed browsing or transparent-PNG-blah-blah. I am referring to under-the-hood capabilities that facilitate websites of amazing sophistication, such as what you will find in companies that use .NET-based Web applications. IE and .NET are so far ahead of Firefox and the OSS community, so off in an advanced league of their own, showing what they can really do, that they have made me an adherent. Firefox kludges along, always playing catchup (except with a few highly visible things like tabbed browsing that most users simply do not give two s***s about), with its advocates wallowing in a false sense of security brought on by obscurity (and NOTHING MORE). I have no respect for Firefox or its sorry excuse for a development "process."
No tabbed browsing, me stay with Firefox. Period.
Speaking from the standpoint of a guy who uses XP, 2000, OS X, Solaris … releasing IE7 is nice but it’s far too late.
Unless or until Firefox drops the ball (say the way Netscape did around relase 4.x) there is no chance I’ll switch back.
I hope to heck that MS are taking a LONG hard look at Safari and Firefox while they rebuild IE.
I hope this is a rebuild and not just more bandaids being added to the outside of a very old browser. As others have said in here we are sick of building one site for all browsers, then having to hack it to work in IE.
Please MS, work to the webstandards, get the box model correct, get PNG support correct, get font rendering correct, and just make it work!
Who cares, FireFox suits me just fine.
This summer?! In the meantime I’ll be migrating my company to Firefox.
I know you gotta keep things secret but here’s what I’m hoping for.
1) Support for XHTML with all the standard declarations including that for XML.
2) PNG with transparency.
3) SVG, we really need this.
4) Enhanced CSS.
5) MSHTML that creates valid XHTML. Doesn’t foul up entities, utf-8 works right, retains numeric entities etc.
6) All platforms. This might be eventually but without it are you serious?
7) Secure of course but you’re onto that!!
8) Quirks mode is often evil, easy ways to detect if your web page has fallen into this slime pit.
Didn’t upload first time (after a few minutes) so this is a retry.
IE7, if it’s ready to go, I be the first one who dump IE6.
Please add *full* PNG support, CSS 2.1, XHTML ("application/xhtml+xml") and DOM support.
Ryan Parr Portfolio | Eugene, OR | Web Design, Professional Web Contractor and Web Design Developer.
This sounds like great news, now lets just hope MS delivers the goods as promised. This summer sounds good for the beta, but god knows how buggy that’ll be, and how long it’ll be until the actual release comes out.
Heh…its strange what a little competition does to monopolies. How about removing non-standard junk and adding full support for CSS, PNG etc too MS? I am sure your customers want that too.
I can’t believe people are thinking MS is really trying to listen to end-users comments.
MS never ever in his history listened to any of his end-usrs. If they did, they weren’t where they are now in the first place.
Unfortunately, IE7 will be nothing more than MS’ answer to the invasion of Firefox. Rushing tabbed browsing and pop-up blocker to another version of IE, only to give developers another reason to add IE7 logo to their "compatible with…." list.
Unless MS admits to his past mistakes and come forward as a honest party by grouping with open source community to develope a standard browser, even releasing IE 9 and 10 will have no effect on rising the end-users’ need to have a decent and safe browser.
How about getting on the same page as the other browers as far as CSS support goes?! Sucks for us developers that have to choose one side and code accordingly.
why is it called IE7? Will there be smth. new or extrodinary different from previous versions except minor security improvements? Why not 6.1? or 6.000001?
Why this marketing bs about comittment to some mysterious customers while REAL customers have been reuqiring just simple things to fix for so long???? And still it is not done.
>>In fact, if you implement the CSS3 draft, you will have a VERY MAJOR advantage over FF, which does not yet support it.
Firefox supports alot more of the CSS3 draft than you think. They simply use -moz-* in CSS (http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/propindex/extensions.htm).
Frankly, supporting a draft out-right is a BAD idea. Wait until it’s finalized and save some of us from viewing your included markup as as "prorpietary" like Netscape 4’s layers. I like that Moz can already do it, but it’s not "turned on" and in use by the public. Drafts aren’t standards yet…
My main gripe about IE (esp. as I’ve found a great deal of the spyware problem stems from user stupidity) is that it half-ass supports current CSS standards, is full of proprietary css "filters", and has horrid PNG support.
Clean that up, patch the security holes, and figure out how to make stupid users understand that they don’t have to click YES to everything that pops up, and IE would be a decen browser again…
Well how about that? It looks like Microsoft is actually going to release Internet Explorer 7 before Longhorn hits the…
…surely you jest.
First you gotta release it, THEN make some pointless post about it. Till then i’m afraid you’re gonna have to stick it and watch people use anything but IE.
Seriously though, whats the matter? you look like a fox bit you in the ass or something
"I think of today’s announcement as a clear statement back to our customers: ‘Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.’"
You’ve been taking lessons from Tony Blair on how to give speeches, haven’t you?
I make webpages, and I am extremely frustrated at IE’s lack of support for basic XHTML/CSS and PNG support. In a way, I’m happy: these limitations make me find creative solutions and force me to think carefully about what I’m doing. I like the differences in rendering *BUT* they also limit me in a lot of ways, preventing me from doing what I actuallywanted to do (short of telling IE users to leave, or giving them a different page; two things I will never do).
I’m not as furiously opposed to IE as some are, but I do feel, very strongly, that the feeling of relief I get when something works in IE is fundamentally wrong. I should be able to expect something to work first time. In the majority of cases, it does – and that’s great – but in a few cases (backgroung/position fixed, for instance) it doesn’t.
I don’t really care about security issues: my browser (firefox) does that better, and I like its customisability. I don’t care that IE doesn’t have tabs: my browser does. I don’t care that IE doesn’t have extensions: my browser does. All I want is for Microsoft to hear one customer (personally, I love XP and I’m addicted to Office: all other office suites are just rubbish, in my opinion) and my plea is this: do whatever you like with security and whatnot, run Mozilla into the ground, I don’t care – just please, PLEASE make IE support web standards and PNG. You’re gonna make a lot of people happy with the security updates; why not make millions of web designers all over the world happy too?
Unless I’m mistaken XUL isn’t a W3C standard.
My only issue with FF users is that they don’t shut up about it.
I use Maxthon, so everything in there plus whats in Firefox is good.
Full PNG support
)
CSS2&3
Faster page rendering
Fix the boxmodel (screw everyone else who’s site breaks, it will help the economy to force people to hire a webmaster to fix it
Much is said about so-called standards, tabbed browsing and so on all of which I salivate over. I also want to see Microsoft release an IE.NET SDK (F*ck COM and C++ Okay?).
There are IMO more important priorities however.
** Security
** Print Control
** Acessibility
As we all understand the issues regarding security and print control my final comments address accessibility.
I wonder how many of us know or understand that the lack of browser support for accessibility is as serious as I contend? The US federal government has the power to forbid the use of any software that does not support accessibility. The states are sure to follow.
How many know and understand that lack of accessibility is resulting in punitive actions which will continue to become more and more severe? This has occurred in the UK and recently here in the US.
Microsoft has clearly led the world in assistive technology. They should implement all future releases of IE keeping this in mind.
Why? Because I don’t want to be coding for another browser variant!
The present Firefox / IE6 combination is okay. For us the main thread of development is fully standards compliant XHTML (in the hope that code produced will be future compatible), and any non standard behaviour is dealt with by additional stylesheet inclusion if possible, and as a last resort, a workaround in the HTML.
It used to be that Netscape 4 was the browser that "is still around but nobody wants to code for it", but now that browser (i.e. the one that gets the additional ‘hack’ stylesheet) is IE6!
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
I’ve found several CSS issues in Firefox which I have to code around, so in that sense I realise Firefox is also far from perfect, however it performs logically than IE6 as regards the CSS box model… that’s all the CSS crowd are asking for at the end of the day….
So, please make IE7 a malware-only fix, then give us an improved standards friendly browser in the future, when you’ve sussed and tested the CSS implementation properly, cured float bugs etc.
(Because we don’t want to be coding an additional set of hacks for IE7)
Moonshadow » IE7 para el verano
You’ll have to work uber hard to make me switch back from opera. I hope you succeed.
And please fix the box model at least…
konfabulieren » Internet Explorer 7
Too little too late.
bye bye IE forever.
figby.com » Browser Stats: The State of Firefox
will it work for windows server 2003?
I guess you’re right, Robert, but when CSS3 goes final the properties won’t be named -moz-*, so I think it’s ‘support’ of CSS3 is questionable. As for it being a draft, that is true, but the time is running out for MS – they NEED to get IE7 out quickly, and if they want to put in CSS3 they’ll have to take a leap of faith which I don’t think will backfire in any major way.
Instead of IE7, maybe Microsoft should call it YAIE ( Yet Another IE ) Why anyone would even bother? Show them something Firefox doesn’t have and maybe they believe. So why not just come up with the real truth?
- Security, because its not an option.
- Standards support, because IE is laughable in this regard and should not be.
Microsoft set down the road of purposeful standards incompatibility once upon a time in order to, presumably, protect market share. Now its been proved that this strategy is ineffective in a highly connected at high speed world; in a world where an open source, quality, browser can steal market share rapidly.
MSFT’s best remedy is to out-comply with the open source browsers that are currently setting the bar on HTML / XHTML / CSS etc compatibility.
I would like see in the IE 7:
1. Tabbed browsing.
2. Re-Engineered rendering engine.
3. New imporved interface.
4. Accessibility and usability.
5. Nice tiny-tools you can find in other browsers like firefox and opera.
6. Download manager.
7. Full support to standards.
That’s for now… later!
Sharkasi
Looking forward to the BETA version to see the benifits over the current version. Thanks for listening Microsoft.
_______________________________________________
.
ahhhh yeah … i forgot ….
for those who are interessted what’s the
discussion about ….
this students site explains the technical
handicaps IE users have to cope with, compared
to using an alternative browser …
besides the
omnipotent security issue.
‘why IE sucks!’ ;0)
>>> http://www.nefkom.net/g.piesche/ie/
please remember: more neccessary than "features" is the compability to open standarts. there are quite good tools for
improved functionality yet.
this will give www-users the oportunity to
have a richer, more informational and more
comfortable web experiance than today.
it also will stop the industry programming their sites for 3 different kinds of browsers/users/clients …
the IE-Story turned out be a VERY expensive image campaign by microsoft … on our and your costs.
grtz
by the way i’m a firefox user and work as a web-designer crying for all the wasted time develping for IE …
.
_______________________________________________
No matter what features or improvements are added into IE7 — it’s too late..
Firefox/Mozilla have become the web browser innovators and IE is playing catch-up, due to lack of standards support and ignorance.
We have also become tired of hearing about browser security fixes. It is used as an excuse for poor coding and poor testing.
Will already the beta have Longhorn like visual style?
Most of you all just don’t get the BIG picture. IE6 and eventually IE7 is just the tip of the iceberg! If you all think that IE6 sucks so bad and have switched to Firfox, perhaps you need to re-evaluate (or did you EVER) your choice of O/S for personal use!
Microsoft is fat and happy and non responsive to the needs of computing community. They are not a technology company; they are a marketing company which realeases crap, and then has the public debug their crap, then issues patches.
Have they EVER released an O/S that didn’t have MAJOR problems which needs fixes? You have all become conditioned to believe that this is how your computer experience JUST IS. But it doesn’t have to be!
Think differenty! There are other great operating systems out there like Macintosh and Linux. Open up your minds! The truth will set you free!
Don’t delude yourselves. IE7 will probably be available through Windows Update. If this release doesn’t kill Firefox on Windows, the next rev of the OS will.
Popup blocking is the only reason a non-tech user would take the time to download, install, and get used to Firefox. SP2’s popup blocking feature probably stopped a number of potential converts. When the new version of IE ships with the next rev of Windows, Firefox will probably lose a lot of marketshare on Windows.
When something ships with the OS, it has a huge advantage over the competition. IE sucked *so* hard that Firefox was able to get a foothold. As long as they don’t screw up too bad, IE dominate again.
And Firefox wont be the only victim. Longhorn’ll probably make "deskop search" more visible (A primitive form is already present in Win 2000, it’s just not obvious). I don’t know if even the great Google (the company everyone loves to love publicly) can withstand it. Sure, the download is tiny, but it’s still a separate download.
Of course, Microsoft still doesn’t own the *entire* computing stack. If Dell installs Firefox, I suppose it has a chance. I wonder if an OEM is allowed to do that… (Didn’t MS used to restrict OEMs from selling dual-boots?) Even if they were allowed to, I suppose it might unofficially sour the business relationship. Then again, doesn’t Dell have enough clout to not have to be afraid of that crap?
Not to sound like everyone else who just dumps on IE out of hatred, I can’t imagine any customer in their right mind praising Internet Explorer for its compatibility or extensibility. What they’re probably saying is more like "Fix it now, or take it out of Windows."
Wow, 607 comments! I wish all the best for IE 7 and hope it turns out to be a great release. I just hope it handles spam much better, I visited download.com to download free dvd-burning app and was bombarded with pop-ups and spyware installing on my systems. 180search assistant, adtools etc. AntiSpyware removed it which I recommend, but it was sad to see the nasty stuff just got into the guts of my system that easy.
So please, concentrate on some way of training IE 7 to detect bad stuff, because some bad pop up Windows still get to bypass.
ty
It is too little too late, they are doing security updates that browsers like Mozilla, Firefox and Opera (etc) have been able to do way before them, but the thing is that you can never get rid of IE it’s on your (Windows) computer if you like it or hate it. It may have quote "improved security" but it just won’t have the tabbed browsing or DOM compliancy that the other browsers provide. When I code a site now, I usually test it in Opera or Firefox. IE seems to never look right for me, but I do use PNG format images, and they never display on my coded sites.
Feb 15th 2005 – Delivering a keynote address at the RSA Conference in San Francisco today, Bill Gates announced the next version of Internet Explorer. Version 7’s main feature appears to be improved security adding to an already ongoing drive…
"Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all."
Yes, we wouldn’t want competition that’s already got security down pat, a foundation that can be worked -with- and not -around-, and useful features. I’m hopeful that IE7 will bring new stuff, and it’s about damn time, but there’s no reason to declare the death (or temporary silencing) of users of other – and *in many cases* better – browsers just because you’ve seen a very vague checklist and roadmap.
I am using Firefox myself; in fact except for Windows update and a single remote application that insists on using IE to install updates, I never, ever, use IE.
Certainly more attacks will be addressed to Firefox/Safari/KHTML etc browsers in time, but the reality is I am safer, my clients are safer, using an "anything but IE" strategy, and to the extent that its feasible to do so, that’s exactly what I’ve been working with clients on.
Screw ie it’s all about mozilla.
I like firefox a lot, but I welcome the IE upgrade. Most people don’t care what they use to browse the internet, and so they use what’s there. Might as well give them an upgrade to the one that’s "there." It’ll help us all in the end.
BIG FLAMING YAWN!!!!
I refuse to downgrade from Win ME to Win XP. So I guess I’ll just have to keep using Firefox as my favorite browser.
Sorry, this is too late, I’m tired of dealing with Microsoft products, I’m not a linux zealot but if you don’t pull some magic out of your nether regions then it’s good bye.
You toppled netscape, you left us to rot with IE.
Who’s to say you won’t do the same again. It’s the way you’ve been working business for a long time, I don’t think you will change your ways unfortunately.
I like windows, IE however I hate with a passion, support standards? What?
You’d better cut bloat, up security, add custom ui, add the ability of ui plugins etc, add png correctly and actually TRY (yes, how about some effort) to support some web standards so we the developers of websites don’t have to bend over backwards to make our customers happy AND secure.
Cynically,
Will
I currently use a mix of IE and Firefox. Will be interested to see how IE7 performs.
No-matter what good features other browsers have,
tens of millions of us dont know them or have them.
( W3C? what’s it ?? )
For many of us IE is the default & only tool to browse "Ho-mu Pe-ji".
Even for many who have their own Sites(or blogs), it’s same.
b, center, font, , , such tags are their favorites.
overflow-x(y), scrollbar cusutomizing, & filters also.
If IE gets new features or functions, it’ll be welcome.
American Pizza is also Pizza (and I like it ! )
Micro Picture?
i guess you’re the one NOT looking at the "BIG picture"… I "have" to use windows for as long as I don’t buy an Apple Computer (which is to happen soon… thank GOD!)…
I’m using commercial grade application, non-existant on a Linux platform! I do use linux for all my servers undoubtedly!! But I’m still dual-booting linux, or running my servers on vmware running linux on a windows host!
Your argument is not a good for defending other OS’s nore it is a good one to defend MS Windows as is!
"Open Your Minds" < this is what i do… i use windows, linux and OSX on a daily basis, taking the good (or "less-bad") out of each!
For IE… i wont be going back to it… There is just to much about Firefox that I can’t live without! Including amazing extensions, and CORRECT web standards compliance…
Why use IE just because you use windows??
And if they’re "not a technology company" why do they insist in creating a browser with "it’s own technology"??? It doesn’t make any sense!!
I do welcome the IE upgrade, because I want to see standard compliancy ASAP… If it will not bring that, I couldn’t care less about this kind of upgrade… more of the same? No, thanks!
Let’s wait and see!!
greets
I welcome IE7 with improved security, alpha png support, etc. I’d also like to see it retain its current dhtml rendering speed. For my animated dhtml content IE is very fast and reliable. Firefox is extremely slow at rendering dhtml (see mozilla bug 234233).
So if IE7 could keep its speed and all the new features being promoted, it will be in a good position to ‘take the web back, again’.
Brent.
I am a Firefox user, and I do agree with a lot of the things being said here. However, this is an MSDN blog. YOU chose to come here, and YOU chose to read this post. Why don’t you show your appreciation for Firefox in a different place, and let the contructive comments from the IE users and developers flow here.
cheers,
kisps
waffle
"I’ve also gotten questions about support for Windows 2000. Right now, we’re focused on XP SP2. We’re actively listening to our major Windows 2000 customers about what they want and comparing that to the engineering and logistical complexity of that work. That’s all I can say on that topic."
Please quit trying to feed us this marketing/PR garbage.
Do you really expect the technical readers of an MSDN blog to believe that it is too difficult to create a new version of IE that can run on Windows 2000?
Try being a little more honest with your readers. For example:
"I’ve also gotten questions about support for Windows 2000. Right now, we’re waiting to see how stupid our customers are. We’re hoping that they are dumb enough to believe that our IE team has the only Windows developers on the planet who are incapable of creating an application that runs on both Windows XP and Windows 2000. But Bill might let us if enough Windows 2000 customers indicate that they are sick of the foot dragging and are going to switch to Firefox. It’s embarrasing losing market share to a non-profit organization that only has a dozen paid employees."
It’s all about the paper
Oh, a quick one…
Change "Favorites" to "Bookmarks". When I flag a site, it isn’t necs. my "favorite". It might be a ToDo list, or a gross picture link, or instructions on how to get rid of Clippy, etc.
oh yeah, and
get rid of ActiveX, JScript, VBScript, and HTA’s etc. I’m tired of doing Tech Support on boxes hosed from Virii and Malware.
???IE 7 Code!!!!!!!??? <Anne’s Weblog about Markup & Style>
tgecho » IE7
Another blog entry ruined by whiny broken-record M$ bashing twats, I see.
hhey
I am a Firefox user, and I do agree with a lot of the things being said here. However, this is an MSDN blog. YOU chose to come here, and YOU chose to read this post. Why don’t you show your appreciation for Firefox in a different place, and let the contructive comments from the IE users and developers flow here.
cheers,
kisps
Good news to hear! Fully CSS2 support is really called for as well as security-related issues. And Doctype switching bug (<?xml …?> works in quirks mode) also should be fixed.
Hey there is nothing wrong with FIREFOX i use bith IE and FIREFOX and i think the two of them are great!!!!
Nickabocker
The damage has been done, when I check my weblogs I see that IE has dropped from 95% just over 6 months ago to less than 70% now, this I know is the trend world wide, IE is finished nobody trusts it anymore and web designers are sick of writing hacks to make IE work. GET WITH THE PICTURE BILL drop IE for good and ensure windows works, the world will thank you for it in the end.
IE Users, wake up, Microsoft doesn´t care about you. If not for FF, they would have left you out in the dark until the devisionized Longhorn finally makes into life.
"We listen, we commit", this is the usual blogging-is-the-new-kind-of-marketing-building-communities-crap thats crawling all over the web. And some are already close to climax with an ANNOUNCEMENT of an update. Incredible. Are you all starved ? Even talking of IE and "good end-user experience" will make anyone who´s seen any other browser laugh. Yep, 90% of users still use IE to browse. But close to 100% of them don´t know what a browser is, or don´t know that aternatives exist. IE is just sad, and this rescue action is not going to save it.
MS must be scared be scared of Firefox
What is a standard, really?
Is it when a group of nerds who hate the reigning king o the hill, decide what the web should be?
Or is the "standard" equal to the overwhelming majority of the webs population uses?
Standards is a great word being used to paint those who use them as being in harmony with the overall ‘group’ and makes Microsoft seem like it is out there doing it’s own thing and messing it up for everyone.
With a subject as volatile as this people tend to sway the language toward their own viewpoint. People who want abortion illegal are called "anti-choice" by their opposition but "pro-life" by their supporters. People who want abortion legal are called "pro-abortion" by their opposition, but "pro-choice" by their supporters. The use of the word "standards" is no different.
The "standards" being discussed are not important to 80-90% of the browsers out there so how are they "standard"…except to the bunch of anti-microsoft zealots out there.
Microsoft is definitely not without blame, but look at the accusers. geesh
Scott wraps-up Gnomedex 5.0 by discussing Microsoft’s RSS support, Adam Curry’s BitTorrent support, and Dave Winer’s OPML Editor.
As if M$ could come up with anything that could match Firefox. As long as Internet Exploder is integrated with the OS, the user is still bound and gagged and tied to the railroad tracks. In this analogy the oncoming train is every hacker, spammer and malware propagator on the planet.
M$ might retain what is left of its market share, but those of us who are using Opera or Firefox will never go back. We tired of crappy M$ software a decade ago and we’re disinclined to give the company another chance after >20,000 reboots.
The company has lost the ability to innovate – or even effectively steal other peoples’ ideas. M$ is circling the drain. Can you smell the smell of something smelly? I do. It’s called "defeat."
FINNISH IE FIRST, then add features!
As long as you finish support for HTML4, CSS2, and PNG I’ll be happy. Each of these specs are over 5 years old!
Web standards should be the MAIN focus of of the upgrade.
Only thing I can say is our company DEMANDS the following to work in IE 7:
PNG
Those png pictures never look right!
Also:
Printing a website that prints fully on the paper without the print job cut off the paper.
Easier removal of url location visited and history… sometimes reboot and type ahead feature shows past urls visited even though the history was deleted……
Fire your entire design team and hire the Hooter girls.
I consistantly have been using windows, and I am a major open source advocate. What I am looking at with IE7 is that it will not truly be a real release.
My thoughts are that it is going to be just a few GUI updates and a few addon applications. As others have said the functionality will probably not go up and CSS and PNG will still be faded into the background.
If you are going to do anything with IE, you have the resources, build it from ground up. Rewrite the whole engine with security in mind this time. I want a stable browser that works with standards so I can develop my pages the same in all browsers. Currently IE is the only one I am consistantly hacking on to make it work.
This is a pain in the ass. And now I am implementing items to tell users that there is something else out there. Because Internet Explorer with the flaws (im not talking about security as much as open features) it has it pitiful.
You want to see a nice bug? Take a look at my URL and what the support staff at Microsoft said. I guess anything that highjacks a IE browser is safe?
Microsoft announced back in February plans to release Internet Explorer 7 as soon as this summer. From the language given, it sounds as if the development of the new browser specifically targets Windows XP SP2. No mention is given as…
Scott wraps-up Gnomedex 5.0 by discussing Microsoft’s RSS support in depth, with a little bit on Adam Curry’s BitTorrent support, and Dave Winer’s OPML Editor.
It sounds like people are getting excitied, way too excited. You guys are going to have the problem of the product not living up to the hype and excitement.
I’m an Opera lover myself – would love to see IE 7 incorporate many of the great features Opera and many other alternative browsers have. Tabbed browsers, low resource use etc…..
Look forward to seeing the Beta this summer – perhaps in time for my July 7th birthday? LOL
So Microsoft are making IE7. Go back a couple of months and Microsoft were still adamant that they would not be releasing IE7 outwith Longhorn, although this has been widely reported as a big climbdown by MS.
Microsoft, on their IE blog are sayin…
The Licquia Blog » Internet Explorer 7
and remember .. the firefox people arent exactly going to die either .. For some reason i have this feeling that within 3 months of ie7 the nice people at mozilla incoporate all its features and then some into whatever incarnate of firefox is around then
if Google ties in with Moz, IE’s dead. Moz’s weakness is bookmarks and extensions vs profiles vs updates. Also Moz/ff/tbird/etc need to install with more of the holes plugged by default (e.g., Java should be off!)
And something like chromedit (which I have yet to tryout) should be in standard install, standalone might be less bloated. Each variable should have quick links to documentation.
IE’s weakness is multitudes of indecipherable security settings. how does one allow basic js, while disabling/blocking all that other spy-crap-scripting-this-scripting-that?
"Administrator Approved"? WTF?
Sure IE has "import" buttons for this or that, but no export. And how can the avg net user find an importable file of settings?
All browsers could do better if they allow creation of many settings "groups". Not just "trusted zone", etc.
"FF zealots sound a lot like — well, Mac zealots, or sports team zealots, or TV…"
That’s what make them zealots. Or rather, that’s what makes you realize that they’re zealots.
I can’t stress this enough; PLEASE implement standards, and get it right. I know Joe user doesn’t care about them, but nor did he care about whether or not those adware-programs ran in the background until he found out about the disadvantages they had.
If you deliver another substandard (literally) browser, then I, as a web developer, will be forced to hack around your coding mistakes. As it is now, sloppy coders have an easier experience than those who try to follow standardized methods.
I know W3C standards aren’t perfect, but they’re secure, they’re well thought out, and they have a common goal in mind: usability for every single Joe User out there, as well as improving the experience for the "normal" Joe Users who have no clue about what they’re talking about and just complain about how their browsers don’t have nicer colours.
Accessibility and semantic adherence. That’s the future of the web, and that’s what developers have been prevented from making, because whenever they try, they test in Firefox … it works. They test in Opera … it works. They test in Lynx, and Amaya … it works. They test it in Internet Explorer 6.0, and it breaks, and they remove their XML-declaration, they add non-semantic DIVs, and they move the menus to the top of the document.
This will continue to be the reality for millions of web developers if Microsoft doesn’t improve their browser, and I know you’re aware of it. You’re developers, aren’t you?
Good. Then develop a browser that makes other developers proud of you, and gain back the acceptance that Internet Explorer got when it first supported HTML 4.01 and XML.
Best of luck to you all.
I currently use Windows 2000 Professional and I not only think it’s more reliable then XP, but know. Internet Explorer compared to firefox is a joke. Firefox runs and loads faster, the gui is cleaner and sharper looking, and it manages memory better then Internet Explorer. Microsoft obviously doesn’t care about losing market share or else it would have responded to the firefox browser. I honestly believe Microsoft doesn’t really care about its customers. All it cares about are new customers. That’s why Microsoft will only release a new IE for XP SP2 customters – because those are all the new customers!
Stop reading about vaporware that is unlikely to be much better than the 5-years old IE6.
Download Firefox now and see why so many of us have already switched:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
.
Annoyed. You could at least release it for ALL systems that are currently supporting IE6.0. Or at least put in the rending (CSS / Box etc) fixes in a 6.5! What a waste!
You make my work harder than it has to be, every day. Thanks.
For popups and many other web-blemishes, you should be immersing any browser in Proxomitron.
BTW, both IE and the Mozs choke on some sites. Usually I don’t bother making things work; I just move on.
By the time Ali_G and dat udda homi grad from 4th grade in a few years, they’ll feel embarrassed about their/its posts here.
Bill you rock
<p>As everyone has probably this morning, <a href="http://news.com.com/Reversal+Next+IE+update+divorced+from+Windows/2100-1032_3-5577263.html">the browser wars are back</a>. Our biggest opponent has <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/37
oooh…wooow…Internet Exploder 7. Who cares? I’ll never support a product that trys to tear appart the internet with so many propprietary protocols.
Get <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/>Firefox</a>
firefox is secure fast, and has many free and useful extensions for download. Firefox also has tabbed browsing(a reason I could never switch back to ie).
Go Firefox!
IE6 has some major problems with something called "closures". See http://www.bazon.net/mishoo/articles.epl?art_id=824 for more information.
I hope you guys get around fixing that, because it gives us serious issues, and I know it is an issue with things like http://www.CommunityServer.com (the old ASP.Net Forums) and http://www.DotNetNuke.org (the primary portal solution for Windows Servers).
darn those typos — I want a finished version of IE, not one for Finland (sorry Finland)
Haha! Glad to see MS pushing the marketing, and what is sure to become yet the next target for pr0n and adware.
MS, sorry guys, you’ve lost me as a user of your browser for *ever* with your spy-ware ridden crap that is so hopelessly outdated.
Just the fact that Firefox is pushing you to do this makes it all the more worthwhile to stay with that very coolest of apps.
Nice knowing ya, my fortunes now are with the Mozilla team, hope you get smoked yet again.
Dang, my link didn’t work. =/ lol Just click on Peter’s above.
Enable and Disable Active scripting in IE without to close current open IE windows.
Use this program with IE7 and will be more secure than ever while watching hackers, sexual and other undergraund sites
more info here:
http://browsesafetly.exactscores.com
Feel free to fix HTTP level stuff as well. For example I publish a .zip file on my website. When IE accesses, it says it accepts gzip and deflate as a transfer encoding. The web server does just that. But IE doesn’t then decode the transfer encoding. That leaves it claiming the zip is corrupt.
And every time a user complains, I tell them use a standards compliant browser that won’t do stupid things like request particular transfer encodings and then not understand them. In fact *any* other browser will work.
And every day those people try new browsers, are very happy and thank me.
Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine. Fix the rendering engine.
Yeah, tabs are fun. …But make sure you fix the rendering engine.
Security’s a great giggle. …As long as it draws pages properly.
The only way you can win friends is by making it draw pages properly and abolishing all your proprietary crap.
It won’t "break the web"; if it does, 25 million people prefer a "broken" web anyway.
I think you should just abandon the project, it’s going to be about as disappointing as the typical inachu rambling that no one seems to ever understand.
Internet Explorer 7 is considered by many people as the ultimate step on the security and safety domains for Windows XP and Longhorn platforms. However, I’m afraid that malicious hackers could find many wacky "tricks" to exploit possible security holes on that new browser. Some viruses are extremely malicious, with the ability to potentially damage files and programs. Like all versions of Internet Explorer, the new IE7 could also contain security holes, forcing Microsoft to release several cumulative patches and hotfixes to recover ‘em!
As you can see, a lot of users want you to add XHTML, CSS, PNG, etc. support. Maybe it is time to talk to Mozilla, and go use the Gecko engine (extended to your own needs).
And more important: make it (or make several) for all versions of Windows. This way, we webdevelopers, can stat making kick ass websites, and 80% of the visitors can see it too.
Ping Back来自：blog.csdn.net
iknow there is a breadth of comments on this blog but I stopped reading half-way down!! Microsuck, as I’ve grown to call them……..doesnt have a clue about what the common browser wants and couldnt care less. Market share and Monopoly CONTROL IS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT!! Mostly Control!
Ie7 wont make any difference cause Microsuck is going down for the count …slowly but surely. All components of Windows should be stripped-out from the Operating System and made as stand-alone apps!! Media player, Ie, and all of the other packaged components that make/BREAK their GUI/Operating system will continue to erode their market share as well as their operating system. I want one operating system separated as stand alone software instead of criss-crossing layering code when fixing one problem has to be weighed against what it will break in another component. Thats the reason I havent installed SP2 yet; cause everything works extremely well beforehand! Moronic browsing of the masses of people cause so much of the hoopla that it gets impossible to keep track of anything now-adays. Microsuck would do better (if they cared) to show/teach/train/educate people on how to use their NEW Pc’s instead of trying to cushion everything for the Masssssss dummies that dont want to take the time to learn. One example being the weekly use of Scandisk/chkdsk/Defrag/Virus/and program updates is a starter! I have too many customers/problem users ask me/dont even know when I tell them to use these tools!! I’ve used computers before there was Windows! Breakout IE7 from Windows and make it a stand-alone product if you dare Microsuck. I never used-to call them that but greed and insecurity does strange things to people in power!!
I am viewing this of Firefox!
MSFT Guys,
C’mon, people who come here are not so much interested in security announcements (TechNet is the right place for them). Any commitment in terms of improving web standards and finishing what you started with CSS, and improving support of DOM, XML content types, PNG, XHTML, etc?
Can you for once say, "Yes, there’s commitment" or "No, we’re not committing?" Pleeeease?
Begging, pleading, yelling doesn’t help. What does?
I’d have to say that while this is some vindication for those of us Windows users who have been on the defensive recently due to the growing Firefox trend (which is good software, too, mind you), I’m concerned that this new version of Internet Explorer might come off as a bit spartan.
What I mean is, sure, it’s good that security-related capabilities have a good chance of getting fixed in Version 7, but how about open standards like CSS, XML, MathML, and the like? Over the years of my writing web sites and using IE, I have been hoping that IE move more and more towards compatibility with these specifications. I’m pretty impressed with how IE handles cascading style sheets right now; it’s an integral part of any web project I start (both IE and the style sheets, I mean). But what about the others? HTML 4?
Historically, I observe that I have strong brand loyalty, and I have been an MS-DOS and Windows user for a long long time. Here’s to hoping that my browser finally deals with the standards. Good luck. ^_^
How totally reactionary of you Mr. MS. Thanks to Firefox we’ve had a great solution to your browser for a while now. You’ve "heard" us huh? I think you’ve heard your market share going away , that’s what you’v heard.
My suggestion: start being more visionary before you can no longer react fast enough. Sure, now you can get away with it because of your size but that won’t continue forever.
-bruce
I hope it will render webpages like Firefox, not crapped "webpages for IE" full of workarounds to get things working on it. CSS support on IE is pathetic… like the folks that don’t understand this.
This past month there has been a lot of chatter in the community about Microsoft being forced into releasing version 7 of Internet Explorer (IE7) well before its planned launch of 2006 due to increasing pressure from Mozilla’s ever increasingly
N.N. Thayer:
Anything IE does ‘under the hood’ that doesn’t comply with W3C standards is nonsense. This proprietary attitude is exactly what led to the uprising of superior browsers and the stagnant, domineering attitude of MS regarding updates to IE (until today, anyway).
Yes, there are cool things that can be done with .NET and IE specifically. But to limit yourself by developing with proprietary technologies of one company that target one browser is simply shortsighted and self-centered. It puts you at the mercy of that company to decide what is right and wrong, rather than an entire body of people representing many companies, attitudes, research, facts, opinions, and walks of life.
Again, why pigeonhole yourself into your own demise?
Standards, standards, standards.
People who don’t create websites won’t understand, but it will benefit everyone who uses the web if IE creates a standards-compliant browser – CSS, CSS2, XML, XHTML, PNG, etc. Leave out support for proprietary coding – if necessary, you can release an enterprise version with proprietary support, which is only necessary and useful in that sort of situation. Home users do not need ActiveX in their browser, and it only makes it less secure by being there. If you can stick to standards and include updates to them, websites will get better due to improvements in the standard since IE was last updated, layout will improve, less work will have to be done to create sites. Everyone will benefit.
> What is a standard, really?
There are three factors that determine whether something is a standard or not – compatibility, interchangeability and commonality.
Internet Explorer is common, nothing more.
The specifications published by the W3C are not standards, and the W3C is not a standards organisation. It’s an industry consortium that publishes open specifications. In fact, it’s intentionally constructed in this way; Tim Berners Lee intentionally avoided making it a standards body when he set it up.
It irritates me when people refer to them as standards, but they meet the criteria much more than Internet Explorer does.
I’d just really like some better standards support.
so, any bets on how many hours after release before someone hacks this to pieces?
Scott wraps-up Gnomedex 5.0 by discussing Microsoft’s RSS support in depth, with a little bit on Adam Curry’s BitTorrent support, and Dave Winer’s OPML Editor.
This better have:
Tabbed Browsing
-with stored ‘sets’ of tabs
RSS Reading Capabilities
*I’ll throw in PNG support too
*Hey how about something really neat like shared browsing with MSN Messenger contacts…you’ll get some traffic to your little IM proggie, an innovative, new-not-catching-up-feature and a happy J Dogg on your side.
Microsoft, I can’t believe that it took you this long to update your browser. I can’t believe that were it not for some FF hype frenzy that you would have left us in the cold. Shame on you…look yourself in the mirror and ask "WHY?".
I don’t care that much about the engine changes…except any speed increase is AWESOME. All of the whining ‘creative types’ will NEVER be pleased. (Hey…whiners…try designing to the REAL standard and go bug FF and Opera to render those pages.)
The sites that I design work just fine in all browsers with very little effort in ‘compatability management’. Get over yourselves and admit that you are Microsoft hating trolls who will never use their product no matter what. Seriously, you’re really annoying and your geeky envy is just bellowing out of you.
If I’ve spoken the truth and equally pissed off both sides…then my work here is done.
Bring your massive legions of nerd trolls to flame thee. I shall be shielded in the reality of life and thus immune to your torments.
J Dogg In Tha Bank…represent
It was very funny reading the comment by the guy that prides himself on never getting malware from IE browsing because he has anti-spyware this and anti-virus that, firewalls gallore etc etc installed. Dude, you wouldn’t need all those bandages if you used a browser that wasn’t gushing blood and attracting infection to start with…
Since I’ve been installing mozilla and more recently, firefox after cleaning up malware infested machines (by formatting them), I’ve noticed the time before that user rings me back with problems has increased in some cases to YEARS.
I’m not saying you should not be using virus-scanners and anti-malware products (unless you’re using something other than windows that is…), but it’s uncanny how little malware a mozilla-browser-based average, household pc gets.
> Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all.
If IE 7 still renders CSS (among other things) as poorly as IE does now, don’t count on it.
Personally, I can’t wait to see how Firefox will continue outperform Microsoft’s next "browser".
> Nice knowing ya, my fortunes now are with the Mozilla team, hope you get smoked yet again.
Amen to that.
i am just eager to know onething. All these opensource advocates..will they work for free???? then why do we need opensource!!!
microsoft rules…waiting for IE 7
The Internet Explorer team has a weblog, but unlike so many of their counterparts in other Microsoft product groups they seem allergic to actually using it for more than teasers and marketing doublespeak. Yesterday’s post on IE7 Platforms and Outlook Express is unfortunately typical: We currently plan to make IE7 available for Windows XP SP2 and later. This will therefore include availability not only for the 32bit version of Windows XP SP2 but also for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 SP1 both of which are due to be released soon. As Dean commented in his original IE7 post on this blog we have heard the requests for support of Windows 2000 but have nothing to announce at this time… We’ll share more details about IE7 as we get further along with the project. No, no, no! The time to share more details about your thinking is now. Tell us what you have planned. Give us a rough idea of timelines. If you’ve heard widespread requests from the community and you don’t plan to address them, tell us why you won’t or can’t do those things. You have several hundred million customers. Why not share a little bit more? The Longhorn team has been talking publicly about its plans for a couple of years. There are Longhorn road maps that spell out exactly what the broad outlines of the product will be. The IE7 team is a few months away from releasing a beta, which means they probably already have locked-down feature lists and quite a bit of code written. And yet they act like their product plans are classified Double Top Secret, Eyes Only. The “we have heard the requests for support of Windows 2000 but have nothing to announce at this time” line is especially galling. Translated, it means, “Yeah, we’ve been thinking about this,…
Thanks Slashdot for all the insightful comments! I know I lend a lot of creedence to people who punctuate their arguments with ‘M$’. :}
http://img116.exs.cx/img116/9551/20020722l1hh.gif
Anyway, should be interesting to see what they come up with. Till them I’m sticking to firefox. Cheers!
I wonder If the improvements list will come out Or will not? Witout It the IE7 Beta will be only a try to stop the IE Share fall.
I think (and I’m almost sure) IE7 Will not Include better support for CSS, PNG or any other new standar. If they haven’t been able to do It in some years, will be almost Imposible in some months, Right Dean? The development required to make IE get all those features Is Huge, Development Is slow, and In order to change lot of things you would need to do what Netscape did, rewrite the entire engine. That will result In the same history: the browser In Beta stage, with more /* TODO: …*/ in the code will lose the war.
I love Firefox, that’s right; But I write html to people use IE I only would love to not to work twice for these people, for this browser, that makes my CSS a waste of time. I want to be optimistic about IE’s future, But I’m sorry, I can’t.
> XMLHTTPRequest as a NON-ACTIVEX object that is syntax compatible
Standards standards standards. I point out the above specifically as XMLHTTPRequest is not just icing on the cake anymore. Google’s gmail & maps, flickr, and some other rather large sites are implementing this object. I can’t walk over to a macintosh and access my gmail account in IE because of this. I understand from a business standpoint why you want to make everything proprietary, but it gets a big thumbs down from me.
–I’m concerned that this is going to break the legitimate and very common use of redirects all across the Internet.
Fear not, we’re not going to break the internet.
(quote)
I am a Firefox user, and I do agree with a lot of the things being said here. However, this is an MSDN blog. YOU chose to come here, and YOU chose to read this post. Why don’t you show your appreciation for Firefox in a different place, and let the contructive comments from the IE users and developers flow here.
cheers,
kisps
(end quote)
I did not come here to "show appreciation for FF". I came here to criticize the decision to release IE 7 for XP and not for ME.
If there is ever an IE 7 release for Win ME I will try it with an open mind. If there isn’t then I will happily use FF.
Sorry I did not make that clear the first time.
For those of you who cannot wait till summer! There IS already an IE7 (http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/)! If you refused to accept a better browser (http://www.spreadfirefox.com/) until now, I recommend asking the webmaster of your favorite site to set up IE7 for you. That would finally let you browse like today’s browser do, even with IE6.
How can you do this? M$ has said all along that the OS and the browser were inseparable… At least that’s what Alchin said…
Great.
Some suggestions that you’ve already heard:
-openSource extensions like FireFox promotes
-XUL support
-tabbed browsing
-faster rendering
-better standards support of XHTML, CSS 1/2/3
-fix the box-model hack
-do not add anything proprietary
-add a measuring tool and object debugger
Thanks. Hurry up. Can’t wait.
By the way, I still use a Win 2K machine all the time.
" What is a standard, really?
Is it when a group of nerds who hate the reigning king o the hill, decide what the web should be?
Or is the "standard" equal to the overwhelming majority of the webs population uses?"
how about: an specification created by and agreed upon by many important players in industry. Like the WorldWideWeb Consortium "recommendations". The W3C is nothing more than a conglomeration of people from all over the industry and academic institutions. There are people from Adobe, IBM and Microsoft there.
Why Microsoft doesn’t implement such specifications is not a matter of not having a voice in their creation firsthand.
Will it have different skins, extensions, and goodies like Mozilla Firefox? And will it be able to handle transparent png files?
bun tare
"Hey…whiners…try designing to the REAL standard and go bug FF and Opera to render those pages."
You obviously have no clue as to what you’re talking about.
Google launches version 3.0 of their toolbar. Google AdSense now on VNU websites. IE 7 beta to launch over the summer. Yahoo! opening Dublin HQ.
You opensource nuts need to get jobs so those of us who code for a living won’t have to support you in your olden years.
Whatever…give me the beta so my machine can crash with that too?? I don’t know about anyone else, but whenever I get a beta or even a full version of anything Microsoft, I have to wait 6 months for them to get the bugs out. And I like testing betas????!!!!
So in 9 months, talk to me again about IE 7.0. Until then, I’m sticking with Firefox, which does have a plug-in that enables a webpage to be seen in IE if it’s not compatible in Firefox. Now THAT is a great tool!!!
Good luck Microsoft. You’re gonna need it now that Firefox is eating your food!! Viva la Mozilla!! Viva la Linux!!! Free Free Free.
Kewl. :).
Microsoft will finally release a new Internet Explorer browser this summer. Originally, the browser was to be introduced with the new longhorn operating system but Microsoft changed their plans. Firefox certainly played a key role in this decision. This…
Good news, I think after release of IE 7, share of IE is gonna increase for sure.. (provided they have common thing like tabbed browsing & FAST browsing)
cheers
Deep
I like Microsoft, and have enjoyed using their products over the years. But a number of recent decisions have made me stand back and wonder what on earth they are thinking. I currently use Windows 2000. I like Windows 2000, and I have no intention of upgrading to XP anytime soon. Will I not be able to use I.E. 7? Will the tens of thousands of other WIn2k users be left out as well? Luckily, I have not had many major experiences with security vulnerabilites (I credit third-party security software and hardware that I have on my system). But I can see the potential for users to get fed up with I.E. and move to Firefox, or some other browser. I suspect a majority of the Win2k users concerned about security will be doing just that.
leave it to ignorance to make comments about something they don’t know about. opensource, doesn’t always mean free. it means that the source code is open to the community, which means that you can still sell software, but the source code is open to be improved upon once bought, unlike ms who sells closed source product, which you are not supposed to mess with. in fact you are only given a license to use the software, for the most part you don’t even own it, which is why ms has become subject to many attacks.
TrackBack From:http://www.cnblogs.com/yang_sy/archive/2005/04/28/146954.html
I came across this post on the Internet Explorer blog on MSDN this afternoon. In it Dean talks about Microsofts committment to IE7 on XPSP2, but says virtually nothing else about features or functionality. IMO it’s about time Microsoft talked about about features and not just committment.
<blockquote>Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.
First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer. This new release will build on the work we did in Windows XP SP2 and (among other things) go further to defend users from phishing as well as deceptive or malicious software.
Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: “Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment.”
I think of today’s announcement as a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”
<a title="IE7" href="http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx">IE7</a></blockquote>
FYI:
My day job involves working in a Windows environment using a mix of Microsoft and other proprietary software. I am not vehemently anti-MS, but I’m realistic enough to understand that some of MS’s software is best-of-breed or close to it for particular purposes, and other MS software, well, isn’t.
I am also a firefox user at home, which is a little surprising, as I spend enough time on my computer at work that I generally leave well enough alone at home in terms of my overall computer setup. I originally switched to Firefox because IE started freezing when it was run about 50% of the time on my main desktop machine (which is a pentum 533 box running Win98, which serves me well enough for non-work and non-game purposes.) I still don’t know why IE on my Win98 box does this, and I no longer care; I just never use IE on that box except to visit windowsupdate. My parents (who aren’t tech-savvy) have asked about Firefox and the only reason I haven’t installed it on their machine yet is laziness. As I’ve moved more of my day-to-day computing to my Win XP laptop, I’ve also installed Firefox on it for my browsing there as well.
Features that I like in Firefox that MS should consider knocking off (because we all know that IE7 is going to be at least partly about knocking Firefox back down to about 8% of users):
- Tabbed browsing. This is especially imprtant on my fixed-resolution laptop as I have much less room for window bars on my taskbar there (and Win XP’s taskbar stacking drives me batty)
- Firefox’s single download window is so much better engineered than IE’s multiple download dialogs are.
- I like having my repeat-browsing favorite sites reside in the address bar dropdown and sing my bookmarks mire for historical archiving. The Firefox "Paste and Go" add-in allows me to navigate to sites from a text-based address without typing them in, meaning that sites that aren’t linked to that I only want to visit once can still be visited without me haveing to type them in my address bar and temporarily displace one of my repeated-surf sites.
I also use the Sage RSS/Atom feed reader on a daily basis, but that probably won’t make it into a store-brand generic browser. It’ll also probably be enough for me to shrug and say "who cares?" about IE7, unless IE7 makes two important changes that I can’t see happening:
1. Uncoupling ActiveX (and other proprietary MS stuff, as applicable) from the browser
Most home users never use ActiveX. Most home-oriented web sites never use this either, except for Windows update and or the online antivrius checkers that some vendors have. Most anything else I’ve seen that is outside company intranets uses flash or java. Nonetheless, the IE-based intranet thin clients that are deployed in many places will probably leave IE and ActiveX intertwined.
2. Uncoupling IE from the operating system and sandboxing it effectively from the same.
It’s bad enough that proprietary MS browsing/browser extensions, poorly coded, have made a mess of IE security. It’s even worse that IE is so integrated with the OS that IE security holes can wreak total havoc with a person’s system.
I think if MS is really serious about security, they’re going to need to remove existing functionality in IE7 to the extent of doing either 1 or 2 above. I also think that the MS marketing department and Pointy-Haired Bosses will resist any action of this sort with every ounce of their being.
This is definitely going to be interesting to follow over the next year or so.
(craigkas)at(myway)dot(com)
Its so strange, we are at IE 7, I installed IE 1.0 the other on Windows 95 in VPC ’04, The Internet is what it was called on the desktop.
IE has gotten so feature rich over the years, we should really appreciate it and compare our Internet browsing experiences in 1998 to today, I would say we are blessed.
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta/Blog/cns!1ppieQf0aF6k7J0XYrJfhfMQ!782.entry
> You opensource nuts need to get jobs so those of us who code for a living won’t have to support you in your olden years.
Perhaps it escaped your attention, but two of the lead developers for the open-source Firefox have recently been hired by Google, and a number of Apple employees work on the open-source KHTML of the Konqueror/Safari/Omniweb browsers.
In fact, most of the large, important open-source projects (Mozilla, Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL) have paid developers working on them full-time.
Don’t let facts get in the way of expressing your ignorance as loud as possible though, will you?
Scott wraps-up Gnomedex 5.0 by discussing Microsoft’s RSS support in depth, with a little bit on Adam Curry’s BitTorrent support, and Dave Winer’s OPML Editor.
Snuffkin, where exactly did I repeat myself?
I had three distinct points (the reason why IE7 will see daylight; the lack of its versions for older Windows; the problem IE will have chasing a moving target). I do not see any repetition.
And the IE7 will then have all the features an Opera oder Firefox have today? Has it transparent PNG support?
Do make again your own SPECS and not the real ones from the webconsortium?
Wow!…And what a fast and hard development for an supposed desktop lader.
@Andre Da Costa
You’ve *got* to be kidding. Blessed?
You know what would be really cool? W3C compliance. You know, CSS with working box and float models, DOM and Javascript, that sort of thing. I think IE is the last non-compliant browser….
As a geek, who often gets called for various tech problems, I can tell that converting people to firefox is an easy task once they understand how they got into trouble. It’s not even a matter of how good IE7 might become, those people have lost faith in IE. Restauring that faith would be no easy task, and they just won’t bother looking back, for that they are the kind who wants something that works and just forget about it. Those users are probably lost for good to IE.
@N.N. Thayer:
"IE and .NET are so far ahead of Firefox and the OSS community, so off in an advanced league of their own, showing what they can really do, that they have made me an adherent. Firefox kludges along, always playing catchup"
But right now it’s pretty obviously MSIE that’s playing catch-up with Firefox. And while .NET is a server technology that has nothing to do with Firefox, it’s easily bested by the open source server technology Zope. .NET still has a long way to go to catch up with Zope.
"All the GUI functionality that slowly wedged its way into GNOME, KDE, etc.? Automatic updates? So much of what you see on Linux is just a pale imitation of what Microsoft has already done."
It seems that in all of those cases the technologies were on the Mac and/or the Amiga before they made it into MS-Windows.
"All the alternative browsers put together hold a paltry 10% of the market, and IE continues to set standards and drive the Web. I’d hardly call that an uprising."
Firefox by itself holds around 10% of the market (possibly more, possibly less; it depends upon whom you ask). From what I’ve personally seen on web server logs I’d say that Firefox currently has a little over 9% of the market and Safari has about half of that. Opera, Konqueror, and others combine for another few percentage points. This leaves all the different versions of MSIE (including the abandoned ones for the Mac and UNIX) pulling in around 83%. Consider that Firefox hasn’t been around that long. Consider that Safari hasn’t been around that long and is available only on the Mac. MSIE is currently bleeding market share, and if that oft-quoted 3% Mac market ever had any truth, then Mac market share is growing, too.
If a new standards-compliant version of MSIE isn’t released for Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2K, and Mac OS X as well as WinXP, it’s not going to be gaining back more than it’s losing.
anand, Blah, don’t get disheartened. We’ll let the open sourcers innovate all the way to court when the patent suit hits.
> Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all.
hardly…
there’s some of us that actually like a browser that "works"…
Reading this post about IE7 beta, without discussing any possible features has just convinced me to switch to FireFox.
I would have been happy to stick with IE for another few years, but seeing the lack of support for pre-XP/SP2 (which I’m running); I can’t foresee people actually wanting to stick with IE: those without the latest OS will just move to FF in absence of a new IE, everyone else will realize that the standard has moved away from IE and will also move.
I see this announcement as the end of IE’s ‘monopoly’ on the Windows platform.
Can we get a blog where we can discuss what we want to see in IE7? Other than CSS and PNG support – I think that has been mentioned at least once before.
And please tone down the Firefox rah-rah-rah – we get it! — tabbed browsing is the most important invention since the internal combustion engine.
Reading this post about IE7 beta, without discussing any possible features has just convinced me to switch to FireFox.
I would have been happy to stick with IE for another few years, but seeing the lack of support for pre-XP/SP2 (which I’m running); I can’t foresee people actually wanting to stick with IE: those without the latest OS will just move to FF in absence of a new IE, everyone else will realize that the standard has moved away from IE and will also move.
I see this announcement as the end of IE’s ‘monopoly’ on the Windows platform.
TOO BAD XP SP 2 DOESN’T WORK THAT GOOD TO BEGIN WITH.
THANK GOODNESS FOR LINUX, APACHE AND FIREFOX.
Hey,
don’t forget to include in ie7 all the nice security holes for the kids in school!
IE has seriously fallen behind Firefox when it comes to being a feature rich browser. Whenever the rare occassion comes up that I have to use IE6, I feel stifled.
Add JPG2000 (.jp2) support (www.luratech.com
Thx
Extensions and a web development toolbar (similar to the one Firefox has as an extension) would be a great asset for web developers. As a developer in the web industry, there are a lot of things I’d like to see that would make life easier for me in terms of browser targeting. For example, a feature to ensure that the user is aware that there is a newer version of the browser available with the ability to run a live update like the Windows XP updates (or tied into them). Seeing NN4 users still showing up in the SiteCatalyst reports kills me. CSS3 support would also be a step in the right direction (hope those people who used the box model hack aren’t kicking hitting their head against the wall…)
"Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all."
Shut them up why?
Are you honestly cheerleading for a company’s web browser? The question you have to ask yourself is: Why?
Please PLEASE do not support the CSS 3 Draft. There’re nothing worse than a major browser with the market share like IE to support an unfinalized draft of a web standard. Guys, we have been suffered before. Netscape, IE all tried to "support" technology that was still in their draft state, and the result is a series of non-standard implementations that affect us for a long long time. Please don’t repeat the same mistakes.
But it would be great to fully support CSS 1/2, XHTML, PNG, etc.
XUL support? I really don’t have any interest in it. NOTE: Yes, it’s an open standard, but it’s a very Mozilla centric technology. IMO, instead of supporting XUL, it would be a better idea to develop an open source implementation of Avalon to the Mozilla project!
I’m glad IE7 is coming, at last. In my opinion, tabbed browsing would be awesome, as well as a download manager. Unless, of course, some retards start crying and complain about anti-competition by microsoft by eliminating the need for people to use Download Accelerator Plus, GetRight and FreshDownload.
IE7 should also have that 64 bit windows model – Win32 support in Win64. By that I mean that you should make IE7 *100%* compliant with all web standards, as well as the ability to update them OTF. If a website doesn’t render properly in IE7 compliant mode, click a button, and bam! The IE6 renderer kicks in.
Tabbed browsing pls.
I absolutely hate FF – it’s slow and it can’t render anything properly. What is with people saying IE doesn’t render stuff properly? I remember helping a friend with centering a layer in a *FULLY COMPLIANT* XHTML/CSS site. FF couldn’t do it. Turns out we had to put the page inside a <table> and then <center> it.
I’ll give Open Source a 50/50 on this one – The ideologies good but the real thing sucks. I’ve had Linux nuts admit this to me themselves. That said, my KS web server runs Redhat Enterprise and Apache 2, with Evision CP – and I’ll be damned if I can find a decent CP for IIS and Server 2k3. Except for cPanel – which is developing a windows version, which I’m watching with great interest.
Nevertheless if you are looking for beta testers, I am interested (read: Desperate). Just email 038245 AT gmail DOT com and it’s all good. If I do beta, can I pimp people with my copy?
Great news!
How many security probmes can we expect?
100’s?
Speaking as an old VB/C programmer and former user of Microsoft Windows/Office products I’m not going to hold my breath. Too many times Microsoft has promised but not delivered. Their gawd-awful security and standards crippled browser has caused more problems for me and nearly everyone I know. I switched to Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox long ago due to spyware concerns.
Q: Why should a company/person buy a antispyware program when Microsoft should just fix the security problems that SHOULD be fixed for free?
A: Because Microsoft knows there is money to be made off the antispyware software that will soon be sold by them. (i.e. recent purchase of the company, Giant, seems to support my theory)
Anyway…If IE7 were to properly implement CSS, etc I might be impressed but alas I’m afraid that the only people that Microsoft is trying to impress right now are it’s shareholders.
Well, good luck Microsoft… When you have something impressive, standards based AND secure I "might" come back. Otherwise I’ll continue to use my Linux/BSD based OSes and spyware free Firefox browser.
In short until there are solid details on IE7 from Microsoft there is nothing for us users, administrators, programmers or web developers to see here…move along…
IE = Slow
Firefox = Fast
Windows OS = Slow and unstable
Linux = Fast and stable! Has less errors! Coding in OS is updated more frequently! Code is cleaner.
I have nothing against Microsoft are a marketing company, but I do have something against them as a software company. It’s a joke to believe that these guys write program. I ran Windows for many years and decided to switch to Linux Redhat and so far I haven’t had one single crash yet. It runs really smooth and the OS manages all the hardware efficiently. I believe Microsoft is a genius, the fact that they can sell overpriced junk to the world is amazing. In that I respect them. I don’t prefer Linux over Microsoft. I just prefer stability and reliability over their software… And that’s why I go with mozilla and Linux.
IE, what the hell is that. All I know is FF.
"Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all."
Shut them up why?
Are you honestly cheerleading for a company’s web browser? The question you have to ask yourself is: Why?
@jojo
All these market share of for trash! They are unreal.
The 10% of the market are only, because nobody knows about an Firefox or Opera. Do you really believe all users are installing their browser own? Or can it install self?
In most firms are old IEs installed, which are unpatched 5.0 version under nt2k with more holes as an switzerland cheese.
what a newbie you are?…
PLEASE follow the standards set by the W3C, of which MS is a part. It amazes me that such a large organization has allowed its partial monopoly to overshadow tried and true standards in the name of making a buck.
MS really wants to eliminate the threats of Mozilla and Opera browsers? Go 100% W3C compliant.
>>I guess you’re right, Robert, but when CSS3 goes final the properties won’t be named -moz-*,
I imagine the -moz-* attributes will be renamed to the CSS3 Draft specs in the Mozilla code when CSS is finalized and accepted by the W3C. Until then, Mozilla hides them so they won’t be used "in the wild" and / or adopted as proprietary like IE’s css filter.
>>I think it’s ‘support’ of CSS3 is questionable
CSS3 isn’t a standard yet… it’s a draft. So, their support is about as existant as the CSS3 standard. That is, there is a "draft" support of CSS3 in Mozilla. If IE implements a similar / the same draft support of CSS3 in IE7 (assuming CSS3 isn’t out by then), I won’t complain. But full support of a draft isn’t standards compliance, just like reading the first draft of a novel doesn’t mean that you read the final printed draft of a novel.
No, Mozilla doesn’t support CSS3 in so far as it uses the same tags the draft suggests, but the ability to do things in the CSS3 draft is already in Mozilla. But CSS3 isn’t a standard yet, and we are all clamouring (well, most of us
for standards support, not draft support.
I don’t know which is worse. Fireox or IE. I can’t stand firefox. I think its more of a parasite feeding off of the back of a good browser (Mozilla Seamonkey Suite 1.7.5).
I am not at all impressed with neither firefox nor IE6.
If Microsoft truly "cares", "listens" and "commits" as we always hear them say, they should, at a BARE MINIMUM have those features in IE7
1.) Tabbed Browsing. For those of you who don’t like it, no one is forcing you to use tabbed browsing!
2.) NO POP UPS. One of the critical flaws of pre-XPSP2 versions of IE is no built-in functionality to kill pop ups. Using a 3rd party program is ust ridiculous when other browsers do it natively.
3.) Windows 2000 Support. Hello MS, not everyone uses the over bloated XP for a good reason. Its the win2k crows u should look after, especially since XP is "supposedly" built on top of 2000.
4.) Stick to standards. God knows IE has a reputation of not following standards.
Now, lets truly see if Microsoft will "listen" and "commit"
Sooner as it was annonced. The IE team work well, or fear about Firefox…
Dean,
Is this the accountants decision or have you _finally_ started listening to developers.
IE 6 is a discrace in its current form and I have a feeling IE7 is going to be another awful product simply being used to try and grapple back the small proportion of your monopoly you have lost to FF.
Wacko
I used to be a fan of IE until I tried Mozilla Firefox and Netscape. Since then I was using them. Then came SP2 and the improved IE6. Tried it and it did add some features paticularly the one that I like is the pop up blocker. But to my dismay, the tabbed browsing is still missing. One of the things I like with the other browsers is that they have this option. So there is a lot more space on the taskbar (and its neat to see since its clean). Im hoping that IE7 would add this feature. If so would be great and will be gladly going back as an IE fan.
I’m undecided.
I use firefox and I still have IE for backup. I’ve noticed that a greater and greater percentage of the visitors to my site are using Firefox and it doesn’t appear to be stopping.
I understand that your hands must be tied, because this IS about business.
At the very least IE 7 should comply with the basic standards, bring it up to speed for us, make our lives as developers easier.
You guys COULD bust out an absolutely amazing product and that would be awesome. You could break away from the OS and have a good, clean, completely rewritten piece of software. Yeah, your hands are tied.. You would then have to deal with the thousands and thousands of corporate systems out there who don’t want to upgrade.
Keep us in mind though Microsoft.. Young web developers like myself and so many more, we’re deciding what the next few years are going to bring. We’re being won over to the standards and for good reason, they work.
Wishing you guys all the best. You did a wonderful step in the right direction with MSN Search, I’ve been very pleased with what you’ve done so far. Keep it up, and keep us in mind. The big corporate sites and systems will only be around for so long before they must too change.
-Jonathan Wold
IE7 for XP only? Its going to suck like the rest of your bug infested rubbish. Just watch those Firefox figures go beyond 10% market share and beyond.
Yes, definitely do a version for Windows 2000. I’m afraid that corporate isn’t prepared to foot the bill to upgrade all our workstations to XP.
Wow…should i say something? Really? So…please…togheter with the security issue, keep in mind the tremendous grown of web applications and the effort has been done to put more and more client side technology to improuve user experience.
Guess what happened after SP2 about all this stuff?
Appened costumer in panic.
Now…i understand that the main security problem are the "x-rated" websites that users use to download viruses. But please try to find a way to allow the costumer to choice the level of security they want to implement on a web site much easyer and effective…not one size fits all.
And weapons much intelligent.
For example:
1)Why ALL images must be blocked on Outlook Express?
2)Why script that don’t make use of activeX object must be warned? Was already impossible for scripts of different domains to access one another.
I know that achieving such a level of intelligence is not that easy…but you are posing too much obstacles about the user experience. I understand the issue but, hey, then why don’t we go back to mosaic and text based browsing at this point?!
And… about the compatibility… if is not ask too much… MAKE VERESIONS FULLY COMPATIBLE (Mac, Win, LINUX?!!!!!)
Wow, should i say something? Really?!!!
Good Job.
PS: IE is a great browser. Really. I’m not exactly a MS fan but IE is a GREAT product, really versatile with little bugs and great power.
Erm, most OpenSource nuts do have a Job.. Just cause it’s opensource doesnt mean it’s free and no commercial work goes into it, KDE, RedHat, Fedora, and others are examples.
Bah to IE7, its gonna be rubbish.
It’s really a shame IE spent so much time without a new version. After Netscape Navigator lost the browser wars, there was almost no upgrades for the old IE6. It took the open source community a while to straighten up all the Mozilla code, but finally there is a strong competitor after all.
It would be nice to see MS embracing open standards instead of implementing new proprietary, slightly incompatible versions of open standards. Just for those without a memory: HTML vs. IE HTML extensions, Java vs. C#, PHP/JSP vs. ASP, MP3 vs. WMA, MPEG vs. WMV, and the list goes on.
Just my 2 cents on the issue,
Sergio Henrique
Wait till I come! » Internet Explorer 7 ante portas?
Would IE7 be as fast as Mozilla Firefox or Opera? That’s one of the reasons as well why I shifted from IE to these browsers because they are VERY FAST in opening webpages and but of course my personal favorite, TABBED BROWSING
EZblog » Linkdump 16 februari
I hope that the new IE will follow the w3c standards (at the moment i miss alpha channel in png-files).
But please consider one thing: because IE is the most used browser on this place (i mean: earth
yet, it is for sure the most attacked browser on earth, too. If another browser will be spread like hell as like the IE at the moment (and past), I am sure the dumb people who are programming viruses, trojans etc. will do it for the other browser, too. Perfect way would be that many browsers share the market at nearly same percentages.
Nethertheless I hope that the next IE will be more standard than the forerunners and even with less bugs than them, because I think that the new version will be also spread like hell, so done with the forerunners, too. A sharing of market is not in sight in my eyes, but firefox and opera are on the right way, so give them a chance, too.
@BOSCO
Get a grip. You’re embarrassing the open source community.
Would IE7 be as fast as Mozilla Firefox or Opera? That’s one of the reasons as well why I shifted from IE to these browsers because they are VERY FAST in opening webpages and but of course my personal favorite, TABBED BROWSING
betablox » IE 7 ???
I am pretty sure that IE7 will again ignore standards. It will declare its bugs as the way to do things and web designers will either continue to simply write buggy web pages or have a hard time to make them work for both browsers that observe standards and IE. Users will continue to think that websites that adapt to IE’s bugs "do not work with other browsers correctly" and MS will be happy about it. There will still be a bunch of proprietary protocols that only work in IE or only on Windows and they will still provide a neverending repertoire of security holes. Same old story, whether or not there are a few little features added or not.
IE7 for XP only? Its going to suck like the rest of your bug infested rubbish. Just watch those Firefox figures go beyond 10% market share and beyond.
I have finally understood what Microsoft is.
Looking through this article I see hundreds of people practically begging for one thing; update the rendering engine. This is the damage done to the internet by IE6. Up until now if someone wants to make a standards-compliant website that works in all browsers they have 5 options:
• Make the site for modern browsers and insert ugly CSS, JS and server-side hacks for IE users
• Make an alternate site for IE users
• Make the site in HTML 3.2 (the only version of HTML that IE6 SV1 fully supports)
• Lock out IE users, either intentionally (by browser sniffing) or unintentionally (e.g. by using valid XHTML 1.1, which coincidentally – as someone said above – is being used as the default in the new versions of ASP.Net)
• Tag soup that’s designed to only look right in one browser
The majority right now are using option 5 (e.g. this page). A lot are switching to the first two as they learn why standards compliance is important. I doubt there’s a significant number that go to the trouble of number 3. But with the massive rise in use of modern browsers since late last year, locking out IE completely is now a viable option.
Please follow the W3C standards. I really want CSS2 & DOM support, viewable SVG and full PNG support and ECMAScript rather than JScript. Please get the basics right. Microsoft stresses ‘Developers, Developers, Developers!’ and then ignores these long running developer requests. Please, please, please get the web standard right. I’m sure you can code the standards correctly.
To cris, we are stressing CSS & PNG because Microsoft doesn’t get it. This cry has been going since 1998. It is a complete PITA to have to code to a ‘substandard’ when there is a perfectly good standard that could be used.
"Anything IE does ‘under the hood’ that doesn’t comply with W3C standards is nonsense."
Tell that to all the companies that base, successfully, their core operations around the capabilities of .NET, IE, and other Microsoft products. Sure doesn’t seem like nonsense to them. They, and the public, couldn’t care LESS about W3C standards; the W3C (and IETF) do not keep pace anymore with emerging technologies. Any standards org that doesn’t keep pace risks becoming irrelevant. With IE holding 90% of the market, it *is* the standard, no matter now much OSS advocates whine about Microsoft (and end users) ignoring the W3C.
"This proprietary attitude is exactly what led to the uprising of superior browsers"
All the alternative browsers put together hold a paltry 10% of the market, and IE continues to set standards and drive the Web. I’d hardly call that an uprising.
"But to limit yourself by developing with proprietary technologies of one company that target one browser is simply shortsighted and self-centered."
To limit yourself to the slow-moving technologies of standards organizations that have ceased to stay on top of new technologies, capabilities, potential, is simlpy shortsighted and self-centered. Microsoft moves forward, sets standards, stays on top, defines things – no matter how much anti-MS zealots want to believe otherwise.
Internet Explorer ver 7???
Here’s a nice email that I got recently:
Subject: [SpreadFirefox] Celebrating 25 million Firefox downloads
From: Blake Ross <blake@spreadfirefox.com>
> We’re pleased to announce that in celebration of 25 million Firefox
> downloads, the Mozilla Store will be offering a 25% discount on certain
> items through 11:59 PM EST on February 17th. Furthermore, the kind people
> over at CoinsForAnything (http://www.coinsforanything.com/) have agreed to
> supply us with 100 free commemorative Firefox coins. We will be awarding a
> quarter of these to the 25 most active SpreadFirefox members, and will
> distribute the other 75 in the coming weeks according to a different set of
> criteria.
>
> As usual, http://www.spreadfirefox.com/ has all the information.
>
> Thanks everyone for your continued support…onward to 50 million!
>
> –Blake
Count that. 25 million. 25,000,000. That’s a big number. And the majority of them have probably switched from Internet Explorer. Now this is only counting the official Mozilla server. Firefox, being free as in freedom (http://www.fsf.org/) can be redistributed as much as you want. I can’t imagine mirrors getting too much traffic, but they still add up way over 25 million.
In response to Kawahee – you’re clearly just not very good, it’s DEAD easy to center pages without <table> and <center> in FF. Just do a bit of educating and you’ll see.
People are saying that IE can’t render things because it can’t. I and many many other developers spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get it to behave like a respectable browser. It’s a total waste of time.
So IE7 – what’s the point in just tweaking the creaking carcass of IE6, start again and do it properly.
having spent the last four hours trying to fix a website, I’d like to ask, when will internet explorer actually comply to w3c standards? Or will it continue to be as annoying and incompatable as it always has been? Bloody thing….
IE7 for XP only? Its going to suck like the rest of your bug infested rubbish. Just watch those Firefox figures go beyond 10% market share and beyond.
I’ve always said it… a bunch of guys, with some knowledge on coding and machine language can bring MS whatever down… we’re looking at one of two examples that come to my mind… IE7 comes early (in a bunch of Betas) because of the improved Browsers around… also, FF, being an open-source browser, allows the user to modify it, or as my friends call it "tune the browser up" (bit fans of cars, go figure), which is something cool for those who wanna go with something thats outside of the box… IE has always been bundled and "close-coded", not good… FF is completely customizable (skins, extensions) plus an integrated Download Manager… hmm… I already mentioned the open-source… that’s it… for now…
Now with Longhorn, its release it ahead of schedule (way ahead for my point of view) is because OS 11 is comin up… and not to mention all the Linux-based OS which offer a stronger and more stable kernel… ok, they might have some leaks, but in the other hand, allows the user to patch this and upgrade its own system AS THE USER PLEASE… not as far as the OS allows me…
well… thats it…
have a nice day…
I don’t think it’s going to only be for XPSP2. They’re FOCUSED on getting it to that platform, but I think when it goes final they’ll get it to the others ASAP.
actualy 25 mil does include other mirrors, but not people who installed from CDs and intranets and unknown mirros such as personal websites
hi where downlod IE7
N.N. Thayer:
Ahhh the sounds of an fat, bloated, egomaniacal aristocracy on the cusp of crumbling are music to my ears.
Keep up the good work.
So MS has finally taken note of the new browsers taking their browser business away from them! I didn’t think they cared though Dean?!
It’s a bit late in my opinion, how many years has it been since the last major release (and not just security patches, I’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime!).
I’m sorry but quite why anyone get’s their hopes up about IE7 being any improvement at all is beyond me, I concur with numerous people on this, it’ll just be more bug fixes and no rival for Firefox.
Better luck next time MS!
IE7 First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer. I don’t care about security. I want a browser that is standards compliant. This stupidity of building a site backwards in order to accomodate…
btw, I use Firefox… the MS applications r done for me… sorry guys… NOT!
having spent the last four hours trying to fix a website, I’d like to ask, when will internet explorer actually comply to w3c standards? Or will it continue to be as annoying and incompatable as it always has been? Bloody thing….
As you might have guessed by most of the posts here, people want IE7 to be standards compliant. Perhaps you will listen?
It’s really disheartening to write a 100% standards compliant website which renders fine in every browser EXCEPT IE. Seriously.
Also, why do the IE fans posting here hate Firefox so much? I mean, there’s lots not to like about the current IE, but Firefox seems like a really solid browser to me. I can’t really see too much to hate there. Perhaps they can explain what they don’t like about it? Perhaps it’s reverse zealotry?
Please make it compatible with Windows 2000 so that IE7 will not necessarily require XP SP2.
It would be nice if you could actually implement CSS/web standards as they are written – not a Microsoft take on those standards. As a content developer I am constantly surprised at the small things that don’t work in IE as they should… GIVE ME A REASON TO LEAVE FIREFOX AND I WILL!
Standards, standards, standards!
"To limit yourself to the slow-moving technologies of standards"
Excuse me? Hasn’t Microsoft’s standards been idle since IE6 was released in 2001? Am I wrong? Haven’t W3C published several new recommendations in those FOUR YEARS? Isn’t .NET a server-side technology which has nothing to do with web standards?
Doesn’t Microsoft’s standards prevent the kind of competition that has, in the end, resulted in Linux, Mac OS X, Firefox and various other products that have been pushing Microsoft forwards for years now, and that has eventually resulted in this new version of Internet Explorer?
Prove me wrong.
I’ve search for this info through this site
and some other referenced site and haven’t seen the
definitive statement on the implementation
technology of IE7. So here goes:
Q: Is IE7 going to be a .NET CLR executable referencing the vast majority of it’s native functionality through other .NET dll assemblies?
Please, please, please save all us web developers days and days of extra work and *properly* and *correctly* support CSS and alpha PNGs.
"Shut Firefox users up"? Please. When you completely remove the tight integration of IE from Windows, and allow more features and capabilities such as the use of extensions, then you might shut a Firefox user or two up. Not gonna happen if IE stays "inside the box".
Robert:
I am with you here. Back then Micorosoft was only interested in improving IE simply to crush Netscape … then for a while they had practically 100% of the market. IE team kicked backed and cracked open beers and sit on their ass for a very long time doing absolutely nothing.
Firefox now is kicking major ass and MS is running like puppy with a burning tail AGAIN.
IE7 is a hasty reaction to Firefox’s phenomenon.
http://news.com.com/Is+Microsoft+reacting+to+Firefoxs+popularity/2070-1016_3-5577709.html
STANDARDS COMPLIANCE PLEASE! Anyone in Redmond here me? Didn’t thinks so.
MS & IE Forever Baby!
Send me 1000 copies please… so that I might distribute it to the masses in dire need of a web browsing solution.
jk
I am zealous about a new version. However, don’t cram security in your mind and forget abou functionality and practicality.
The only reason I hate Firefox is because all the FF users seriously headbang me to use it. It’s really annoying the hundreds of people trying to get me to switch, when I made a decision and I think they should respect it. Other than that, I think, well, Firefox is decent, and I respect people’s decisions to use it.
Will I ever use IE7… hmmm, don’t think so…
That need a real reason to switch back to Windozer. (and yeah, I hope I told everybody, I will switch back to IE the day it has a fully supported linux edition, otherwise, I tell it here!)
Honestly, I do not understand why anyone cares about IE7 since there are several better browsers available, why even worry about an update to IE5?
Didn’t get a chance to look at this anyone can help how to download the same
Nice to hear that you have "listened" and are "committed", but that is only with respect to *business* partners and customers. What about the rest of us? why is it so difficult to submit bugs and enhancements requests for ie? when will you use a public bug tracking system (read bugzilla)?
Well, i doubt that i’ll stop using the magnificent FF. You must respect this open source browser for its innovation! all that microsoft do right now is PARTLY imitate the capabilities of the FF, but i hardly believe they will include everything in FF. example – supporting IDN is done in ALL the browsers but the IE. think they will be able to include it this time?
i don’t think so…
Hmm. If after these comments Microsoft will not do something with IE7’s standard compatibility, then… Well I don’t write _those_ words down here.
Anyway, I’m not sure, that MS will be able to care about standards. At first, IE’s code (as everybody is talking about it) is not a nice one. At second, if pages, that working well today with IE, but far-far from standards will go wrong if a new IE coming out, what they can say? Sorry, we had a bad browser on the net for years?
So, good luck.
Game is on.
It’s great! But where I can download it?
Who know url to download? Email to me : huytd_ktv08@yahoo.com .
As soon as good!
I can’t wait to download the beta IE 7 and be impressed by your wonderful coding wizardry. I look forward to having to rewrite all my websites to display properly, as well as going back to simple table-based layouts and font tags.
I’m so glad we can finally get rid of the whole cludge that is "css" and go back to good old html with formatting markup embedded.
Oh, and ignore the users asking for tabbed browsing and security fixes. Those are things the end-users have no interest in. Provide the ability to download and install any applications automatically with no user intervention, because those pesky end-users have a tendency to not understand you need all those nifty programs to get the full eXPerience.
As a web developer I’m really exited about this, and since you already heard it a thousand times I’m gonna say it again. Because you need to hear it. Make it compatible with open standards. You know if IE actually got more safe and compatible with the open standards, webmasters aroud the world would recomend IE instead of firefox.
Do yourself a favor….
As a developer: I’d like to be able to really be able to step through client side HTML, scripts, etc… as they render, process and easily see what objects in memory look like, etc… and what is going to/from the server, etc…
As a user: IE should serve ME above and beyond any web site content running in it. The web browser frame and final control is MINE, and it always shows the truth, all the context of what the page is doing: where its coming from, and all the resources its using in my PC, etc… I should also be able to limit the PC resources (CPU, MEM, DISK, etc) used by the browser TOTAL and per browser window, so it can never take over all my PC resources.
First! I’m VietNamese and I’m sorry about my English!
—————–
It’s great! But where I can download it?
Who know url to download? Email to me : huytd_ktv08@yahoo.com .
As soon as good!
I’ll will stay with Firefox but as a webdevelopper, I hope that it will have full XHTML/CSS2 (even CSS3) + PNG support and that it will follow the W3C recommendations…
Just to add to the pleading.
If IE 7 fails to support common web standards it will continue to be absolutely useless to me. CSS/ XHTML/ XML/ PNG/ a proper, standards compliant DOM. Without these things I see no place for IE anymore. Tabbed browsing, well integrated search and security are just bonuses to a firefox that plays nicely with theses standards.
IE7’s not gonna be anything good if you ask me, just a rebranded IE6 with a couple of extra fake HTML tags more security holes, and some little features that every other browser already has, like tabbed browsing. I’m glad I switched to Linux a long time ago, I’m sick of waiting for you slowpokes just to get an insecure product that just copies everything else that’s out there.
I just hope MS kills the Browser Help Object in IE 7. It’s the most abused component when it comes to spyware and adware.
sign me up for ie7 beta
who needs ie any longer, firefox is the future =)
oh, and when I say "properly implements", I don’t mean "embrace and extend" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_and_extend) I mean I want to be able to author once for all browsers! Please!
We want FEWER features, not MORE features!
Rock solid simplicity beats cheap, hackable bells-n-whistles any day.
Personally, I think the idea to have a "more secure" application is great but I can’t say I’m happy with the way it was done in SP2 for Windows XP. Instead of truly fixing the problems, users are being "blocked" access to all active content. In some cases this can be good but it’s certainly a pain to see that harmless things like Flash presentations are blocked as well. If "blocking" is the keyword, I’d prefer a much more detailed "control panel" allowing me to choose what should be blocked and what not (ie, block ActiveX but enable JavaScript and .htc files).
I have switched to Mozilla quite a long time ago and later to Opera (which I’m still using now), though not because of IE’s security problems. I was more bothered by the limited and not-user-friendly interface as well as the ill standards support of its rendering engine. Therefore, and because I’m a web designer, my priorities are as follows:
1) Complete support for XHMTL and CSS 2.1
2) Support for "application/xhtml+xml"
3) Support for XML stylesheets
4) Highly modifiable user interface (refer to Opera)
5) Faster page loading (including scripts and images)
6) Support for PNG alpha transparancy
7) Increased level of security with full user control (meaning: no "all or nothing" solutions for dummies)
The increased level of security includes among others:
- support for TLS 1.1
- corrections to previous security protocols to accurately reflect their specifications
- enable/disable ActiveX
- stricter mime-type control (obey to the server)
Some people here write that it’s bad to change IE’s rendering engine in regard with "backward compatibility", but that’s not an issue at all; just stick to the DOCTYPE switching method: use the standards when a full DOCTYPE is present but go to "quirks mode" to revert to your proprietary rendering.
Dear Department of Justice,
The company that said that Internet Explorer was tied to the OS, and therefore couldn’t be separated, is now releasing said browser, without an OS. Or, when we download the Beta, is it going to come with Longhorn Beta too?
Please re-open this case, as the biggest argument the defence used, is obviously a lie.
Thank you,
Signed, the Windows users that never wanted IE to begin with.
IE7 wishlist:
1) PNG alpha support. It’s an open standard guys, please? Why not just re-hire the IE5/Mac team?
2) Support standards RIGHT or include a parse code to trigger hacks. If IE7 alters all the standards, and Firefox holds them, and there is no way to alter code for IE7, well, that’s going to hurt Firefox. But that might be the goal. If there is a known parse bug to trigger this (* html, /*/*/, etc.) please release it public. Play nice, Nelson Muntz.
3) CSS3 support. Gecko WILL support. Eventually – OpenSource is slow, but consistant – Proprietary is fast, but inconsistant.
At people who think IE should be removed from Windows… no. IE is an integrated part of Windows, it cann’t be removed. If Gecko or KHTML were BSD or MIT licensed, then I’d agree MS should use it as a replacement. Apple/Microsoft using the same codebase (KHTML)? Nice. In fact, I think KHTML would work well. But I’m no MS Dev… nor KDE Dev. Simply put, being MPL/GPL/LGPL will prevent any integration – bundling yes, integration no.
Anyways, since Longhorn/XP are practically BUILT arround IE, there really is no way to remove it – but there are huge advantages to using it… Why do you think Konqueror has KIOSlaves and renders with KHTML?
Will I use IE7? I guess I’ll be forced to. Chances are the "standards" might need a little work by the IE team [no offense, business policy, right?], and Moz will be obsolete. As much as I love my Gentoo, what good is Linux when your boss wants IE7 compliancy and you only get that w/ XPSP2.
"…but go to "quirks mode" to revert to your proprietary rendering."
… when no DOCTYPE is present.
As a web developer I stick with Opera, but also as a web developer I would like to have an easier job of working with designs in IE.
Having better CSS support would be the good along with proper PNG support. These are number ones that I would suggest to anyone for a good web browser.
Unlikely IE 6 has none of these, more than IE 5, but yet doesn’t match up to Opera or Firefox.
I’d love to see png and xul support. I realistically would expect the former – but certainly wouldn’t bet on MS adopting XUL.
The recent beta release of maps.google.com shows that transparent pngs are of real-world use. IE seems to do something similar using an activeX control on the maps but lots of users are scared of anything activeX.
The mozilla tri-licensing would allow for XUL implementation in a closed final product using mozilla code. I just don’t see it happening somehow.
When will people realise Microsoft are totally responsible for security holes in Windows and IE? Don’t get excited and jumping up and down because they’ve threatened us with a beta of another IE. You really think it will be that much better? You should be thanking Mozilla for MS’s IE 7 release.
It’s really about time Microsoft played nice with everyone else and stopped trying to rule the world. Get security sorted out. I shouldn’t have to download a 260mb service pack to fix the holes in buggy software. IE 6 is bloated, I’m expecting IE 7 to be the same.
Maybe you can do something with a new email client too, one that can’t propogate virii by previewing mails maybe? That would be nice.
I remember reading sometime back that something like 4000 developers worked on IE 6, which was more than worked on Windows 2000 (or something along those lines). How many are going to work on IE 7, and do they know how to check for buffer overflows?
MS say they’re committed to security and preventing problems. Listen MS, you caused most of the problems in the first place so it is your DUTY to make sure you prevent it from happening in the future, and your responsibility to fix what’s broken now, and I don’t seriously believe you’re committed to either.
If you’re giving the product away for free, how about releasing the source code???
Stop trying to take over the world. It’s not yours. It’s ours. I don’t want to use Windows and IE, so stop pushing them in my face! Everytime I go to Hotmail and buttons are missing because I’m not using IE, that’s not what the Internet is about.
"Ahhh the sounds of an fat, bloated, egomaniacal aristocracy on the cusp of crumbling"
See you in a few years.
"in the end, resulted in Linux, Mac OS X, Firefox and various other products that have been pushing Microsoft forwards for years now … Prove me wrong."
I’d like to see examples of how Linux and OS X have "pushed Microsoft forward." Seems more to me like OSS is always playing catchup. How about that Linux e-mail client that looks so much like Outlook? All the GUI functionality that slowly wedged its way into GNOME, KDE, etc.? Automatic updates? So much of what you see on Linux is just a pale imitation of what Microsoft has already done.
Waste of time guys… there are already better browsers.
Saying that it will shut up firefox users!!! Will it block ALL ADWARE/SPYWARE and POP-UPS????????????
If so, then firefox has competition!!!!
We won’t shutup until Microsoft becomes more compatable, interoperable, and has less of a monopoly on the market.
After 6 years of sitting around and blocking the web as much as possible in order to keep up its dominance in the client software market, microsoft announces vaporware that will ship 2 years late and be behind anything else that has been out there for years. And all of you M$ junkies rejoice – "finally, no more Firefox!". How stupid can you get?
I recently went for recruitment at my alma mater. I found people would really appreciate tab feature in IE. This will provide them extra level of grouping.
In the name of webdesign, make it pink and fluffy, I dont care. but make it CSS2 and PNG competible, PLEEEEEEASE.
Please.
Please.
Gee .. I see microsoft is about to ‘push’ another product again. I wonder if they will truly go through a through testing of it or just push it out and fix it later, much like everything else they have created. Will IE7 be much like the disputed Java that MS tried to rewrite to suit their own greed? Will it be another MFC nightmare due to integration? Will it be bloated due to crappy programming (as usual)?
As a marketing company, MS is the king. As a useful, stable product developer, thats another story. That would be like saying that a windows pc registry never gets beyond 5mb ( all windows versions). That would be like saying that Windows has streamlined their GUI code to be efficient. It would be like saying that MS memory management is excellent. All of these are oxymorons.
Here’s a couple of ‘tech’ facts. NFS ( network file shares) are 70% more efficient than windows shares/windows mapped drives. MS networking is less efficient than *nix networking – dont believe me? Set up two identical boxes with tcp/ip and clock a ftp transfer from the same place, file, etc. You’ll see the difference. For that matter, try to ftp into a *nix machine with a MS machine. Networking code on the MS machine is lame.
If MS wants me back as a full fledged customer again, they would have to do the following:
Rewrite windows using standard c++ programming, streamlined to utilize the hardware & memory efficently. This includes the GUI.
Restructure the hive mess of MFC class objects. Face it MS, it’s a mess, no matter how nice of an idea it was/is.
Put the product through a proper development cycle using common hardware, even to an extent, the old stuff.
Another thing for windows on the server end:
Support to install to a raid array without the need of a non striped drive. I’ve tried your ‘introductory copies’ of server products only to find that most will not install on a raid5 array and if they do, they dont operate ( boot ) to mildly older hardware ( netraid card).
All in all, proabally my best suggestion to MS as an Admin, biz owner, & consumer would be to get their act together. People are tired of crappy software. Granted there are still going to be ‘sheep’ out there, but your everyday consumer is no longer the equivilant of a pet rock.
Sincerely,
A former Microsoft supporter.
P.S. It’s amazing on how much other companies have to follow industry standards except for MS. No wonder people get blue screens, have to reboot servers every 45 days, and have incompatibility issues with developing even the simplest of web applications.
"So much of what you see on Linux is just a pale imitation of what Microsoft has already done."
You’re so right. Now if Linux could just figure out a way to get all those wonderful Windows viruses to run, then it wouldn’t be a pale imitation anymore. Sweet! I’m gonna get right on that.
I hope IE7 will contain a complete integration of the new technologie (WINFX) such as Indigo and Avalon!
Greetings from Austria
Let’s speak for real.
1st: No one (5%) uses UNIX based OS. Almost everyone uses Windows.
2nd: Everyone knows about Firefox? No. Just us, not the casual user, who is constantly spammed, phised and spywared.
Ok, then, Microsoft made that possible.
Why the casual users (the ones that I care, I’ll, NEVER switch to IE, already in heaven with Opera) are constantly attacked? These casual users also don’t care about web design.
That’s because Microsoft’s devs DON’T have a clue about software programming. A bunch of guys at Fx Crew made a browser that is the proud of GNU software, and a horde of programmers are a lazy bunch of guys who update the most used browser in the world every two or three years.
Make the life easier to those casual users. We don’t care about IE. We know about what we are talking about. You (IE devs) don’t.
**********************************************************************
Every user demanding PNG support and Tabbed browsing should have already switched to a browser that *does* support it…
**********************************************************************
The PNG support is for the developers not the users. I can’t rely on PNG alpha transparency in my designs because anyone who uses IE Win (funny, as IE Mac supports it….) will see a grey box instead of the intended transparency.
How about being able to resize text set in pixels? Or at the very least a text zoom tool. (Again…IE Mac has it, not IE Win…)
IEBlog | IE7 Maxthonの開発者など加わって夏にテストリリース。 NeoWinのTom Warrenは確かコードは完了しているのでWinBET…
Although it’s been said hundreds of times, I’d like to add one more cry for standards support! Full CSS support, etc.
it great
Will this new IE support the stuff that other pathetic browsers "supposedly" have, like PNg file loading? Just curious.
This is Great. I have been expecting this product for so long.
Maybe MS guys should think about IE 8 later on. Maybe another team should start developing a new browser from ground up with current technologies, with perfect rendering, standards compliance and security in mind. How about writing it with .Net?
In few posts, I have read that, Tabbed Browsing won’t be on IE 7 because of the IE’s structure. If this is true, don’t try to add that feature.
I believe that Microsoft has enough power and knowledge to make the best (of the best of the best…) Browser.
PS: I have never been a fan of FireFox. But I also thank FireFox guys for pushing Microsoft.
Da der Internet Explorer ja der Browser ist, der die SharePoint Plattform am besten unterst
@Snuffkin
"My only issue with FF users is that they don’t shut up about it."
You seem to really wear this on your sleeve. How can "Firefox user" be synonymous with "vocal"? The last thing we need is people making sweeping generalizations about others.
You can put MS on my personal Linux/Firefox pc when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
I’m thrilled to hear that IE7 will enter beta cycles in the summer of 2005. That said, I’m more than a little put off by this public statement: Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard…
I’d like to see examples of how Linux and OS X have "pushed Microsoft forward."
It’s called competition. Especially Firefox offers this. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re playing catchup in terms of features. They’re offering free competition, and a small shift in marketshare can result in what’s just happened here.
Be thankful there are pale imitations.
well, the code for this news should look something like this:
/* uncomment this and recompile around sommer 05,
Bill */
//InternetExplorer ie7 = (InternetExplorer)firefox.clone();
**PLEASE**: CSS2.1 is elegant and neat – please think hard and try and get a good implementation (Opera currently has the best implementation around; generated content is very useful). And support serving XHTML as it is supposed to be…
**PLEASE**: PNG Alpha – pretty please?
**PLEASE:** DOM2 support.
Funny noone else mentioned these…
I can’t wait to see IE7. I think a refresh is exactly what Microsoft needs to *attempt* to regain the little share they lost of the browser market. I am one that personally made the switch to Firefox after a long haul and series of arguments with friends and geeks alike. I use it now mainly because of the better support it has for web standards, the expandibility through extensions that it offers, and TABS!! I saw one gentleman post saying he would not ever again use a browser that did not support multiple tabs (or at least the ability to switch the feature on and off). I stand with that gentleman.
I think the MAIN things the IE team should focus on are:
- Returning to Web Standards (XHTML, CSS, XML, PNG, etc.) Note that this would also require a refresh in page rendering.
- Tabbrowsing Support (even if the feature is defautled off)
- Extension support (so geeks like me can modify the browser in any way we see fit).
Complying with these 3 requirements for me would be Microsoft’s best chance at getting a core of people that I know back on Internet Explorer. Even if they did add all of these things, there’s no garuntee I’d change back to IE. We’d have to see how the extentions compete with Firefox and if the browser start time is faster.
Now, given, this post has in mind that Microsoft probably doesn’t care what *I* think… and that’s fine. Those are just some of the main reasons I switched to Firefox in the first place. I think the first question Microsoft should be asking themselves is "why did you switch from IE (or another browser) to Firefox?" that question would lead you next to "what does Firefox do or support that IE doesnt?" If they can answer these questions for themselves, and answer the industry through a version refresh by supplying the things IE is missing, maybe…. just maybe… we’ll see another turn around. The worst thing about this whole ordeal is…. now the majority of people know there’s something more out there than Internet Explorer. Yes, I still know some people that are unfamiliar with any other way to use the internet… but for the most part, that is no longer the general consensus. That’s going to be tough ground for Microsoft to recover from.
Team IE.. you’ve got some work to do. Enjoy.
Tabbed browsing in IE7 would be a bad idea. Just as firefox, tabs increase the process memory therefore computers lacking enough would slow down, if this is released we’re all screwed! But other than that, great job, i can not wait for the beta!
beta id: 546936
Woot I cant wate for the beta?
you people talking about how ‘secure’ firefox is make me laugh. It’s secure because it has a 5% market share. If firefox had a 75% market share you can bet your ass virus writers would find as many flaws as they do with IE.
If you idiots spent as much time delivering compelling and innovative ideas as you do bashing Microsoft you might just beat them at thier game.
Keep an Open Eye » They Said It Couldn’t Be Done ..
@vetinari
"Microsoft can’t win type 1, because as soon as it innovates open sourcers will copy."
This must be why every open-source office application suite has a dancing paperclip. Really, that’s the only Microsoft innovation I can think of.
"Also, for you interoperability clowns out there. You’re always going on about how monocultures are bad. You often use biological arguments to back your points. Well, why are you so keen on standards then? Surely different software and platforms give ‘genetic’ diversity, different standards give memetic diversity."
Can you say "Balkanization"? I take it you don’t remember what computing was like in the 1970s or 1980s.
I would like to use IDN(Internationalized Domain Names). Why ms’s IE took so long to support this useful and users friendly address system for the two third of world which is a very important for their strategy.
It is the way to invite non English countries users using google, yahoo and msn search engines after less depending to their local portals.
I’m with everyone else on the tabbed browsing and those sorts of things, and it sure is great to have a nice bulletable list of all the new bells and whistles that consumers love to consume. As a developer, however, I prefer to use firefox (web developer tool bar anyone?). I will have to beg this of the development team. Please make IE compatible. http://people.brownco.k12.in.us is a prime example of the problems web developers face. Everything that comprises that site is compliant. I tested it in firefox and opera. Since I don’t run windows on my devel box I couldn’t test it on my machine. Imagine how embarassed I was when upon demonstrating the site to my boss and his bosses when the page showed up in correctly in IE.
We *NEED* IE to be standards compliant. CSS 2 and 3. XHTML and all the other yada yada everyone before me has listed. Alpha transparency for png files is especially important.
Please don’t just rush this out the door. Please don’t just hack up IE6.
Also, about this "Firefox users should shut up and let the IE people worry about IE" mentallity, you should realize that people who use firefox are the people microsoft NEEDS to target. They’re actually the people that need to be listened to the most. That’s common sense I think.
I’m an avid firefox user, and I love Microsoft. Most of us that use Firefox use it for the featureset AND the security. If you’re going to comment on how terrible we are about bashing it — that’s fine. I can’t stop that. Keep in mind though, that most of us don’t care that Firefox would be hit as hard if it was as big. We care that it isn’t being hit right now. When its hit later, maybe we’ll talk. And don’t get me started on features and control. Firefox wins. End of story.
download
As long as Microsoft listens to the developers and standards organisations of the world first, and not their business partners. Websites will be better built for all of the peoples of the world. Its so sad that money talks louder then wisdom.
PS. Please don’t forget the users of your other operating systems. *echo*
I don’t see why all of you guys are pushing your alternate browser agenda. Even when IE7 comes out, unless Microsoft makes it a mandatory update (read: impossible.) You will still be developing for IE6 and coding work-arounds related to it for the next couple years until it is long enough forgotten to be ignored as a browser.
So, in the end, IE7 working right won’t make much a difference to most devs for a pretty good while to come. Might as well settle in for a long lot of bitching.
"you people talking about how ‘secure’ firefox is make me laugh. It’s secure because it has a 5% market share. If firefox had a 75% market share you can bet your ass virus writers would find as many flaws as they do with IE."
That’s funny. If IE weren’t integrated into the OS, and if it didn’t include proprietary capabilities with hooks into stuff like ActiveX, many of the security problems inherent in IE would disappear. If MS enforced their user model more vigorously with their users and 3rd party vendors, maybe people wouldn’t run as admin (root) all the time, which would solve another big part of the problem. It’s not simply that MS is popular that’s the problem.
I don’t expect many security improvements in IE7. Hell, it’s to Microsoft’s advantage now that they have an AntiSpyware product (sure, it’s free right now; but for how long; I’m sure the marketing department will find a way to sell it) along with a new antivirus product which is probably in the works.
Unlike many folks, I refuse to run resource happy antispyware software on my computer(s) – that’s why I switched to Firefox. I couldn’t be more happy. When I help folks with their computers, I install Firefox and inform them that running IE is not recommended because of it’s security vulnerabilities.
Oh, and this is a simple and neat way to maintain backwards compatibility:
http://annevankesteren.nl/archives/2004/06/standard-compliant-ie
I see all you people begging for all these features like you can’t get them anywhere else.
Have you heard of Firefox?
Get, or stick with, firefox (http://www.spreadfirefox.com/)! It’s the only browser than you will ever need. A lot of customization, much better security, and bug-free…
This new IE browser is definitely not trustwothy and I’m positive people will find many security holes in it – like every other product Mictosoft has made.
C’mon people… think about it. All this antivirus and antispyware microsoft is gonan put in it will never be free. Somehow or another they will make you pick your pockets and give them another $50 billion in assets
Well yes, that’s really a lot of information coming from MS. I hoped for some info about features and innovation that I could expect from a new IE. But there is nobody to tell, how come?
In recent years I have been quite happy to find out, how much usability can be integrated into a widely spread software product. Those coming from MS almost always had some new ideas in it to make me stick to MS. But – again – I think this time around, we will have to wait and see, wont we?
The numbers don’t lie, more people are switching, and I’ll tell my clients that I do web design for to make the switch. IE is crap and forever will be. I will NEVER design for IE browsers until they join the 21st century.
So genius, find flaws in Firefox or don’t write checks with your mouth that your brain can’t cash. Innovative ideas? Tabbed browsing, extensions for developers, skins that don’t attract the bloatware, spyware, adware…
For someone that uses a blog template and kisses Microsoft’s ass, you look more like an idiot, Paul.
I want to see this useragent string in my apache logs:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) Gecko/20050611 IE/7.0
And I want IE7 to live up to that compatability claim, with Proper Standards Compliency. Fix your damn box model. Until that point, not only am I sticking with Firefox, but recommending everyone I know do so as well.
I’ve been faithfully keeping track of every improper standards interpretation and browser bug in IE6 with the intention of creating a test gauntlet through which to run IE7 to see whether and how the various CSS, (X)HTML and DOM errors have been fixed.
Yes, other browsers have errors from time to time, but they fix them and release better versions. They do not abandon their software for five years, or in the case of IE for Mac, abandon it entirely. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more frustrating than to code up a simple page using a single positioning element only to find IEMac pushes it halfway off the screen, and that I have to wrap the page in a table to get the desired effect.
I suppose I wouldn’t care so much about IE supporting standards (there’s no legal obligation to do so), except they released IE6 in 2001 with much fanfare and trumpeting about how well standards were going to be supported, how the box model was fixed (wow, what a statement there!), etc. This is necessary now. What I’m really concerned about more than anything is that the complex (but valid) solutions developers have had to resort to in order to get around IE6 bugs may break in IE7, when MS developers fail in whole new ways to interpret standards properly.
It’s quite possible they will not fail this time, but history shows the likelihood to be probable.
For a little balance, here are a couple rants we’ve had published on IWDN:
Pro FireFox – http://www.iwdn.net/articles/rants/anti_firefox.php – Dave Scott extolls upon the virtues of the latest browser to hit the mainstream.
Pro IE – http://www.iwdn.net/articles/rants/pro_ie.php – Eric Bowman discusses the finer points of IE and the purposes it best serves.
Regards,
Paul
IE = crappy
mozilla/firefox = less crappy
Browsers suck. I want that virtual reality internet like in Futurama.
I’d be very happy to see Explorer die, dead, stay dead. Microsoft likes to control standards and they’ve shown extreme prejudice toward anyone else’s standards except their own. They want to own standards for profit, but standards aren’t meant to be business tools and this is why IE sucked so bad and continues to suck today.
First of all, I’d like to say that even though everything I use is open source (except for windows itself, but when I’m on widows, I don’t even use exploror as a shell), I’m not neccissarily just pro open source. I’m pro what ever is the best, and open source technology available today just happens to be the best around.
Now Dean, I want you read this carefully. Are you reading? Good. I’m going to solve this problem for you. I’m going to make it all okay.
Now, you guys seem to be pretty upset that you lost 5% of your market share. I agree, that’s terrible. That 5% was lost pretty quick, and you’re only going to lose more as more and more people discover Firefox. So it’s best to do something about it now before it becomes a problem.
Now lets look at what makes Firefox better. I’m not even really going to mentian the fact that IE is nowhere near standards complient. So what if it doesn’t support CSS2? Let’s all face it, the average IE user doesn’t know that he’s missing out at all. Of course, if you really wanted, you could add in full support for things like CSS2 and PNGs; The average IE user would see the cool things that it does in webpages and think it’s one of the new features of IE7. Really, it’s OK if nobody on the team really knows how – just go to http://www.mozilla.org/source.html and study up a little bit, you should be able to figure it out in no time.
So what is it about Firefox that people are loving?
Security is a major issue. One of the things you can do is remove Active X – it’s hardly used on the web, and you wont lose anything by taking it out. Also, obviously, disable popups. Not very hard either. Then you’ll also be taking out all of the popup blockers that people are installing from third party websites.
But the things people see immeadiatly when they start playing with Firefox are the most important. First off, it is possible (and extremely easy) to change Firefox’s theme. Themes install rather quickly, and very easily – all you have to do is click on a link and it will first ask your permission, and then install the skin, and finally ask you if you’d like to use that skin. There’s also a little control panel for quickly changing skins, complete with little screenshots to remind you what it looks like. But ok, if you don’t want anything like that, that’s okay too. Like I said before, most people wont know what they are missing.
Another thing people instantly love is the extention support. With extentions, you can make the browser do pretty much anything! And the best part is the good folks that make Firefox don’t even have to make the extentions – the users make it for them. If one of them is full featured, stable, and people really like it. then they can just integrate it into main code base, and there they have it – a new feature.
Now this is really where you guys get a chance to shine and really destroy Firefox. Firefox has a mere 25 million users. That’s nothing compared to you and you know it. You’ve got, what? a good 200 million users on them? No, wait, 500 million? That’s an extremely big difference. If you had extention support for IE, just think about how many more dedicated developers you would have spending their free time expanding the features of IE. So IE and Firefox get into a good ole browser war. Well it wouldn’t really matter what new features Firefox came out with, there’d be some user that would see it and write an extention to add the very same feature of IE. You have a nice licence involved giving you all of the rights to extentions published on your website, and you can just integrate the feature right into IE for the next version. That takes a lot of the work of competing of your sholders.
There’s some other little stuff in Firefox that people like too, for example the little search bar to the right of the URL form. Now Firefox users take it for granted that they can add, remove, and change what search engines are used in it, but your users don’t know the difference! Just stick MSN search right there! Then you have most of IE7’s users returning to your site daily simply out of convienince, where they will get used to your branding, and view your advertisments for more of your products.
Another thing people like is tabbed browsing. Really now, how hard can this be to integrate? They middle click on a link and it opens in a new tab. Easy stuff, and it’ll take away another of Firefox’s benefits over IE.
And that’s not even mentianing the little things, like the RSS reader built into Firefox.
Now see? Just copy Firefox and this scare will all be over. The only ones still using Firefox will be Linux and Mac users. You’ll control windows again, like you should. You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Dean. You’re better than this. Microsoft is better than this. I know these Open Source guys are scary, giving away potentially expensive software for free, and updating their software more than once every 5 years, and listening to what the users want, or letting the users give themselves what they want – but you can overcome. You’re special because you’re you. (There’s two I’s in Ling Ling 0_o).
Not that I really have faith in Microsoft anymore. No, no.. I lost faith in Microsoft when I upgraded windows and found out that I could no longer boot up my computer into DOS. I love using the best. And I’m just afraid that you’re going to do what you’ve always done, and release IE7 with a little bit of added security that hackers are going to circumvent within a few days of it being out, add some cosmetic changes, and convince millions of idiots that you’re doing them a favor.
But seriously, I wish you the best of luck. Prove me wrong. Or take my advice. Or take the endless advice of your dedicated and foolishly faithful users. Be commited. If you give me all of the features I want in a browser, and if you make it so I put things like, say, fixed positioning and transparent pngs in my websites, I’ll gladly start using IE again. Gladly. And all of my friends still stuck using the (obviously) inferior alternatives – I’ll tell them all the good news! That Microsoft has come through, and there’s no more need to worry.
But seriously, does anybody really expect anything good from this? Just new propietary technology, that’s going to create new security holes, and split the web developing community even further. And unless you guys really get do some serious work and come up with some amazing innovation, anything that IE7 does come out with is going to be in Firefox a couple weeks later!
Ok, I’m done with my ranting now… Thanks for reading this Dean. I know I can trust you.
>> I’d like to see examples of how Linux and OS X have "pushed Microsoft forward."
"Avalon" is a clone of OS X’s GL rendering system.
I came up with that example in about 20 seconds. I (and others) could come up with many, many more if you’re willing to take the public humiliation.
Also, as a content provider and programmer: please die Explorer, you’ve caused enough headaches. I’m certainly buying a Mac next for web development.
Check out a browser called Maxthon. It uses the Internet Explorer dlls so it renders everything just like IE but it has a far superior user interface and uses a ton less memory. As for Firefox, great first pass, but years behind because it is missing lots of great usablity features and doesn’t support all of the current web technology.
I find it hilarious that there won’t be a version for Windows 2000, and it will only be for XP and Longhorn. Microsoft can’t even make their products be easily compatible with versions of their OS that are still being used by a large part of their customer base.
I work for one of the biggest companies in the planet, and we still use Win2K because we refuse to extra for the absurd XP corporate licenses. And our company is hardly anti MS as we have several partnerships with them. (big ones)
Yet the biggest security hole, IE, won’t be updated with the more "secure" version.
Meanwhile, people working for free have a browser today that is much better than the current IE and it works on almost all Windows versions!
Incredible.
"You will still be developing for IE6"
Don’t count on it.
@b1: Excellent comment. I disagree about CSS3 as that isn’t technically a standard, but otherwise excellent.
Why on earth would Microsoft embrace a technology that lets developers create sites that render and operate perfectly well in any browser? Then their customers could choose any vendor they wish. That’s not very smart when you have a market to protect. Microsoft’s business is built on leveraging competitive advantage from their market position. When they are not dominant, they join standards bodies and attempt to infect them with encumbered MS specific protocols. See their attempt with SPF, the terms of their RAND licenses for Windows protocols, so on. When they are dominant, they seek to use that dominance to push technologies which are, surprise, also MS specific. Microsoft is being dragged kicking and screaming into creating an update to IE. Their goal was to not touch IE ever again, except in Longhorn and its progeny. The new IE would provide an XUL-like rich client language (Avalon and such), MS specific, which would seek to leverage market dominance into client lock-in. Why would Microsoft spend any time developing a product that correctly implements standards? Understand, the actions of a company seeking to expand market share are quite different from those of one seeking to protect existing market share. Microsoft no longer has to win the browser war, it just has to build in obstacles to users defecting to other products. Keyword: obstacles. A web site that displays correctly only in IE but not other browsers, whether due to an incorrect standards implementation, or a MS proprietary technology, means the same thing: the customer will use IE. Whether this is wrong is a moral question. Microsoft is a business that simply wants to make money, and helping others (competitor browers, operating systems, etc.) make money isn’t in their interest, and will not be willingly aided.
Larry
The competition goes on. Firefox is doing the same thing to IE what IE did to Netscape Navigator a few years ago. Less fuss, tabbed browsing is what makes Firefox amazing. I truly love using IE.
IE architects if you are listening, make IE a browser with tabs. It surely rocks.
IDN please!!!!1
I think unfortunately the case is going to be that you are doing too little, too late. Firefox has a far superior, more innovative browser then you that is more usable. You are just now starting to work on IE7? Uh, Firefox 1.1 will be out before this beta is out, and probably 2.0 before this goes final.
I actually personally know Ali G, and he uses Firefox to whoever made that previous comment.
Maxthon User, you have no idea what you’re talking about in regards to FF… "years behind" – haha
WE know whats the best right now and its firefox 1.0.1
Beta versions of both Windows Vista (formerly codenamed “Longhorn”) and IE7
for Windows XP are now…
The wait is over. Firefox 1.0 empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Join more than 20 million others and make the switch today — Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information, so you have nothing to lose.
LBW Said:
"Microsoft is a business that simply wants to make money, and helping others (competitor browers, operating systems, etc.) make money isn’t in their interest, and will not be willingly aided."
Yes, but if Microsoft had ever charged for IE, then you might have a bit of a point. The fact is they haven’t.. it was part of something that was included for free in Windows. If you didn’t have it, the download was free. They don’t make a whole lot of money on IE at the present moment. At least not much that drops straight to the bottom line in profit (unless there’s something secret IE underground that I know nothing of.) Allowing non-MS-proprietary sites to be made just enpower the end user to make a choice of their own. If Microsoft lacks the confidence in themselves to be able to produce a product everyone will use for exceptional innovation and ideal of features and security, then I can see why they’d be proprietary sticklers, but it doesn’t say much for Microsoft morale to me (keep in mind that just a few posts ago I commented that even though I use Firefox at the present momemt, I am a Microsoft supporter).
I also wanted to add to my list of 3 things IE7 would need to regain a bit of what was lost. I think integrated searching (more control, much like firefox) is also a must. Search engines are becoming more and more dependable these days. We need something more than a home page.
Hi,
I am happy coz I will not have to optimize my website for firefox, coz I thought firefox users will cross IE users but now I feel not so soon… by the time compatition will go up firefox 2,3,4 will be there and may be by then my sites willl look same on both browsers…
Bye
There’s a serious question to be asked here, namely, does Microsoft understand the problems they have? It’s clear they don’t care about full standards compliance. I’ve used ASP.NET for a few pages, and while it’s a great technology, it’s not the slickest thing on the planet. That means they either had a bad implementation of the idea, or the idea itself was flawed.
So which is it, Microsoft? Are you bad programmers, or bad software designers?
That said, I have to give some props to Microsoft, if only for the good old days. Microsft made some pretty great programs in their day. That day, unfortunately, was about eight years ago. Seriously, I remember DOS more fondly than Windows 95.
If Microsoft was really committed to a better browsing experience, they’d start from scratch. Seriously, just totally rebuild it. Tanenbaum says to "Build one to throw away." I say that one is IE6. Chuck it and start over, Microsoft.
Beta versions of both Windows Vista (formerly codenamed “Longhorn”) and IE7
for Windows XP are now…
oerdec.com » Internet Explorer 7 diesen Sommer
"Shut the firefox users up"…
What a childish comment. Does that include those firefox users on Mac and Linux? We all know the problems associated with a monoculture. Loosen up.
Seriously, too little too late. 3-4 years without development. It’s a bit like leaving the front door open then wondering where your stereo has gone.
The benefits of having a lightweight cross platform client that has updates regularly are obvious here…
Good luck, though. Two simple things I hope you get right:
position : fixed. not static or absolute or relative. fixed.
border : 1px solid dotted – not dashed, dotted.
Dotted looks like this …..
dashed looks like this —–
All browsers bar one get those right.
BTW Opera 8 is in beta and it supports CSS3
best o luck.
>> there will be a time, when other browsers support 3.0, and your browser will get the "please update your web browser" section of the website.
What if all of us do this NOW? I’m sick of coding hacks for IE… and the last thing I want to do is code seperate hacks for IE6 + IE7.
if ($session->browser == "ie") { $global_funcs->redirect("IE browsers not welcomed here, we don’t want to here you complaining about how the site doesn’t look right for you…", "http://www.spreadfirefox.com/")
I’m blown away! IE’s ok. I don’t have anything against it. But the over the top jubilation posted here smacks of a legion of MS employees put to work paising their god on high.
Good lord. Anyone who had real points to bring up were lost in the halleluias.
IMHO
This is welcome news!
As a developer, I’m not so much interested in the security improvements than I am hopeful that MS will FINALLY update the rendering engine of IE and include FULL and NON-QUIRKY support for the W3C recommendations mentioned on previous posts here.
HOWEVER, I do have another suggestion. Users should be given some kind of incentive to stop using IE6 (and earlier) without delay, perhaps as part of a mandatory "critical" Windows update, a built-in "expiration" for older versions of IE, and a version of IE 7 for users of versions of Windows other than XP (at least Win2k). Assuming MS delivers on up-to-date standards support, I would like to see IE6 and older removed from the stage in short order- something like 18 months or less.
This could be a very good thing, even for those of us who do not use IE as our personal browser.
And please, after IE7, do not make the web wait another 6 years for a significant update to the rendering engine. Try to keep pace with the competing browsers. MS certainly has the resources to do this.
> I absolutely hate FF – it’s slow and it can’t render anything properly. What is with people saying IE doesn’t render stuff properly? I remember helping a friend with centering a layer in a *FULLY COMPLIANT* XHTML/CSS site. FF couldn’t do it.
I’ve seen this claim a few times. Every time I’ve seen the code involved, the person has been trying to centre block elements with text-align.
CSS says this should not work. CSS says that to centre block-level elements, you should give them automatic side margins.
Internet Explorer gets it wrong. Firefox gets it right. People who haven’t bothered to understand CSS complain that it doesn’t work in Firefox. People who have bothered to understand CSS complain that it doesn’t work in Internet Explorer.
ok
I hope they also include the IE Speech Add-in so that pages running MS’s SALT code will work. If so, we can finally have websites that are fully controlled and navigated by voice. Now, that would be fun and handy!
Eventhough FireFox occupies for some systems, I want Microsoft to concentrate on How fast it can render the page. I think firefox uses a technique of multiple downloads of getting the pages like normal download application does. If Microsoft concentrate on this, i believe firefox may not reach the audience as IE. The technologywise we cannot blame Microsoft, as i worked hard for a project which should compatible for Safari & IE and i know how Safari does not support some basic functionalities.
""It would be nice to see MS embracing open standards instead of implementing new proprietary, slightly incompatible versions of open standards. Just for those without a memory: HTML vs. IE HTML extensions, Java vs. C#, PHP/JSP vs. ASP, MP3 vs. WMA, MPEG vs. WMV, and the list goes on.""
Java is not an open standard. C# (.NET) is it.
Please relax, people. It’s just a web browser.
"We’re eager to improve and better secure the web experience for the hundreds of millions of IE users around the world"
So this means you’re finally getting rid of ActiveX?
@@N.N. Thayer
Are you suggesting that because something is the most used, it is the best? The market system doesn’t work as well in software, because the gap between users and developers is so wide. A user will use a program without knowing about alternatives. It’s something akin to only going to the largest chain of stores to shop. Someone else may have a better price, but since this shop is "the biggest" (that is, the most widely used and distributed), it MUST be the best.
That’s a flawed assumption. Microsoft is definitely the biggest. Coming from government work, I know just how much MS is used. But I defy you to say it’s the best. OSX and Linux are more stable, more secure, and more flexible.
Hi! Please consider upgrading rendering support of:
* PNG transparency
* CSS stylesheets
* SVG http://svg.org/
I’m just an user, not a webmaster. But I’ve gone from IE due to this. And tabs. And security (but you said you’ll fix that).
Unless you are planning on rewriting bloated, slow, insecure IE from scratch, it is now dead thanks to the likes of Firefox.
IE is now beyond upgrading – it’s not like a Microsoft upgrade ever makes anything leaner.
Firefox has it perfect – it’s quick, small and efficient and secure. Most important is that on the surface it LOOKS and FEELS like IE (UI is one thing you can’t fault MS on).
To my mind, it’s now MS’s chance to get me away from FireFox as opposed to vice versa.
Suggest the team nuke IE from their system and use FireFox in combination with AdBlock until they understand how superior it is.
I haven’t gotten -1- piece of malware since I started using FireFox, any neither has anyone I know who I convinced to switch.
Forget about Win2K. What will happen to the flaky web browser in Win2003?
I really like Internet Explorer and have since i browsed the web on a 60mhz P.C. the features and appearance are great and am always pleasantly surprised by the added features. Things haven’t changed that much since then, holes in my browser are the main reason i end up reinstalling Windows.
(grateful for disk imaging software XP restore has been hijacked.)
because of this i have alternately tried mozilla, gecko, a few others on windows and for a time retreated to the -relative- safety of konquerer on linux. I don’t mind plug-ins it’s just that i can’t use them. Gorgeous Intro pages rendered in with java and flash only make me angry that i can’t use flash safely so are never seen.
If the IE7 could give me anything i wish it would be security.
Please, rescue my hostage computer from the internet…
IIIEars
Well this is good news due to IE7 only supporting XP SP2, all other user will now migrate to FireFox.
Listen to allof you going on FF is the better and all that but have you thought of the reasons why it was not hit by spyware adware and hacks to compriomise the system. Well here is a clue for ya once firefox gets popular enough as where its at the users that ie has then you will see how vunerable FF really is. So keep using it losers and wait till it gets hit atleast ie will be past that stage. roflmao at FF.
> Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all.
Starting from 2003, who had the worst damage thanks to spyware, malware and ActiveX bugs?
Not Firefox & Mozilla users. They’re still smiling and living a happy life.
The IE blog is reporting that Microsoft will be releasing an IE 7 this summer. It appears that their plans to use Longhorn as the delivery vehicle for browser upgrades has been reversed. The only question I have is will they actually improve their rendering capabilities, or will this be a UI hackjob to bring their five year old app up to a contemporary featureset. Actually, I have one more question. Why are they leaving out over hundreds of millions of users by not offering this to users of Windows pre-XPSP2? (it sure does sound to me like this won’t even be available for XP users pre-SP2. do you all read this differently?) Scoble’s posted too. I expect Cnet to have something up today. And here’s the press release. update: After re-reading, it sounds like this might be a bit further off than I originally thought. If they release a beta in summer, take feedback, release another beta, and take feedback, then I don’t see them getting this thing out the door until 2006 at the earliest. Doesn’t that line up with their plans for Longhorn ship dates? Or has that slipped out even further? update2: and Cnet has a story up with the reasonable title of "Reversal: Next IE update divorced from Windows" Analysts credited Microsoft’s change of heart to the progress of the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox browser, which has made incremental but steady market share gains against IE in recent months. In a survey conducted late last year, Firefox nudged IE below the 90 percent mark for the first time since the height of the browser wars in the 1990s. David makes a great observation in the comments, "This feels very much like a ‘hang-in-there’ message to all the corporations and orgainizations out there thinking of switching to a Better Browser(tm)…. The description of what they are planning on releasing sounds very much like a glorified XP SP3." It does sound a bit like that, doesn’t it
update 3: Mozillazine has the story up too. update 4: Ben and Blake have posts up too. more The Register Slashdot…
Does this mean you guys might actually consider moving your CSS support past the year 1999?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/
I don’t have time to read the many many comments here, but I hope that someone reads my plea for standards compliance… I was a longtime supporter of IE, until I started designing sites myself, and I now loath it… I have switched everyone I know to firefox (unless they had switched already), and am extremely reluctant to consider going back to IE. IE broke the web. There are all sorts of sites that look pretty in IE that don’t follow much of any web standard. Please, fix IE, fix the web.
Would it support on Win 98, NO. Then the sames goes to Win 2K. I HOPE THEY DO!
Sure I’ll download it but if you don’t have tabbed browsing count me out. I love my Firfox browsing experience. The menu is bare bones and the Favorites Toolbar is awesome. When I was an AOL user way back when I loved using IE instead, but now that Firefox has come along and really spoiled me I’ll be shocked if IE pulls me back in.
No amount of updating will move me back from my web browser, Firefox. It works on all platforms, including my Linux, renders perfectly and has full support of web standards. What more do I want? Oh yes – Firfox is also free, open source and a friendly commmunity. Point made
But it’ll run in Linux?
I do hate QT and Gecko engine, i’m using Opera just because is the bettest browser, but anyway i don’t like QT.
IE 7 + .NET + MONO Windows.Forms + Linux, i would love it
Microsoft was not touching IE for 4 years because IE seniour developers were allocated to Avalon/WinFX development. That’s all.
Avalon/WinFX is a TOP priority for Microsoft. Those messy HTML/CSS soup for Microsoft is not a long term platform.
I can’t think of anything that would be compelling enough to make me want to change to IE that would still be legal.
Microsoft may not be innovators, but they’re usually quite quick to follow others’ work. They just have to be careful not to get too far behind, as they have with their pathetic old browser.
do you really belive in that corporative crap?
"we listen our partners"
ok your reality. you will get the employee of the month photograph and aticket to disney.
IE is a baaaaad product since version 3.2
please make serious software. don’t make it frontpage compatible please. no .net no activex.
put mouse gestures, tab browsing, intelligent cache. and those things that really mathers.
bye good luck. I hope you don’t invest your own money in this project.
http://www.switch2firefox.com/whyswitch/
http://www.google.fr/search?q=why+switch+to+mozilla&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
We sure seem to be quiet. :p
Can you help remove all the crap scumware that has infected my version of XP? PLEASE???
Damm ActiveX controls may get filled but who is going to replace the damage already done…?
I’m really getting tired of the MS "listening to customers" mantra. It’s a load of crap. MS does what MS wants to do – always has and always will.
So please don’t insult our intelligence.
How does it feel to work a company that’s beginning a long and pain decline. If your stock options are in-the-money, you should cash in while you can.
i need this software
A beta, or test, version of Internet Explorer 7 will debut this summer, Microsoft’s chairman and chief software architect said in a keynote address at the RSA Conference 2005 here. The company had said that it would not ship a…
At our organisation (www.wycliffe.org.uk) we are nearly finished getting everyone on Windows 2000. Only in the last week have we started rolling out XP on the desktop. Please, please make IE7 work on 2000.
You haven’t changed IE significantly in around 3 years. Your CSS support is the worst of any of the 4 major browser engines (IE, Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror/Safari). Aren’t you going to support the standards?
Sure, they support their customers, the one who pay them big $$ to keep IE’s standards-compliance exactly the way it is — pitiful…
Congratulations on starting IE, it was once a very nice browers, but now it has languished.
Woot! It’s about time. I hate Firefox. Clunky POS imo. It doesn’t even work with StyleXP!
But, watch out for compelling plug-ins like this: http://www.annodex.net.
Perhaps you can just hack in Dean Edward’s code. Your software is mostly poor hacks anyway: https://sourceforge.net/projects/ie7/
DoomChild:
As I mentioned in my first post. it’s about end-user experience. And Microsoft is far beyond Linux in that realm. I wouldn’t say it’s beating Mac, because for the average Joe, a Mac is pretty damn simple. Windows is easy to use, and churns out the best user experience for intelligence required. The average Joe doesn’t care about standards or flexibility. He or she just wants the thing to do what they expect of it with relatively little work on their part, if any. All of my code is standards compliant and works fine in IE. If it doesn’t meet standards you run the risk of it looking like crap in FF. That is not of any concern to the end user. The odds of the end user having heard the words "standards compliance" are somewhere between slim and nil. Windows, as an operating system, offers the most range, from neophyte to expert as far as knowledge is concerned. You can be an idiot and use it, or you can be a power user and find it a fruitful system.
On a side note, might I mention how much I LOVE the fact that everyone is bitching about things not working cross-browser to FF, but often seem to love the idea of not worrying about IE at all. ALL BROWSERS DESERVE EQUAL CONSIDERATION FROM DEVELOPERS.
It’s a fact of the system. Stop whining and code smarter.
implement full CSS 3 , not 2;
Must, must, MUST, fix CSS2.
>Us developers can whinge on for as long as we >like about standards compliance and how we wont >move from FF or Opera but the sad facts are that >its not about what browser we use, its about >what browser Joe Public uses. Isnt that why we >code for standards compliance and ALWAYS ALWAYS >debug for IE??! Does anyone dare ignore IE? They >would be foolish to do so.
As a developer, that is precisely what I am doing right this moment. Visit my website. It’s nice and lean, and uses complete CSS2 support and 2 32-bit png’s. People ask my why it doesn’t work in Internet Explorer, and I tell them it’s because their browser sucks. I’m only being honest. It’s Microsoft’s fault not mine. So now I just redirect anyone with IE to browsehappy.com
All of my friends have switched to Firefox since they all want to be able to see my website. It’s very… likeable, and soon I will be releasing heaping gobs of resources for software and web developers.
Anywho, I recommend checking out dean.edwards.name. He tries to bring IE up to speed with the other browsers using JavaScript – instead of bringing pages down to IE’s level.
That said, I think the whole "Web Design" paradigm is a little out of date. Get on to providing REST web services.
"Right now, we’re focused on XP SP2."
So your leaving the rest of us out in the dark?!? Doesn’t really seem like your listening to your customers. Sounds like your listening to "certain" customers. I’ll be sure to stick to my Windows 2000 box running FireFox, Sunbird, and Thunderbird. At least the Mozilla Organization develops software that will run on more then XP.
ManuelBieh.de – xhtml, css, webdesign ??? » Is nich wahr! Microsoft IE7
Some issue’s from my point of view are:
What will happen to the current box model in IE7 ? Is IE7 going to support the same box-model as we know in IE6?
And pleeeaaase, I think it’s about really time IE supports XHTML in IE7, with "yes we do" on top.
And will IE7 maintain backward compatability? I’ve upgraded to XP SP2, and just that didn’t made me really happy.
I do understand there is no way to keep everything always backward compatible if you want to make any progress, but I do also think that just dropping support for functionality a web application relies on is really clever.
Anyway, time will tell…
I have been reading alot about not running as admin or running IE in a protected process. Can this be a default, running in a restricted mode with the option to temporalily turn on install mode?
Do you plan to realise a cross-platform IE ?
I mean will you also change IE Mac and port IE to linux binaries ?
Meanwhile please support CSS3 and PNG.
Or at least got an excellent support of CSS2 as firefox does. that would really be a MINIMUM.
I am download for internet explorer7.
Where’s the mention of CSS standards, PNG support, and full w3c compliance?
How come IE can’t even render a "border: 1px dotted" correctly? It still comes out looking like a dash!
Get on the CSS3 spec and maybe we’ll care. Otherwise everyone will see this for what it is – an attempt to snatch back your dwindling market share and push your agenda and proprietary extensions to the browser once again.
"Do you plan to realise a cross-platform IE ?
I mean will you also change IE Mac and port IE to linux binaries ?"
IE/Win and IE/Mac use a different rendering engine (Trident/Tasman), which suggests the IE engine is not portable (probably a result of bad software design).
May I please have full DOM and CSS standards compliance in my browser? Oh, yes please!
Come on…stop fukc-assing around and just do it! I couldn’t care less about security updates. I wouldn’t give a rat’s penis for tabbed browsing. I just want to be able to validate my webpages and know they will look and work the same in all recent browsers. ‘nkay? Stop embarassing me.
To the IE developer team:
I am the Web GUI Developer, and our profession really depends on Web clients. For the administration interfaces, I still count on IE. I may confirm that the security (and stability) is indeed one of the major things we wait, but that should not come without the other essentials, and we need them for yesterday!!! I know that you can identify them yourself, so I would just confirm and hope that you are listening.
1. Standards! The most important should be W3C standards – hey, people there are trying really hard, and you have that for free! At the moment, please give us more standard CSS, XHTML and PNG.
2. Shell Interface! Just look at Maxthon and do the same. Nothing more, nothing less.
3. Script Debugging! Yes, we do have some options on this (barely), but please try to integrate it better.
4. Download Manager! Come on, people, are you kidding?! How could one possibly download anything without it? (And please! try to not make it inferior to other DL managers).
Thank you!
PS. Are you listening?
Just want to reiterate that we need Windows 2000 support, its the right thing to do. Im not asking for the firewall, Im not asking for the security center, Im not even asking for improved wireless networking. Im just asking for a version of IE thats not going to infect my system with the heebie jeebies (malware) every other web page.
Thank you, we look forward to helping test the beta with you.
Thoughts from all Four Hats… » Microsoft announces IE7
i like this browser and i want to download it now.
Oh God, here comes another IE release with no PNG Alpha support.
Please, PLEASE make it stop!
Just a comment on all the web developers screaming "give me standards support, CSS, blah blah." I just want you (the IE team) to know that these requests aren’t just backhanded insults. Back in the days of 4.0 browsers, the web developers of the world shouted in chorus, "I hate Netscape! Long live IE!". So the current infatuation with Firefox (it’s my only browser now, BTW) is not solely an anti-Microsoft, "artisty" thing to do by the self-styled "creative" types who design websites. It is a recognition of better technology.
So, if you guys bite the bullet and go ahead and add support for alpha-blended PNGs, higher-level CSS, fixed box model, etc. etc. then you will see support from the web community — support comparable to what Firefox is seeing now.
Oh, I almost forgot. Can you believe that we are using the Internet for many things beside the Web browsing? Wow, how about this:
5. Integration of the Internet Services:
- RSS (you could integrate it in IE, much like Pluck does)
- News (almost dead because of poor integration in Windows)
- FTP (every single FTP client do it better than Explorer)
- Download Manager (already in our list, isn’t it? I would be happy with the FlashGet as a model)
- P2P (OK, just trying)
- Instant Messaging and Video (OK, we got that Messanger instead…)
- Terminal Services (funny this list is, isn’t it)
Sure you know those should be Plug-ins, so that we could use other software instead if we like, don’t you? You would profit as usually, by counting on that most people would use them as the default.
PS. Hey, I could even tolerate your promotions at those Plug-ins (you know, banners, usual blah-blah stuff and such). OK, I admit, I would bane them with some more plug-ins. But, most Johns would not, you know.
no Comments.
The solution to the rendering problems is simple: splice in the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine. Would it really be that hard to make it work with ActiveX (assuming that you have to keep ActiveX in IE7)?
So, it is only gonna be available for WinXP SP2? hmm… I use linux at home and find it too be annoying that i cannot run some MS software on it (some that i do run works fine with WINE), but now, not only am i not going to be able to use the ‘latest and greatest’ MS browser at home but i can’t even use it on my work machine (Win 2k). Dear god, how do MS expect to win users in the browser area if they not only dont support non-MS operating systems, but will also not support it’s own latest operating system (win XP) unless it is upgraded with a security update that seems to cause most users more problems than it solves. When you release the Linux beta, let me know, i’d be very interested in testing it.
Of for god’s sake MS, get real already…
Why don’t you just throw Windows and MSIE away and start over just like Apple did? We know you can do better (like X-Box, that’s a good machine).
You can’t keep building your software puzzle forever you know…
No amount of updating will move me back from my web browser, Firefox. It works on all platforms, including my Linux, renders perfectly and has full support of web standards. What more do I want? Oh yes – Firfox is also free, open source and a friendly commmunity. Point made
AMEN!!!
with the release of Firefox 1.0 I finally switched from my IE which was fine but a little disappointing – a large part of this was that, mozilla and firefox supported all the extensions and standards that made web development fun and helped with debugging. IE is a good browser whatever people say, it’s just too old now that’s all. Security is a major concern on the internet these days but I would also say that standards support is too – if you ask most companies about standards they wont care hugely, they just want security, however if they fully understood what standards support can provide then they would be pushing for it too – I love my firefox and wouldn’t change back to IE unless it equalled the standards support and functionality of firefox with a better interface – I don’t see it happening, but I love competition, IE has dominated the web unfairly for too long, I’m hoping this will be a chance for Microsoft to justify their browser, I’m not looking to moan anymore about rendering bugs and incorrect css support. This is my plea to you, do this upgrade and do it right and you will appease a revolution from web developers, do it wrong and you will breed yet more contempt. I am very pro microsoft – it is clear when you use macs or linux for any length of time that microsoft has paid much more attention on little usability tweaks and enhancements over the years – tny things that make it a better experience. Yes it crashes, but when it comes back it’s nice to use for anyone comfortable with computers.
" Please relax, people. It’s just a web browser. "
This is true, but considering the internet is the largest, most diverse, and complex body of information in the human world I think that browsers are incredibly vital.
Please please please avoid fancy ‘surface enhancements’ until you have the core of IE working according to w3c specs and the needs of web developers and web users. Bugs in IE are well reported on the net now so you have no excuse for not fixing them.
It would be great if they included support for jpeg2000 standard
A new IE version sounds great and is clearly needed.
On the other hand, the easy extensibility of IE is a major plus, and you should make sure that you don’t break existing software that uses IE – or at the very least document all required code changes early enough.
The XP SP2 update was already a very good start in this respect. I am looking forward to test IE7 Beta
Mike
I use Firefox for two reasons.
First because I like a purple coloured tool bar with green tabs at the bottom of the browser window. Only the W3C XUL open standard and Firefox open implementation allow that.
Second, because of security. Firefox only allows spyware to be installed via buffer overflows. Buffer overflows are difficult to implement for spyware developers. IE allows developers to trick users into installing spyware by asking for their permission to install the ActiveX factor RPMs(often really tricking them by asking for permission several times!)
Could you give us what everybody want to know :
The list of future improvements !
Imho, I would really enjoy a full support of CSS (1 and 2), and a better render of standards.
PNG full support would be great too.
WHEN will we know WHICH improvements are going to be made on IE 7 ???
to "bryce schaufelberger": a popup blocker seems to be already available in IE6 SP2, one year after absolutely all other browser vendors on the planet implemented one. But of course, Microsoft probably claims they invented the popup blocker and you’re free and encouraged to believe that.
IE6 is looking about as bad now as NS4 did 4 years ago.
IF they don´t touch the rendering engine and focus on security only, IE7 will be the greatest waste of time.
To all FF lovers: I think FF is but a bad copy of Opera. Opera is the way to go for fast browsing (and I don´t mean: fast rendering, but fast browsing).
Please give us:
CSS 2.1 (especially selectors)
Standard-compliant rendering
PNG Support
That aside, I think "the core" should be the main target: RSS should go to OE, if at all.
That’s really a shame! Microsoft needs customers to complain a lot to start thinking of improving their products!!!
If there was no Firefox, it would still answer: "just buy good anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, anti-etc. software".
And what if your 5-years old PC cannot comfortablely run XP? Well, easy, switch to Firefox or anything but IE! It’s faster and cheaper than upgrading Windows. Or even switch to a light and efficient Linux!
Kiram Dahanetun jakesh jam konin berin gomshin ba IE 7.0 tetun
I wonder why noone answers the comments…
I guess it is because there will be no developement in standards compatibility…
And if this is true, IE will never be as good as the alternative browsers -> IE is dead.
I just read on the IEBlog that Microsoft will indeed go forward with IE7 for Longhorn and XP SP2. Let’s hope that they try to make some standards actually work this time. Read more here…
I use Firefox for two reasons.
First because I like a purple coloured tool bar with green tabs at the bottom of the browser window. Only the W3C XUL open standard and Firefox open implementation allow that.
Second, because of security. Firefox only allows spyware to be installed via buffer overflows. Buffer overflows are difficult to implement for spyware developers. IE allows developers to trick users into installing spyware by asking for their permission to install the ActiveX factor RPMs(often really tricking them by asking for permission several times!)
rendering engine needs vast improvement
it’s the webdevelopers that started the firefox revolution! maybe microsoft should cater for them instead of the technologically-retarded users
what a beautiful day for the cyberspace
"We heard a clear message"
I think the message was loud and clear for a long time. It has to be said that Microsoft have been very slow to react to the message, though.
W FIREFOX
Blog de Jaime Olmo: Print & Web Design » IE7
Please add *full* PNG support, CSS 2.1, XHTML ("application/xhtml+xml") and DOM support.
Please read W3C Recommendations.
Please use W3C validator for your tests.
Thanks.
I’m doing my best to be enthusiastic about this, but the complete lack of any mention toward better support of ANY web standards goes quite some way to making me think that IE7 will be a frustration for all web developers.
Fixing your shoddy security is not something to trumpet, it shouldn’t be as bad as it is in the first place. Fixed security certainly isn’t reason for a full blown version incrimentation.
Put it this way – I don’t go out and buy a new Corvette because they fixed a few of the safety fcuk-up’s from the last model. I buy the new corvette because the new version is faster, better handeling and more economical. The saftey updates are a base expectation, not a selling point.
In the mean time I’m enjoying the meteoric rise in popularity of web browsers that actually obey the standards set out by the W3C (and the added security is kinda nice when you notice it).
I don’t see how MS tacking on some extra "features" and bug fixes can improve the situation.
The current IE code tree is old, stop flogging a dead horse guys! You’re walking into the same trap that Netscape did.
Just concentrating on building a new browser with a new rendering engine from scratch, it’s the only way to go.
Being based on the same codebase, IE7 will still suffer the same inherent security issues as IE6.
I’ll continue to using, and migrating people away from IE, until there’s some significant changes.
And I warn you – do not break the CSS hacks in IE6 without fixing the CSS bugs they are used to workaround!
The only thing MSIE is "good for" is Windows Update (just because it supports ActiveX). Remove it from windows and make it "Windows update" only or create a windows_update.xpi for better browsers.
Seriously, what people are expecting is better standards support (CSS, XHTML, PNG, SVG, …). If Microsoft still continue to consider his customers like they are sheeps surely, sooner or later, they’ll finish to be aware of this.
Microsoft revealed that this summer they will release a beta of Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP with Service Pack 2.
Hi Friends, I got so excited about the new Google Toolbar for IE on Windows, that I for got to add the real exciting news for the Windows community… Internet Explorer 7 is coming out in beta this summer. Bill…
"IE/Win and IE/Mac use a different rendering engine (Trident/Tasman), which suggests the IE engine is not portable (probably a result of bad software design). "
Or, alternatively, a result of supporting two entirely different OSes with entirely different graphics support. Never let that get in the way of a good "M$" bash, though.
Will Windows XP Professional, x64 Edition be supported?
Very interesting that Microsoft, aka the home of the brave tickets IE7 as a new "commitment to making the situation better." About time!
Polskaya
i see no reason why i should switch back from FireFox, esp. if IE7 won’t support web standards!
- Ryanne from HONG KONG
-> IE is dead.
That bore repeating.
noone answers the comments, because noone here is shelling out the $$ to have what they want fixed (like standards compliance) so noone is listening. "Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners." you folks don’t count in that.
I’ll bet dollars to donuts that not one single thing that you’re asking for here will be added. Just another slap patch… another marketing sham
Shouldn’t you just call it IE 6.1?
" Please relax, people. It’s just a web browser. "
Yeah, it is.. but I’m a web developer 8 hours of the day which is 33% of my day. Lets say IE holds 80% of the market share… and it doesn’t render pages properly still… so 80% of 33% of my 5 days a week at work… and let’s just forget about the weekend worrying for now… that actually comprises a large portion of my life.
"Or, alternatively, a result of supporting two entirely different OSes with entirely different graphics support."
Funny how the Gecko engine compiles on nearly every architecture/OS out there.
windows_update.xpi Now that really would be useful
Please consider releasing an updated version of IE for the MacOS X platform.
The latest version of IE available, IE 5 for Mac, is worse than useless, it requires by far the most hackery to support over any other "current" browser on any platform. It’s still used by a fairly large number of people in academic settings. For completeness, we try to support Safari on MacOS X, IE 5 on MacOS, IE 6+ on Windows, and Mozilla/Gecko browsers on MacOS/Un*x/Windows. Out of all of these, IE on Mac is almost the most painful to support.
It’s frankly an embarassing product when compared against current alternatives, and a clear indication that Microsoft have abandoned the Mac platform with the exception of the lucrative MS Office suite.
"The current IE code tree is old, stop flogging a dead horse guys! You’re walking into the same trap that Netscape did."
The current IE code tree still supports 90% of the market compared with less than 30% for Netscape at the time you’re talking about.
As well, you’ll find many people blaming Netscape’s funeral for the "dead horse" for its demise – it set them back many more years. See "Joel on Software" for a well respected article.
I might repeat what others says, but, sorry, I don’t have the time to read all.
First, I hope standards will be well supported. I mean a full XHTML and moreover CSS implementation, a full PNG support, the opening (and not downloading) of files served with XML mime ( with XSLT or even CSS an XML file may be well rendered on a browser; here is an exemple served with a text mime that, by the way, looks good on all modern browser and that looks ugly on IE6 : http://unveiled-hypocrisies.be/news.xml ), SVG support and maybe other standard format not well supported.
Then, why will you only support Windows XP with service pack II ? Is it so hard to support all of your product able to work with a browser (win95, winNT4, win98, winME, win2000, winXP; all with or without any service pack) ? I use Opera, FireFox (or Mozilla), Amaya with winNT4, so, a modern browser way work on each of your station.
I’ll even go further, you well support mac OS with IE for mac, why wouldn’t you make an IE7 version for linux (not necessarily for free), so that webmaster using linux may test their website on all modern browser ? XUL makes it possible, so it is possible with actual technologies.
Microsoft reversed their position today, and announced that there will be another stand-alone version of Internet Explorer, to be released independently from the next version of Windows. This is generally good news, but web developers shouldn’t get too excited just yet. So far, the only things that Microsoft has talked about changing in IE7 are some security bug fixes and possibly adding some end-user features such as tabs. Conspiciously missing from the official pronouncements are any mention of bug fixes and standards compliance for the rendering engine, the very things which give web developers headaches and ulsers.
I really don’t understand this fuss about IE security. I’ve always used IE as my default browser, have ActiveX, JavaScript and VBScript enabled, go to all kinds of web sites, and have never had a single IE related security problem ever (or any other security/virus issue ever, for that matter). That is because I do what any intelligent computer user or professional does–I have a hardware firewall in my router, use a software firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro), antivirus software (Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition and AVG), antispyware software (Pest Patrol) and install Windows and IE updates religiously. Btw, lest any of you anti-MS bigots think my experience is merely that of an ignorant, uninformed end user, I build PCs and maintain Windows systems for a living (WS2K3/XP/SBS/Win2K). Yes, using MS software does require that you use other add-on tools and do your Windows updates, but so what? That’s just part of this business and goes with the territory.
Yes, I would love for IE7 to have tabbed browsing and more standards support. But I have tried Firefox, Mozilla, and Opera and always find myself going back to IE. The one feature that IE has which is unmatched over the competition is font display. I absolutely hate the fonts that most web sites use as they are not designed to be readable. IE gives my the option of ignoring web sites fonts and using my own choice of font, which I love. I have yet to see any other browser do that. I am very happy to hear that IE7 is coming out and am glad for the additional security features it will have. But I am so sick and tired of hearing all this garbage about IE being so insecure. If you have half a brain and are not lazy, you can make IE as secure as any browser out there.
If you plan releasing IE7 for XP-SP2 users only, don’t expect much people to use it. And what about Linux/Mac/UNIX users ??? Come on, open up to the world !!!
MNG support, please
No Windows 2000 support?
Listen guys, you forced us to have IE as part of your OS, with no native option to remove it. Aren’t you supposed to be offering extended support for Windows 2000 until 2010?
A web browser that can’t render pages on the web isn’t worth having at all. Support it or remove it.
I vote for the option to remove the IE engine completely in the upcoming Windows 2000 Service Pack 5/Roll-up.
I also feel it necessicary to add this: "More Secure" shouldn’t be a feature.. in fact it shouldn’t NEED to be mentioned at all.. it shouldn’t have been a problem to begin with.
"Funny how the Gecko engine compiles on nearly every architecture/OS out there."
Funny how Gecko based browsers reinvent the basic controls and rendering tools on whatever OS it supports
Top of my list are
- SVG support (I was going to add "or other vector graphics support" but, at this point, with Firefox 1.1 about to support it, it has to be SVG)
- Security
- Standards compliance
"In yet another example of innovation, Microsoft has invented a feature called Tabbed Web Surfing ™ (r). Tabbed Web Surfing is a revolutionary user interface for web browsing that Microsoft as its inventor has received over 7,000 patents on."
Mozilla FireFox is far more secure and secure and secure than the rubbish iexploder
Just adding my vote: if IE7 is not standards compliant then it will be a joke, worthy of ridicule, and would be better named as 6.2 or whatever.
Suggestion: make contact with Dean Edwards (http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/), offer him a bucket of money to help you sort out the rendering in YOUR IE7 without needing to rewrite the rendering engine from scratch.
Dean’s Javascript tool allows IE6 to be more or less standards compliant. But its only penalty is speed: how difficult would it be to port his code into the core?
5-6 Meg download, ActiveX as a plugin only, PNG alpha support, Proper CSS support (min-width, max-width, content attributes), multi platform (OS-X, Win2000, Unix; even if it takes a while).
Oh, I just described Firefox?! Maybe MS should have started ‘listening’ sooner?
Not worried about tabbed browsing, it’s nice but not too important from a developers point of view, only from a usability point of view. I have to admit that MS usually get their usability about right for their simpler apps though.
I’m sure a lot of people are looking forward to the release of IE7, mainly because of a large number of features that have been lacking from IE, such as the ability to use tabs when browsing instead of having…
Following on the heels of <a href="http://people.engr.ncsu.edu/jayoung/site/pages/-9bd56ff988d229e61073e713ee50be12">my commentary</a> and everyone else’s in the known Universe for the last several, um, <strong>YEARS</strong>…
Microsoft announced …
"If you plan releasing IE7 for XP-SP2 users only, don’t expect much people to use it. And what about Linux/Mac/UNIX users ?"
XP SP 2: 170 million
Linux/Mac : lucky to have 30 million between them
I’m glad I’m not living in your bizarre little world if that’s a recipe for failure
And here is the bucket:
http://dean.edwards.name/donate/
I created an entry especailly for Micrsoft… Pretty considerate of me really.
please MS improve support for saving html pages as a single .MHT file!
there are pages that cannot be saved, and other pages that _crash_ ie6 when reloaded!
(many of these pages are from MSDN, how ironic…)
please fix it, I don’t want to switch to firefox just to use .MHT files (firefox supports this using the MAF extension).
thanks.
"In yet another example of innovation, Microsoft has invented a feature called Tabbed Web Surfing ™ (r). Tabbed Web Surfing is a revolutionary user interface for web browsing that Microsoft as its inventor has received over 7,000 patents on."
"Funny how Gecko based browsers reinvent the basic controls and rendering tools on whatever OS it supports"
You know IE, Office, and a lot of other MS applications do exactly the same ? (they just look the same as the OS-supplied versions)
A render engine should have no ties to the underlying OS.
Good News!
Good luck! MS is quickly becoming a dinosaur.
Standards. Please implement standards! This is very important for the WWW.
Can I just say: "Hardeeharhar". IE can get updated all it wants, but it is and will for the rest of time be obsolete. Nothing more to be said. The old rendering engine performs badly and is slow. Open source is the future. Heck, It doesn’t even have tabbed browsing which is a standard among all other browsers! "Poeple who use IE aren’t looking for things like tabs" is of course nonsense. Poeple who haven’t experienced it have no clue how wonderful it is.
–Tommy Quist aka Linforcer
I am eagerly waiting for ie7 but I am also afraid that I will have to spend the next few months downloading and installing security patches.
> we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer.
That’s FANTASTIC news! Thank you!
Any hints as to what will be updated?
hi,
as a lot of people, i’m wondering when IE will be available on linux?
no sorry it’s a bad joke. as a firefox ‘happy’ customer, i’m wondering if IE could change that way to be more efficience, faster than today on of course included the REAL standard to manage webpages …
oh, just one other think that didn’t part of IE … except in microsoft ofice where did you really heard that “Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better." ? didn’t you heard about all software that stop running well after XP2 installation? even system crash for my part …
well, maybe one day microsoft will be open mind …
Make sure IE7 includes support for inlined images! Base64 encoded images directly in the page actually make a legitimate PDF alternative – something to consider!
I’ve been using Maxthon (formerly MYIE2) for over a year and think it FAR outperforms Firefox. It’s funny how Firefox has gotten all the attention for things that Maxthon has had for a long, long time. Maxthon should have had a better marketing agency!
Currently, I have about 8 browsers loaded on my machine, just to make sure that web pages I edit work in all of them. My absolute favorite (although it’s not practical for daily use) is PhaseOut!
Any released information stating your commitment to modern coding practices — meaning XHTML, CSS, XML… not to mention full PNG support? Aside from security, this has been the reason why we’ve dropped IE’s usage company wide — I have the choice of building one internet application for all users; or one for IE users. We don’t want to waste money doing both anymore.
Andrew Ebbatson’s Blog Roll » IE7 – Big yawn
"You know IE, Office, and a lot of other MS applications do exactly the same ? (they just look the same as the OS-supplied versions)
A render engine should have no ties to the underlying OS. "
IE still uses the Windows select control on web pages – and its dialogs use Windows’ controls unlike Firefox.
If you reckon a rendering engine should have no ties with the underlying OS, I’m extraordinarily interested on your suggestions for rendering pixels or graphics to screens and for loading and displaying fonts
hehe, just look at all those responds… I hope they get the message :/ lol
good
Here’s the press release of Bill Gates’ announcement this morning:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/feb05/02-15RSA05KeynotePR.asp
You said, "Why? Because we listened…"
Right…
Its ONLY AFTER Firefox has taken 5% of the browser market away from IE, that MS decides to do something.
ONLY when MS faces losing revenue $$ does Microsoft do something.
NEVERMIND the revenue companies all around the world have to LOSE because we have to waste our man-hours on supporting MS’s half-completed, half-secure, just-done-enough-to-get-the-next-version-out-to-keep-adding-to-the -40-billion, bloated, resource hogging software.
Screw you Microsoft.
We won’t be upgrading… WHY?
Firefox works great. I’ve already moved the whole corporation to it.
Next thing to get rid of, Microsoft Office…
And guess what? THIS INCREASES my corporation’s REVENUE, because I get RID of the ENDLESS BANAL OF UPGRADES just to allow our employees to be able to do the SAME WORK securely.
Goodbye.
IE never compare with FireFox or Opera (I hate IE). Now, IE very slow browser and I not believe what MS improve speed of IE.
"So, it is only gonna be available for WinXP SP2? hmm… I use linux at home and find it too be annoying that i cannot run some MS software on it (some that i do run works fine with WINE), but now, not only am i not going to be able to use the ‘latest and greatest’ MS browser at home but i can’t even use it on my work machine (Win 2k). Dear god, how do MS expect to win users in the browser area if they not only dont support non-MS operating systems, but will also not support it’s own latest operating system (win XP) unless it is upgraded with a security update that seems to cause most users more problems than it solves. When you release the Linux beta, let me know, i’d be very interested in testing it."
Just use firefox – or if you really want to use IE on linux, crossover office (that program that runs MS office, photoshop, media player etc) will run it fine.
Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all.
Please, as lots of people are asking…
Make it Web Standards Compliant.
CSS
XHTML (Standards Mode)
PNG
DOM
Forget about your Box Model and use the standard, also fix the overflow behavoir, as well as the display:block "peek-a-boo" bug, and everything else that is causing CORRECT web site to display wrong in your browser.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/
Good read for those that still don’t think IE is terrible. Welcome to the real world.
" # re: IE7 2/16/2005 2:14 AM Kevin Ansfield
What I’d like to see from IE:
1) Uncoupled from the OS – why should a web browser be able to compromise the whole system?
2) Get rid of ActiveX – probably the most annoying, insecure, incompatible technology I’ve ever seen
3) Drop propriety technologies and implement full standards support with correct rendering – CSS1/2 at the least
4) Alpha PNG support
5) Tabbed interface
6) Open, fully extendable plugin system – the customisation abilites in FireFox are truly outstanding.
7) Proper popup blocker – even with the supposed improvements in SP2 I still get 10x as many popups when compared to competing browsers "
OK….now how many of these do you actually *expect* the IE team to address?
mmmh…only for xp sp2!
I would use it on all my pc…not only the last purchased!
I think i’ll continue with mozilla and firefox…and you??
No one answers commebts on MS antispyware beta either. Why issue a betta without a place to report sucess, failure, or suggestions?
VERY glad to hear we’re looking at a new IE!
Got a question, though:
It’s clear you have been listening to those parties (customers, analysts, and partners) who directly or indirectly most affect your *monetary* bottom line, and that’s understandable for any business.
However, for content creators, web developers, and related "creative" types trying to make things work across platforms, are there as yet any plans in place/in progress to more fully support not only MS-specific technologies, but open standards such as:
- CSS
- XHTML
- PNG
- SVG
- MathML
- etc.
??
It’s truly great that MS has "heard" and is "committed"–I do hope that enhancing the support of such open standards (developed by W3C-type bodies of which MS is a part) is part of that "listening" and "commitment". The folks at Mozilla.org and Opera, to name just two, have been able to do this to a much greater extent to date, but I *have* to believe it’s possible for MS to do this (even in addition to more proprietary solutions contained within the same browser).
Please comment on this for the benefit of all concerned. Thanks.
Hi,
please implements features as the alpha channel for pngs, css1 and css2 complete and with no horrofying bugs as today in your three years old last major revision of IE.
"Also, for you interoperability clowns out there. You’re always going on about how monocultures are bad. You often use biological arguments to back your points. Well, why are you so keen on standards then? Surely different software and platforms give ‘genetic’ diversity, different standards give memetic diversity."
Whoever wrote this is retarded. Standards are the whole point of having a heterogenous environment.
@ Randall Fitzgerald’s post on 2/15/2005 11:58 AM
Open Standards are necessary. Closed ones are bad, because they are not known. We can’t do what we want with them, and that definitely is a bad thing.
But you were arguing that when the final user sees a ill-coded page, written by someone without knowledge of W3C standards, IE should somehow correct his flaws.
That is, modify the page. Think on what you are saying.
I oppose to that because of two reasons:
First, you would never be sure wether IE is going to render your page correctly or just "interpret" the way it should be rendered. No, I don’t want to check wether it is correctly rendered with IE — I want to know that I’m writing good code, and that it *should* be correctly rendered. That’s not my job, it’s IE’s.
Second, your argument implies that MS should fix (ehem) the mess that an ignorant user has made. My answer is: why? Whoever develops a website should either a) use a WYSYWIG prorgam which is standards-compliant or b) know what they are doing.
This is important: we can’t allow the users to be ignorant. They can be taught, and helped, but in a manner that they learn. And MS philosophy, all through their programs, goes towards keeping users as less knwoledgeable as possible.
Why does a user need to know W3C standards? Well, this comment is a fine read, right? It has return carriages, paragraphs, commas, colons, etc. I also tried to write it in an acceptable english, and (though there is bound to be some) without many typos. Anyone that has to type a text should strive towards this. It makes it easier to read, easier to understand, and shows that the writter invested time and effort into doing his best.
After all, the Net is meant to communicate.
Interesting…
Anyway, I’ve seen a bunch of people having trouble installing SP2. Some of them even saw Windows crashing after installing SP2. They had to install XP, and this time, sans SP2. Not everyone uses WinXP, and not all XP users have SP2 installed and working without trouble. I wasn’t amused when I found out that IE7 would be for the XP+SP2 combo. I have them both, but I’m still not amused.
A great number of people have already mentioned web standards, PNG, and many other things. I’m not a web developer (though I’m studying to be one) but an end-user… Still, I could see where they stand. Even THIS end-user has been frustrated due to the aforementioned problems while using IE. I’m afraid that I’ll see even more of the ugliness as my study continues…
I don’t think it’ll hurt to flush ActiveX down the toilet…
What else? It’d be great to be able to customize IE to my liking. No, not just apperance-wise, although pretty looks are good. I’m talking feature-wise. I’ve recently installed a bunch of extensions for Firefox, and I love how FF does what I want it to do. If I need something more, I can go ahead, find an extension, and add it. If I want to get rid of something, I can go ahead and uninstall an extension.
I remember a time when a friend of mine had IE continously crashing on him. He bombarded everyone on his MSN Messenger contact list for help, and I happaned to be around. I sent him a Firefox installer. It happened again even after he re-installed Windows. Same solution again. Oh well.
I do use IE when necessary, though – some sites do force me to.
That’s why I’d love to see some REAL improvements on IE. I’ll even use it when it comes out. I already am NOT a full-time IE user, and I doubt I will be. To me, IE is a necessary evil that I’d like to see become far less evil than it is.
My future plans: Get a machine and install Linux on it; Start looking for a Firefox extention that needs to be localized for Korean FF users (I love being bilingual, and I’ll love it even more when I put my skills to a good use); and KEEP MY FINGERS CROSSED and hope that IE7 will be much, much less problematic than IE6.
Fantastic news! Now, you know what people want… go out and build the best damn browser you can.
Please Microsoft, we are so close of making the standards compliant web a reality! It would be a real shame if IE7 fails to deliver in web standards support. I would like to add support for the public request to have the W3C standards fully supported.
Considering the myriad of web-enabled gadgets we have today like phones, PDAas, TVs and so on, I think this is a critical moment to finally get a fully interoprable web.
Microsoft. Bunch of cowboys I tell you!
Two words, "CSS support". Get with it.
Long live proper browsers!!
The IE blog is reporting that Microsoft will be releasing an IE 7 this summer. It appears that their plans to use Longhorn as the delivery vehicle for browser upgrades has been reversed. The only question I have is will they actually improve their rendering capabilities, or will this be a UI hackjob to bring their five year old app up to a contemporary featureset. Actually, I have one more question. Why are they leaving out over hundreds of millions of users by not offering this to users of Windows pre-XPSP2? Scoble’s posted too. I expect Cnet to have something up today….
Microsoft listening to consumers. The day that happens is when hell freezes over.
Dont think it is gonna be better than Fire Fox. Even if it does, current Firefox will be already 1 step ahead!
I just want native SVG support.
I await this to kick Firefox’s butt.
Amazing guys
I have used Firefox to reset fonts on every web page to my defaults…. "Dan" that is officially the WORST complaint I have EVER seen. On the same note, IE is the worst browser I have ever used… Fight the power, long live the GPL…
so you mentioned Hakon’s rant (CTO, Opera Software) but didn’t even refer to it ??
**dont** shoot the messenger!
the message is all about interopability, CSS, XML, W3C standards that M$ does not use, hotmail fiddling, documentation, and please fix WinIE!! (yes, he did say that!!)
**note to FF users: we’re in this together!
and hey, if IE gets as ‘good & safe’ as FF & opera, I might even try it! :O :O
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/
Don’t ask people why they are so confused.
Through the years, Microsoft always tried to dictate how the web must be to his users.
Now, all of the sudden, they are asking users’ opinion!!
Of course people get confused!
DOWN WITH FIREFOX!! IE RETURNS TO KILL IT!!!
This is great news, but I can’t help but think to myself, ‘Geez, they’ve had 3 years already. Where have these guys been?’ I eagerly await the new IE, but I doubt I will switch from my current browser…
Et fa una Volldamm? » Tremolem… ja arriba IE7!
If there will be NO support for current web-standards like XHTML, CSS, SVG and full support of PNG (including animated PNGs), then You can slow down and forgot about IE7 – it will be worthless.
<p>
Microsoft, to its credit, has in the past changed default settings to more secure modes and traded off out-of-the-box interoperability by doing so…. The folks at Mozilla.org and Opera, to name just two, have been able to do this to a much greater extent to date, but I *have* to believe it’s possible for MS to do this (even in addition to more proprietary solutions contained within the same browser).
</p>
> Good news, hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all.
How so? Consider also that competition is very healthy. Without all those "firefox users" it’s unlikely you would even be seeing this IE7 build at this time.
Microsoft is a marketing company first and foremost. They are not listening to their customers, they are scared to death of the marketplace.
Firefox is a real and free competitor. Mac OS X is alive and well with a headstart over Longhorn. Spyware is rampant on the Windows platform.
All of the sudden Microsoft buys an anti-virus product, anti-spyware product, and offers an update to IE. All of this is the equivalent of laying blacktop over a road full of potholes. The potholes will come back since the foundation isn’t repaired.
I want to personally thank Bill Gates for giving me a reason to look at alternatives. We are very happy with them and our reliance on Windows and IE is rapidly declining.
IE 7 will be a joke, more features built on the same leaky code base.
I think that the point has been made that IE’s support for web standards needs to be spiced up. However, I still encourage every to add more useful comments. I just think the IE-team understands what we want now.
Now, my main question. Will the IE-team be working on web standards support in IE7, yes or no? I know that you might not be willing to answer, but just give a signal that you are actually reading this. I don’t care if the answer is "we have not yet decided", just tell me. It will help others and me tremendously.
Please, IE-team, tell us what you are planning on doing with web standards. We are all eager to hear and it makes a bad impression not to respond at all.
Peter
http://www.code-kilroy.com
I think it’s been about three days since Microsoft announced that they will release a new version of IE. The announcement was so thoroughly blogged and discussed that I didn’t bother blogging it myself (I was too busy reading what others had written), but now that the dust has settled, I want to offer my two cents
Thats nice news, but where some facts about new version? I don’t want use only new title and having such troubles as with ie6 and less… I want faster, stable and smarty like opera IE…
A few things id like to see are the ability to turn tabbed browsing off (i dont like it – assuming this will be included) and the ability to write managed plugins.
As a web designer, if IE just rolled over and died, life would be a hell of a lot easier.
New version of Opera 8 is out today. In the past 2-3 Opera has made some major leaps and bounds and in my opinion is the best little browser out there. Im sticking with it.
I’m with Patrick, FF and a bunch of Microsoft customers complaining are responsible for the upcoming IE 7.0, but whatever the motivation, I, too, am glad it’s coming!
I am down to about 60/35 (Safari for the other 5%) usage with IE barely being used more than FF . Looking forward to seeing integrated RSS in IE7 (I’m sure this will be just one of many features).
Excellent news!
Press releases are all good and fine, but most users want TECHNICAL release info. What will IE7 support?
People will want to start looking into migrating to IE7 compatible code for their sites- I know I will be if there’s basics like PNG Alpha support, proper open standards support… until we get a tech release, the Firefox logo stays on my site.
so you mentioned Hakon’s rant (CTO, Opera Software) but didn’t even refer to it ??
**dont** shoot the messenger!
the message is all about interopability, CSS, XML, W3C standards that M$ does not use, hotmail fiddling, documentation, and please fix WinIE!! (yes, he did say that!!)
**note to FF users: we’re in this together!
and hey, if IE gets as ‘good & safe’ as FF & opera, I might even try it! :O :O
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/
IE7 until 100% support for W3C standards and complete removal of activx I will stay with Firefox …. using winxp/sp2 .. it is a sad that those folks using all other current window OS are being forgotton … let see .. upgrade to XP ($100) and install sp2 and maybe you can get a few bones — firefox works with ALL window versions and is 100% W3C now … M$ came up with a new way to get $$$$ … this is the real answer .. 25,000,000 copies of firefox downloaded within 4 months ..
And like the others have mentioned, will Microsoft finally initialize proper DOM support and standards compliance? I’m tired of having to create hacks for IE’s deficiencies.
Would be nice to support css1 and css2 correctly…
Including alternate stylesheets for example.
(CSS3 would be too much of a demand)
Great news !
Features like Tabbed Browsing wood be just nice !
But let to you time for working on the security of the Internet Explorer.
Blake, I’m sorry, but FireFox does not let me choose the fonts I want as IE does.
Also, your comment "Fight the power, long live the GPL" shows that you are an anti-MS bigot. Just admit that you don’t like Microsoft and Bill Gates and that your animus towards MS and Gates is the source of your complaints. What the hell does "fight the power" have to do with anything? Is the GPL the solution to all software problems in the world, the solution that is going to lead us all into computing nirvana and bliss and bring about world peace? These are computers we’re talking about, not world revolution.
Microsoft was not touching IE for 4 years because IE seniour developers were allocated to Avalon/WinFX development. That’s all.
that fears me a bit
but i dont think that they dont include anything like css2 dom2 png alpha
i hope they will support css1 fully that where great
Alright – listening to their costumers. Let them prove that by giving us web developers a _standards compliant_ browser!!
Doesn’t sound right that they are actually gonna create a CSS compliant browser, but I really hope they will.
CSS AND XHTML PLEASE!! (and application/xhtml+xml MIME type please!!)
All the posts i’ve read thus far seem to put design and appearance ahead of performance. Though buggy in IE still, you have to give it some credit. The IE team is trying its best to give what you want, but like i said, performance should always come before design. Work on the design later, heck, put the menu i dont care, just give me something fast.
As above my priority is code compatibility. If IE’s rendering engine can’t much Firefox’s I still won’t use it.
Will IE7 conform to W3C standards ?
What is Microsoft’s commitment towards conforming these standards ?
What I’d like to see from IE:
1) Uncoupled from the OS – why should a web browser be able to compromise the whole system?
2) Get rid of ActiveX – probably the most annoying, insecure, incompatible technology I’ve ever seen
3) Drop propriety technologies and implement full standards support with correct rendering – CSS1/2 at the least
4) Alpha PNG support
5) Tabbed interface
6) Open, fully extendable plugin system – the customisation abilites in FireFox are truly outstanding.
7) Proper popup blocker – even with the supposed improvements in SP2 I still get 10x as many popups when compared to competing browsers
These are just a few of the absolutely essential things I would need to see in IE to make me switch back. Anything less and it will still only be second best, if that.
I find it laughable that you say you are listening to the people – I’ve seen a huge proportion of the web development (as well as clued-in users) crying out for decent standards support for the last 5 years. Now you say you are releasing a new version but then don’t even have a passing reference to anything which has been asked for.
Remember that as long as the people who make the www are offered a better alternative they will be preaching about that alternative to the masses.
Kev
Get it right this time so we can all be using web standards 2-3 years from now. As a web developer, I tell everyone I know to use Firefox – because its core focus is to implement agreed upon standards. Standards make my job easier and they let me focus on creativity instead of work-arounds. Microsoft is part of the W3C, so why shouldn’t their products respect the recommendations they help(ed) to sculpt?
It is good they are putting out IE7 there revenue stream is slowing. This gives everybody a chance to help Microsoft out.
windows2000supportrequest++;
Randall Fitzgerald:
"ALL BROWSERS DESERVE EQUAL CONSIDERATION FROM DEVELOPERS. "
… while the customers end up footing the bill for the required "quirk testing" phase of web design instead of using those budgeted resources to implement site enhancements.
"IE still uses the Windows select control on web pages"
That’s the only one they use, all others are re-implementations
"and its dialogs use Windows’ controls unlike Firefox."
Dialogs are not part of the render engine.
"If you reckon a rendering engine should have no ties with the underlying OS, I’m extraordinarily interested on your suggestions for rendering pixels or graphics to screens and for loading and displaying fonts"
Simple, create an object, let’s call it Painter, that knows how to render pixels, draw graphics and load fonts on a specific platform. The render engine uses the Painter to draw the pages it renders. Then, for each platform you support you just have to supply an implementation of the Painter.
Yes, FireFox has had 25 million downloads, but how many people are actually using it? I download firefox, but I don’t use it, I think I browsed the net with it a few times, but I started getting this error so I went back IE.
Please just fix the rendering! Do the web a favour!
TABBED BROWSING!! PLEASE!
As a web developer: If you’re going to feck up your CSS / XHTML / rendering / whatever, please give us a DOM inspector like firefox’s to help us find out what your browser does different, so we can more easily design sites that work in your browser.
Updated web standards support will be most welcome. Why not give your users something to brag about for once and give your browser BETTER support than firefox for current and upcoming w3c standards – this way your browser won’t feel so dated and crappy to us developers once the IE team has dissipated again.
Oh, and if you could work with the Codeweavers team to try and maintain maximum functionality in Crossover Office, the would be a good move.
Microsoft recently announced IE7 for Windows would ship ahead of Longhorn, and though the developers have kept quiet on the matter, it seems to be mostly focused on security, and not on implementing standards compliance requirements. This can only mean bad news for web developers and end users alike. Why is that, you ask? Well…
its all about the tabs bill!
You can’t "get rid of phishing". You can make things harder for phishers — but eliminating the problem is impossible.
It’s incredible how many people are still so fanatic that they cannot see the reality. (Sorry, guys the renderer and the standard compliance of the IE just sucks …not to talk about usability aspects) Please finally come at least *near* to standard compliance with IE7. People are really sick of working around all this IE issues. Expecting to get a safe browsing experience is probably out of scope for only the next version.
Other than the obvious things such as better CSS support, PNG support etc..
Please make sure we can run IE6 & IE7 side by side….. There is not reason for this not to happen and you would save developers the world over a lot of heart ache when developing and testing for multiple browsers…. Instead of having 2 machines 1 for IE 7 and 1 for IE6.
Then we could test Firefox, ie6, ie7, opera etc ALL on the 1 machine
You’ve got a great opportunity here; you can still get back a lot of those people who have switched from IE, I’m sure. Please understand that it is more than just security as our concern; the rendering engine is something we, the ‘creative’ people all want to be better.
In fact, if you implement the CSS3 draft, you will have a VERY MAJOR advantage over FF, which does not yet support it.
Wow, Dan. Somehow you managed to get multiple firewalls spyware detectors and whatnot running on your machine, and yet you couldn’t figure out how to override font selection in Firefox. That’s funny because I’m nowhere near as computer savy as you, but I managed to find that setting in 60 seconds…
Select Options from the Tools menu (like in IE), select the Fonts and Colors from the General section of the dialog. And click on the bottom checkboxes where it says "Always use my: [x]Fonts [x]Colors"…
Matt,
You say:
"Funny how Gecko based browsers reinvent the basic controls and rendering tools on whatever OS it supports"
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/007537.html
As listed in the link above it shows that IE doesn’t use native widgets either.
In fact a lot of MS products don’t use standard widgets:
Office always seems to reinvent the file selection (Open, Save) dialog with each release.
IE and Windows Explorer have a different behaviour when dragging the icon in the titlebar compared to other apps.
etc
The best way to make IE secure is to drop the ActiveX, please!
I would also like to echo what all these other developers are saying regarding rendering and CSS. Security updates are great and all but you’re really holding up the potential of the web by the horrible support for CSS and alpha-transparency with PNG’s.
Please please please please PLEASE…. I will love MS forever if you do this with IE7.
It’s be nice to say goodbye to having to use CSS for IE, let’s hope IE7 has an improved CSS rendering engine.
Dan,
> IE gives my the option of ignoring web sites fonts and using my own choice of font, which I love. I have yet to see any other browser do that.
Firefox: Edit | Preferences | General | Fonts & Colours
Opera: Tools | Preferences | Page Style | Configure Modes
Konqueror: Settings | Configure Konqueror | Stylesheets | Customise
If you have used practically any browser other than Internet Explorer, then what you say is simply not true whatsoever.
It may be the cynical side of me but I do have to wonder how tightly integrated IE7 will be with MSN search, the new search engine that Microsoft are running.
In any event it surely has to be good news that IE is getting an update and better news that Firefox will have some competition. Choice can only make the browser experience better for all consumers and the firefox teams almost single handedly deserve the credit for pushing the MS team forward in delivering this "ahead of schedule" IE update
I’m rather ammused to see the sheer volume of responses on this one particular topic.
A few thoughts – the beta of IE7 is supposed to be out early Summer 2005, with the final release in 2006. Avalon, the underlying graphical layer architecture which now is being backported to XP/SP2, will also be released in 2006, according to earlier press releases. This implies to me one of either two things – IE7 will likely have extensive dependencies upon Avalon (and will consequently ship with a "pre-release" version of it, in turn making the IE7 release extraordinarily "bloated") or that all of this is simply FUD intended to keep Microsoft’s enterprise base from switching to Firefox/Thunderbird.
Something that I think most people forget is that Thunderbird is also making real waves, and by the time an IE7 ships (which has until recently included an Outlook Express release) it’s very likely that Thunderbird and the Mozilla Calendar application will likely be fully capable of integrating with MS Exchange Server.
Given the underlying strength of the Mozilla HTML editor component (something I’ve become intimately with), I also think that a professional level XHTML-based web development tool a la FrontPage is also very likely in the relative near term. Can Microsoft afford to take a hit on IE, Outlook AND FrontPage?
If IE7 does incorporate Avalon, then yeah, it better have ALL the bells and whistles that platform is capable of producing. If it doesn’t, then IE7 is a FUD stop-gap intended to fix the obvious security holes and nothing else, and will likely do NOTHING for either CSS compliance or PNG support.
I used Internet Explorer for application development, not web site deployment, for many years. Now I’m a hard-core Firefox user and am writing a book on programming for it, because I was so disappointed at how badly Microsoft has dropped the ball with that platform. Bully for you that you’re actually making the effort to fix something that’s obviously been broken for a long time, but I’m not holding my breath that it will be anything but a stop-gap.
Hello leading websites (except MSN, of course). Get a clue. NOW is the time to start encouraging your users to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Where are the ‘Get Firefox Now’ buttons on your homepages? Where’s the customized Firefox…
Oh good to hear it!
But how long do you have to hear people scream and scream and scream that they need and want an updated IE? You play it as if you guys are doing your customers a favor! Get real! You’re only doing it because FF is gaining popularity.
Stick to standards and don’t add any MS proprietary bs to it and I’m sure you’ll win back a lot of the fans you’ve lost.
About b!@@&¥ time! That’s how Netscape died, waiting for 2 years to come out with an already obsolete Navigator 6. Granted, IE isn’t as far behind Firfox as Navigator was behind IE 6, but you are starting a bit late.
And if history teaches anything, it won’t be enough just to fix security.
Wicked news!!!
Is yous givin da beta to us or do me has to be beta tester in da house?
IE is wicked. Respect to ya.
Me and ma julie is waiting for it! FF and OP is no alternatives 2 IE but lots of da homies outside ain’t believe that!
So, today Microsoft reversed their plan-of-record and announced that there will after all be another standalone version of Internet Explorer independent of Longhorn, the next slated version of Windows. You can read the details for yourself on the IE Blog….
I’d just be happy with a version of IE that I never had to patch ever again.
It would be really nice to see IE support CSS2, alpha PNG, etc.
If Microsoft wants to give IE users a full experience, they should really implement this. I currently develop sites for standards-compliant browsers: IE will be able to view the site but not with all fancy things like transparency.
If it will be fixed, I’d be really thankful to Microsoft and I’m sure many others will be too.
Hello there.
Thank you for the announcment. I am very please that Microsoft is willing to communicate to its potential customers about the development of IE7. As a web designer, I want to have some way of communicating with Microsoft about CSS rendering bugs.
As it stand right now, when desigining a pagem I design it on Firefox. I then verify it on Opera (it almost always looks fine there), and then proceed to find workarounds for IE’s bugs. Let me give you just one example.
This honors borders in Firefox 1.0 and Opera 7.5/8:
<table id=main><tr><td width=630>
Here I put a lot of content.
</td></tr></table>
Where the style for main is:
#main {
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000;
}
However, MSIE doesn’t honor that. What I had to do was this:
<table id=main><tr><td width=630>
<div id=msie-bug>
Here I put a lot of content.
</div>
</td></tr></table>
Where the style msie-bug is:
#msie-bug {
padding: 5px;
}
Another issue with MSIE is that I like to be able to
run multiple versions of MSIE on the same computer, so I can more easily do cross-brwoser testing. Right now, one computer is used for IE5 testing, and another is used for IE6 testing.
- Sam
Parece que o Billy decidiu que afinal sempre vai sair uma nova verso do IE7 antes do "to" esperado LongHorn. Pelo que pode "ouvir" por a, a Microsoft vai concentrar-se em melhorar as questes de segurana e vai possivelmente deixar…
Good articles about .NET 2.0 and VS.NET 2005 – ASP.NET Whidbey- Storing User Information with ASP.NET 2.0 Profiles- ASP.NET Whidbey-…
Yea, good luck with that. I’ll believe it when I see it.
sound good! It’s sure to succeed!!
good luck!
rock
CephaliPod: "Your iPod’s glaring whiteness is relaying signals back to the humans. Protect yourself from harmful rays in style with this hand-crafted hip cozy made of (possibly) organic felt. …and don’t forget to dress it up with a Welcome Squid Overlords shirt." Ur…. Okay, anything you say. How to Make a Cheap Portable Espresso Machine: "A caulk gun? Hey, if it’s good enough for Taco Bell guacamole and sour cream, it’s good enough for a fine and delicate espresso, right?"…
Full CSS support is way overdue, PNG support is needed. Everyone I know is becoming tired of not just IE but the whole operating system. Integrating the browser so tightly into the OS causes more problems than its worth. Internet aplications are the future, and its a shame you’ve lost out this time. I reckon soon apps will be OS independent.. no offense but your poor internet browser implementation may just lose you the #1 OS position.
Fixing bugs does not merit a new version number. A complete overhaul, rewrite from scratch, thats what IE needs, you cant just keep writing sloppy code and hoping the user will have enough clock-cycles to plow thru it….
I will be really surprise if any of the requested essential features or present bugs mentioned in all these comments actually gets added or fixed. IE is getting as old as the dinos in Jurassic Park. People are asking for big big changes but none of these will ever come out so in other words, we are beating a dead horse here.
Finally <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/feb05/02-15RSA05KeynotePR.asp">Microsofts Bill Gates</a> announced, what <a href="http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/">Dean Edwards</a> did a long time ago: IE7 (Deans site may be down at the moment
>A few things id like to see are the ability to turn tabbed browsing off
What do you mean? If you don’t choose to open links in a new tab, you might not notice that tabbed browsing is supported at all. Why would you want to turn it off?
I think there’s no possible way to have a standards compliant rendering engine in IE. If we would, the browser should identify itself as Firefox or Opera–anything but MSIE. Otherwise, most pages on the Internet won’t work with it. :)) (that’s the other edge of the blade).
On a different note, I consider Microsoft did a good thing by discontinuing IE/Mac. It was a buggy piece of crap (although it properly supported PNG!)–why bothering with it? I think Microsoft’s best option would be to drop development of IE/Win too–this way they won’t be criticised anymore for deploying the most buggy and unsecure "browser" in the world, nor will the be criticised for deploying a "browser" that makes it so damn hard to develop Websites, nor that IE, in 2005, still doesn’t have tabs (!), PNG or CSS "position: fixed" support. (And the list GOES ON.)
I wonder how can one say that "the IE team is working hard"–folks, have you done _anything_ in the last 5 years!?
Sometimes I can’t help thinking that it’s too hard for a company like Microsoft to get proper PNG support–I mean, dammit, it’s something like 5 years and hundreds of thousands of people who have cried for it, and Microsoft did nothing. Instead, IE5.5+ _can_ display PNG-s with proper aplha transparency, using an awkward "feature" (an IE filter) that doesn’t work on any other browser.
It’s clear to me that Microsoft can’t deploy a good Web browser; they might have business reasons, but they obviously don’t care about end users and/or developers–which is the reason so many turned against IE.
What Microsoft can do is promote a browser. Please, quit "working" on IE; we saw what that means and nobody really needs it. Instead of innovating, we spend countless hours working around IE bugs. Please promote Gecko instead, and the damage you’ve done to the IT industry will be almost forgiven.
Oh, assuming Microsoft doesn’t take my advice and still decides to keep working on the piece of crap version 7, one thing–security is less important… security should be there, period. End users shouldn’t even have to worry about it; meanwhile, if Microsoft manages to drive more and more developers unhappy, they might face the situation of having a Web that doesn’t work with Internet Explorer. Because we–DEVELOPERS–are who make the Web. You don’t do anything to make our lives less hard–why would we do anything to keep IE on top?
http://www.dropie.com/
The Closed Circle » Microsoft to Produce IE 7
Oooffhh !! was waiting for this to happen.Great news !!
2 things caused me to switch from IE to FF after 9 years, even though I think that FF is inferior: <br>
-tabbed browsing <br>
-RSS/Live Bookmarks <br>
if IE 7 had tabbed browsing, and RSS/Live Bookmarks, I would switch back in a second.
I will try it out on my work machine, to give it the benefit of the doubt at least. Unfortunatly for you, IE and Windows have lost the browser and OS war for me at home. Linux wasn’t "ready" for my desktop when I first tried it a few years back, but now that we have Novell, Mandrake, and RedHat making install it and forget it versions of Linux, it works like a charm.
I code for standards-compliant browsers. I will not waste my time with fixes for IE. I simply put a reference on the page where users can find out why the page looks funny and of course a link to mozilla.org.
I will give Microsoft a lot of credit for the things they do well. They seriously kick *ss in the gaming arena, but they really have slacked in both OS design and anything having to do with internet connectivity.
A Designer???s Mind » Make way for IE7, or not…
IE8?
Better security – good!
Listening to your users – great!
…but when will you start listening to web designers and support CSS, XHTML, XML, PNG and all that other stuff that didn’t exist in 1995 (which aproximately was the last time IEs rendering engine was updated)?
As a web designer I would like to know if you plan on updating IE to use standards like XHTML, HTML 4.0, CSS1/2, etc. properlly. It’s a real pain trying to code things for IE and still have them work everywhere. I think I speak for everyone when I request that IE be made standards-compliant.
Thank you.
Originally they weren’t going to update Internet Explorer until the next version of Windows came out (Longhorn… longtooth… long-in-coming), but Gates just announced that they will be coming out with v7 sometime this summer. Funny how all those people running to download Firefox made enough noise to cause M$ to reconsider….
Firefox is dead, long life IE. IE is dead, long life Firefox. BEOS rulez, OS/2 suckz.
GET ALIFE!
Just make IE standards compliant and more idiot-proof, get rid of this ActiveX-crap, add some nice features as tabbed browsing and a secure plugin-Interface, so you can say you’ve build a good piece of software. The Microsoft-fans will use a better browser (without knowing what a browser is probably) after all, having less problems, and be happy.
Microsoft is driven by what customers say they want today, not by what is right from a technical, engineering point of view; nor what would be really cool and useful tomorrow.
This is why Microsoft is so far behind.
It’s also the reason that caused many successful companies to go out of business.
However, I think it will be terribly easy for microsoft to catch up, and the strength of the windows platform is still enough to give them a buffer, so that they will be given the chance to catch up.
But that buffer is getting thinner and thinner… Soon, microsoft will lose everything, if it doesn’t become more visionary.
ASP.NET is a nemesis but IE doesn’t support CSS3, PNG and SVG, if you put that in IE7 it would be excellent, really it will be interesting.
i hope IE7 won’t be "Based on NCSA Mosaic". It’s time to move away, and it’s really not that hard for Microsoft to come up with a really good (i meant perfect) internet browser. Tabs, transparent PNGs, RSS reader+editor, Better Favorites viewer+editor, a better and more user-friendly download manager.
torresburriel.com » ?Ya viene Internet Explorer 7?
Microsoft announces Internet Explorer 7, in beta by summer. Why? According to the IE blog:Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner….
Microsoft has proven to me that their primary mandate is to take new emerging technology. and SMUSH it.
It’s not just about browsers. It’s about OS’s, Media players, Web based Email, Instant Messaging.
Microsoft over and over again has shown a total loathing for competition or innovation. Why? because that costs money.
Why are we so anxious for MS to catch up to the standards? Why don’t we use Alpha channels in our PNG’s, Why don’t we use css2, Why do we use ActiveX controls and complain about them? The reason – our employers insist that we cater to the majority of our clients who don’t realize what they are missing. Because we lack the courage to say – I’m sick of MS telling us what we can and can’t do. Because we all cater to the least common denominator. Developers are still hoping their websites look good in Netscape 4. It’s time to move on. It’s time to stop complaining and start innovating.
It’s not up to Microsoft to support standards, or anything else. It’s up to developers to develop new and exciting applications and show our visitors what can be done using the technology that is available to them. Firefox can do a lot of great things, and computer users will try it, if it gives them want they want. The reason Gamers all want PC’s is because it’s on the PC where all the innovation happens. Surfers will flock to the browser that supports the applications that they want. It’s time to start giving that to them.
As long as we stay in the dark ages, Microsoft will happily release expensive update after expensive update. Longhorn will offer us 1992 technology at 2006 prices. And we’ll all merrily complain away and ponder what could have been if any of us were innovative.
To all those who have adopted standards, created websites that embrace PNG with Alpha support, CSS2 and XHTML and said "I will not be a slave to Microsoft" I salute you!
For more: http://www.justken.net/microsoft.html
ken.
Systems Analyst.
http://www.justken.net
my suggestion to MS.
better stop trowing away money making software .. focus on XBOX there is you power.
hahahahhaahahahah
What about Server 2003? I’d like to have a more secure verison of IE to put on my terminal servers
I refuse to use FF for reasons I reserve from this discussion.
quote____
I haven’t gotten -1- piece of malware since I started using FireFox, any neither has anyone I know who I convinced to switch.
____/quote
I haven’t gotten -1- piece of malware since I started using IE, any neither has anyone I know who has brains.
Firefox – For a world beyond the Gates.
As well as all the important security and other architectural stuff (CSS, etc) mentioned quite a few stimes above already, I add my voice to those who want tabbed browsing becuase it’s such a major productivity improver.
But I want to emphasize that it should be more than vanilla, mundane tabbing. The features in the Tabbwowser Extensions of Firefox are an excellent guide: many advanced features and options (such as opening a link in a new window in the background, and in either another tab or another window, to name one). Avant Browser by Anderson Che is another fairly good implementation (see http://www.avantbrowser.com/ ) — and it has other goodies too, like pop-up blockers, groups, and more.
I hope IE 7 will have a better support for "all" Devanaagarii fonts (from India) whether or not they be Unicode. From IE4 through IE6, the fonts were displayed quite horribly. Improper separations of the characters, corruption all the time. Do you want a sample. Go to this site where the poor guy has to recommend Mozilla browsers to their visitors to workaround the fault of Microsoft:
http://www.sanskrit-sanscrito.com.ar
“Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”
Then reading the actual blog entry and press release it seems that MS is not listening. The comments here mention CSS and PNG support yet there is no mention in any of the "official" statements that these will ever be improved.
from the weblog comments you can deduce that the majority of slashdot readers have a mental age of 12, and enjoy anonymous e-arguments with their imaginary rivals at Microsoft, who, unlike Firefox, have to pay people to work.
the tabbed browsing hype is wearing pretty thin… it’d be nice if people could concentrate on things that matter like improved rendering, CSS2+3, DOM2, XMLHTTPRequest (the W3C way), etc. IE needs standards compliance, not UI fluff that can be provided by third parties anyway.
OSX … OSX … OSX . . . wherefore art thou?
This press release must be a joke becuase about the same time that you are giving out IE7, Firefox is releasing a new browser too and won’t be a BETA so in other world you are pretty pretty screwed guys! The history repeats itself: exactly the same happened to navigator 6 so I, for one, say goodbye to IE and wish him good luck in after world.
Scoble mirrors a statement on the IE blog: Today at RSA, Bill Gates talked about Internet Explorer 7. As the guy responsible for IE, I wanted to say a couple of things about it.First, some basics: we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers….
IE7 could be interesting. This announcement is clearly a spoiler for the competition given that we’re likely to wait 6-12 months for release. No reason to get excited though, that’s normal corporate hype and BS.
…and when it finally does come out?
Well, I can’t fully switch back to IE, I use a Linux desktop much of the time (I’m making the none-too-risky assumption that a Linux version isn’t in the pipeline).
As for work, I have Firefox on all the servers because I associate clicking the blue IE icon with danger (and Windows Update). Especially as these are Windows 2000 servers so IE is effectively "abandonware".
On the Windows XP sp2 desktop IE could be a consideration… but… I really, truly, can’t bear to surf the web without AdBlock installed. As this is a Firefox extension, again I see a barrier to switching back.
I wonder how many people have got used to some Firefox extension now, not necessarily FF itself, and therefore will be slow to switch back.
Finally, like many people, I have my doubts about IE 7 and standards compliance. If MS screw this up they may find IE 7 adoption to be painfully slow (it’ll be bad enough if it’s Win XP only). It’s one thing to make an IE6-only site with a 90% userbase, but if IE 7 is still non-standard and (initially) only has 10% users, it’s not so compelling.
Thanks to Firefox for forcing MS to do the right thing, but I still remain hopeful that IE will sink to below 80% market share because competition benefits all.
ok you IE’s guys will do something, beacuse other browsers are gaining your market share, a suggestion only make the browser MORE FRIENDLY to the DEVELOPERS , beacuase your rendering core really sucks, do whatever it wants and doesn’t follow the standarts well.
OSX..OSX… I think this move is primarily designed to get MS’s userbase back. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I think they’re going to try and get it out as quick as possible and unfortunately OSX (and maybe 2000/2003) support just can’t be included in that. I’m sure support for it will follow ASAP.
This page was posted at Slashdot, so the irrational M$-sux people there have invaded this web board. It will take a while for the signal to noise ratio to come back to normal.
Personally, I use Linux + Firefox to browse the web; I also understand that over 80% of the people going to my web sites will be using IE (usually IE6.0). My desire, as a web master, is to see IE do CSS right so I don’t have to do as much coding around IE bugs.
- Sam
ついに！！！ 米Microsoftのビル・ゲイツ会長兼チーフソフトウェアアーキテクトが15日、サンフランシスコで開催中の「RSA Conference」の基調講演の中で、Internet Explorer（IE）7.0の公開予定やスパイウェア対策ソフトなど同社のセキュリティに対する取り組みについて発表した。 ▼ Microsoftが方針変更、Longhornを待たずにIEの新バージョン 米Microsoftのビル・ゲイツ会長兼チーフソフトウェアアーキテクトゲイツ会長は講演の中で、IE 7.0のベータ版を夏頃にリリースする計画を明らかにした。IE 6.0の新バージョンはこれまで、次期WindowsであるLonghornに搭載される予定とされていただけに、今回の発表は同社に方針の変更があったことを示している。 IE 7.0では、ユーザーが期待する拡張性と互換性を維持しながら次のレベルのセキュリティを提供するものだとしている。フィッシング詐欺や悪意のあるコード、スパイウェアに対してより強力な防御策を提供するものとなる。 この点についてはMicrosoftが開設しているIEの公式ブログにおいてIE開発担当者も触れており、IE 7.0のベータ版がWindows XP SP2に対してのみ提供されることを明らかにした。 Windows 2000についてはユーザーからの要望を聞いている段階だという。最終的な出荷時期については、予定日が決まっていることを認めながらも公表することを避けている。 ベータ版を公開した後にユーザーからのフィードバックをもとに何度かのベータ版提供を経て、正式版を公開する予定だとしている。 ▼ 「Windows AntiSpyware」のパーソナルバージョンを無償提供 ゲイツ会長は、1月6日にベータ版が公開された「Windows AntiSpyware」の今後の計画にも触れた。Windowsの正規ユーザーに対して、Windows AntiSpywareのパーソナルバージョンを無償で提供する計画だという。スパイウェアを探知・除去する機能に加えて、スパイウェアを侵入させようとする50種類以上の方法からユーザーを守り、SpynetコミュニティとMicrosoftの研究者による最新情報を継続して提供することになるという。 企業の顧客に対してはより複雑なインフラストラクチャーのサポートや管理などが生じるため、有料のソリューションとしてスパイウェア対策ソリューションを提供する計画だ。 さらにゲイツ会長は、2003年に買収したルーマニアのセキュリティベンダーGeCADの技術に基づ…
If you guys decide to include tabbed browsing, please make sure it can be turned off. I am happy with my existing tabbed OS.
hi
OSX … OSX … OSX . . . wherefore art thou?
Keep looking theres about 3% of the population using it, so you may find one if your lucky.
Please! please! please! support as much of w3c standards as you can!
XHTML 2, XFORMS, MathML, DOM, CSS2, CSS3 etc.
Assuming you do this – Well Done!!
Given the recent Bill Gates comments about interoperability I hope you will use IE7 as the opportunity to make a fantastic step forward.
Other features: Pluggin/Extenmsion support improvements.
BTW: Tabbed browsing would be cool as well
Kym
Hey Micro$oft… why bother? It’s a matter of months ’till the scale turns favor to Mozilla. Haven’t you heard? Mozilla Firefox is one of the best browsers available… and because of the Community that it’s backing them up, the only way is up, as for you, won’t stand a chance when Google releases their Internet Browser based on Mozilla.
Think about it!? Save your BILLION DOLLARS for fishing or hicking… maybe it won’t sound so bad in a couple of years.
<quote>My experience with IE 6…has serviced me very well, and there has never been any chance of me switching to a second-rate browser with a tortoiselike development process.</qoute>
IE IS the second rate browser that hasn’t seen a significant update (besides hundreds of security bug fixes) in over five years.
<quote> IE has delivered more new Web technologies with each successive release than Firefox could even dream of doing.</quote>
But still doesn’t even comply with the W3C standards from 1998?
<quote>Firefox kludges along, always playing catchup (except with a few highly visible things like tabbed browsing that most users simply do not give two s***s about), with its advocates wallowing in a false sense of security brought on by obscurity (and NOTHING MORE).</quote>
Most users don’t care about .net web apps, but find tabbed browsing and live bookmarks pretty darn usefull. And the security comes from the code being reviewed by thousands of developers and from not being over-integrated with the OS.
Kind of slipped in along with the whole announcement about Windows Vista and the beta release, was news of Internet Explorer 7 and its own beta release. Now, IE6 was the most advanced browser available when it came out in…
Will it work on linux and beos?
> Sometimes I can’t help thinking that it’s too hard for a company like Microsoft to get proper PNG support–I mean, dammit, it’s something like 5 years
5 years? The PNG 1.0 specification was published in 1996. That’s almost NINE YEARS we’ve had to wait for Microsoft to implement it properly.
My guess is, with typical Microsoft release date slippage, the ten year anniversary of PNG 1.0 will come and go before we have a version of Internet Explorer that can handle it. It will certainly be a decade before web developers can use it.
I think that Microsoft should just pay Firefox to add the ability todo updates. Why continue to support IE, when there is already a product out there that does it so much better?
Microsoft should spend more time bringing us into the 22nd century rather then tidying up a dying browser.
Just hand it off MS… Be done with it.. Work on something new..
Tabbed browsing blah blah blah. The fact is firefox is newer than IE, so it has more features. Once IE 7 comes out it will have more features than firefox, until firefox releases a new version and so on.
The bottom line is that IE is only more vunerable because of its popularity. be sure if Fierfox had 90% usage, hackers would find just as many holes if not more than as IE.
Features aside, most developers will alays insure IE works with their apps but with firefox is not nearly as much the case
can’t beleive i’m reading this…
as an expert in IT, i am always called (both inside and outside of work) regarding problems with their computers.
99% its because of spyware, and out of this 99%, they all use Internet Explorer.
i changed to firefox last year sometime, and don’t get me wrong, i’ve had a few bits of spyware, but nowhere near as much as I did with IE.
I always have Spybot S+D and AVG AntiVirus running and clean/update more than twice a week.
Once, I installed XP, did a WIndows Update, downloaded WinRAR and that was it… I had popups already… within 25 minutes of a clean installation… pathetic
Today, in his keynote for the 2005 RSA conference, Bill Gates announced, among other things, that Microsoft would be releasing a new version of Internet Explorer (IE7) for the XP SP2 platform.
TABBED BROWSING – Please!
Snuffkin wrote:
> I haven’t gotten -1- piece of malware since I started using IE, any neither has anyone I know who has brains.
The problem is that MS says that evryone can/should use a computer. I agree with that. Having this in mind u can’t give an unsecure browser that gets hijacked at the first pr0nsite to a highly non-technical, unexperienced user.
Could I use IE7 Beta works on(Support) Winodws 98 SE or Windows ME?
why can i not uninstall internet explorer? i will file complaints with as many regulatory institutions as i can, and encourage all the people i know to do the same.
Considering MS had 3 years to fix simple things like PNG support and CSS support, I say forget about IE7. It’s Firefox all the way, and W3C web standards > MS proprietary standards.
Firefox > IE any day/month/year/decade/millennium
Yeah, I heard the news that Microsoft is going to move forward with Internet Explorer 7. My initial reaction? Wow, that’s pretty cool, maybe we can move this whole Web thing a bit farther forward! But then, on a long…
Thank you I am learning of new things all day! And it is good to know of my RSS already work. I think I need add button of RSS to make this thing clear.
But more work to do!
Wow, I congratulate you on the attention you have paid to the competition. I, despite many disappointments in the past, believe that you may be finally solving the gaping holes and flaws present in IE6. I am a browser-neutral user; if i’m just looking up info on the net, i use Firefox. If I need to login to hotmail or veiw pages with non-mainstream plugins, I use IE.
I would very much like to have one browser that took care of the basic neccesaties of browsing the web (security, stability, standardized) and also added the benenfits of compatability and wide-spread user-base.
So, IE7 will hopefully deliver on the promise of a secure, stable, standardized, cross-platorm (excluding my favourite GNUish ones) and, hopefully, ubiquitous browser.
But, will it have tabular browsing and a download manager?
<p>Neowin report that the next version of the <a href="http://toolbar.msn.com/" class="bb-url" target="_blank">MSN Toolbar</a> will <a href="http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=28026&#038;category=main" class="bb-url" target="_blank">feature an implemen
Today, in his keynote for the 2005 RSA conference, Bill Gates announced, among other things, that Microsoft would be releasing a new version of Internet Explorer (IE7) for the XP SP2 platform.
Glad to hear MS finally "heard" their custommers and has a "commitment" to improve their ~3yo browser.
However if that IE7 does not support properly XHTML, CSS, PNG and SVG, I’ll use it just like IE5.01, IE5.5 and IE6.0 … that is to hack my standard compliant work to "gracefully" degrade it for the people stuck with crappy browsers.
Bonjour à tous,
IE7 existe déjà : http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/
Il a été développé par un seul développeur passioné et résoud la majorité des manquement d’IE6
Comment MS compte justifier le fait qu’une société de centaines de millions de $ de benefice, ne peut pas affecter une équipe de 10 personnes pour résoudre le probléme ?
Hont à vous. Personellement, j’utilise Firefox, et tant que IE ne supportera pas XHTML1.0, CSS2.1, DOM2 et une version descente d’ECMAScript je ne vois aucune raison de revernir aux solutions MS.
Messieurs de MS, à vous de jouer et de nous prouver que vous savez être réactifs.
À tous, en attendant que MS résolve ses délires existencialistes, passez à Firefox !
Beta versions of both Windows Vista (formerly codenamed &ldquo;Longhorn&rdquo;) and IE7 for Windows XP…
That is some really great news, thanks for the info!
Oh, great. More platform headaches for web developers. Now we’ll have to test on IE6/XP and IE7/XP2 in addtion to IE5.0 and IE5.1. Someone tell me why I don’t for a moment believe IE’s CSS/XHTML/DOM woes will be fixed? Why, because M$ profit from the chaos they’ve caused. It benefits M$ every time an "IE-only" site dies in Firefox. In a way I’ll be happy if IE7 doesn’t fix the CSS/XHTML issues because at least users will know where they stand and choose Firefox. Any pretence by M$ at implementing CSS is bound to half-assed so I say better nothing at all.
看英文是寫今年夏天,只是不知道Win98能不能用?
有誰能tell me?
One other feature that IE lacks, and is the biggest reason I test my WebApps with FireFox, is a total lack of "developer mode" (well IE does have the "Disable Debugging (IE)" checkbox in Advanced Settings to allow for proper JS debugging.
But I would like to be able to enable a developer mode so that IE would tell me there are HTML errors (ex: missing </td>,</table>,</div>,etc) along with complaining about things like calling a JS or CSS file with a bad path or filename
(ex: <script language="JavaScript" src="/libraries/javascript.js"></script> )
A serious of popup windows would not be satisfactory as they would be a flood but perhaps a seperate window or a side bar (like where the IE history is in) would contain all issues.
I can say without a doubt, until MS takes WebApp debugging more serious, I will forever have to install FireFox because while it doesn’t fully satisfy my issues, it brings me 1 step closer.
Hmm… Why can’t I help thinking, we’re all going to be so disappointed?
PLEASE tell me that this browser will adhere to web standards! If Microsoft doesn’t realize what they said they would adhere to… let me refresh their memory… http://www.webstandards.org/learn/standards/.
I am a web developer and I’m mighty sick of always having to hack up my code just to make sure IE can read the document properly.
I use to be a Windows / IE fanatic until I started developing standards based sites. Then the fun began.
MICROSOFT, please do everyone a favor and fix your browser. ALSO, take time developing Longhorn so when you release it, you don’t have to send out so many fixes and security releases for it.
AS THE LEADER IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, you also have responsibilities that come with that leadership. Don’t squander it because your the leader. Remember Netscape? They were the leader of the Browser wars back in the day until their head got to large for them and they decided to build a screwed up Netscape 4. Now where are they… AOL buys them out and screws them up even more… now they are posing as an internet service.
ALSO, as the leader, you need to learn from your competition (Apple, Firefox, Linux), and make sure you take care of your customer base and do what’s best for them and what’s best for the market… not flex your muscles because you can.
I’m done… from an ex-Windows user/evangelist.
I don’t want to see the lame quotes such as… "Tabbed browsing blah blah blah" or "hopefully this will shut the forefox users up once and for all." If these people are going to say something, say something productive… not lame!
Beta versions of both Windows Vista (formerly codenamed &ldquo;Longhorn&rdquo;) and IE7 for Windows XP…
Excellent news, most excellent. As a developer, some improvement in both the standards adhered to and the usability would be nice, but most important is improving security. Got to get rid of that phishing, and have to shut down ActiveX’s misuse as an enabling mechanism for Spyware.
I use both Firefox and IE, and I think the increased development activity in both camps will only improve the web experience for everyone.
So Microsoft has finally realised something – that their web browser…sucks. What other reason could be behind the decision to speed up the development of the next generation of Internet Explorer. As Dean says on the IEBlog: Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a…
<< The bottom line is that IE is only more vunerable because of its popularity. be sure if Fierfox had 90% usage, hackers would find just as many holes if not more than as IE. >>
But with the amount of developers the Firefox project has, they would find any way to patch those holes.
Don’t bother, just give up and go home. Microsoft is on the way out and Gates is getting desperate, even threatening Danish politicians now if they don’t back his Euro policies – disgusting. Good riddance to your lame software.
IE already had support for PNG :
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;294714
I’m just wondering why the support isn’t enabled by default whenever it encounters a PNG file… ?
 …grayblog… – separating the wanted from the unwanted » Browser wars – new skirmish
<QUOTE>I download firefox, but I don’t use it, I think I browsed the net with it a few times, but I started getting this error so I went back IE.</QUOTE>
Yep! All those IE6 only sites built by ‘amateurs’ will give you ‘errors’. I banned IE from our LAN after toooooooooo many highjacks and Trojans == to many alnighters rebuilding systems. I’m just lucky we never lost anything important. Now I’m moving us to OpenSource on EVERYTHING. PostgreSQL != SQLServer, FreeBSD != W2K Server; and pretty soon it will be Linux on the workstations as well.
I strongly reccomend you ignore the negative comments above. I hate Firefox, and I’m not the only one. You make it, and we will listen.
One thing the success of Firefox has done is woken up Microsoft, originally they had planned no updates to IE until the release of their next generation operating system codenamed Longhorn. However, the amazing success of Firefox has meant that Microsoft
Hi Dean!
Wish you good luck and don’t be sad about those aggresive and unpolite comments. People are aggresive, they must find something to be angry on and it’s easy to attack on Microsoft, even when Microsoft hires the best developers from all companies and universities worldwide.
Ok, so good luck again and we are looking forward to IE7.
<QUOTE> Yes, FireFox has had 25 million downloads, but how many people are actually using it?</QUOTE>
Well I’m one of those 25 million, and I’ve installed the 1 copy on 30 PCs. How many of the others are company IT staff doing the same? Most home users don’t even know they have an option when it comes to browsers, they just use what was installed when they bought the system.
Beta versions of both Windows Vista (formerly codenamed &ldquo;Longhorn&rdquo;) and IE7 for Windows XP…
Excellent news. As someone who develops apps that embed the web browser and MSHTML, I can’t wait to find out what additional features are going to be added.
Interesting timing too, because just last week I had a dream where I got a preview CD of IE7.
Good news, any chance of a list of intended features?
All that I hope is this time you take a look of thist site —-> http://www.w3.org/
I’d >>like<< to be able to update to SP2 (IE7 is the example of what was bound to happen eventually. But what about the set of users like myself who have had immense trouble getting the SP2 upgrade to work? I’ve tried everything recommended but it’s a no-go.
great news, but my webserver blocks msie agents
"Yes, using MS software does require that you use other add-on tools and do your Windows updates, but so what? That’s just part of this business and goes with the territory."
But it doesn’t _have_ to go with the territory, you’ve just accepted that it’s a necessary evil.
"I build PCs and maintain Windows systems for a living (WS2K3/XP/SBS/Win2K)."
And here’s why you’ve accepted that necessary evil. All the issues that pop up with Windows and IE keep you employed. If there wasn’t the need to use a myriad of add-on tools, software and hardware firewalls, update regularly, and consistently scan for viruses, adware, spyware etc, you wouldn’t have a job.
"BTW, little idiot "security features" like going through 6 confirm dialogs or something can’t really make up for bad security policies like letting activeX scripts running in kernel space. "
I’d like to be first on the record to call that a big idiot comment
IE used to be good, but man it really sucks now compared to Firefox. Everyone I know has already switched and they’re not looking back.
Beta versions of both Windows Vista (formerly codenamed &ldquo;Longhorn&rdquo;) and IE7 for Windows XP…
Well, this announcement would be good news. Only a few problems:
1) Our shop still uses Win2k, not XP, so a browser version which is not backward-compatible with previous OS versions is going to go over about as well as a lead balloon around here.
2) Even if the new browser is good enough to make us upgrade our operating system (unlikely, but I will grant the possibility) our clients will NOT follow suit. They are understandably reticent about requiring their users to spend more money than necessary to use their product, and requiring them all to upgrade to XP is going to be a significant expense.
3) This strikes me as the same mentality of Best Buy and other retailers who offer to "match any lower price." This has always annoyed me. Why should I let you MATCH the lowest price? Why not reward the retailer who came out with the lowest price ORIGINALLY? By the same token, I see no reason to switch back to IE, just because they have finally caught up with Firefox!
So what is happening is like you’ll put a ad-blocker, tabbed browsing and some new check boxes in tools->options in yet another atempt to confuse already dead-confuse users then you call it IE7? Do I see any W3C standard you finally want to support? Do I see ActiveX out of IE? No! All I see is just marketing buz, and you propably get surprised when you see no one is believing your lies anymore. You have to write IE again, this time from scratch , with a bit of security in mind or expect the annihilation of your lovely IE in the True World of Open Source.
Firefox Diehard said: "Wow, my comments have been deleted from this blog!"
I’m glad I’m not the only one "seeing" missing entries!!
…how many, I wonder?
It makes me realise that IE7 is not going to be written ground up and also its not stripped out of the underlying windows security mechanism(*fiasco*). I would wait to see what it can offer, I keep my expectations really low though.
Ohhh yes! I really like Internet Explorer, and I can´t wait the new release…
As there’s been plenty of point outs before…
Make it work for Windows 2000. Dont give us the lame excuses that it cant, or that XPSP2 has ‘special features’ that make it work. Thats just a load of BS and you know it.
C’mon, get with it….. There are probably millions of Windows 2000 users out there, and they deserve better than the shabby treatment you’re proposing.
Windows XP indeed….. Heh. How much bloat could you ask for
Wow, my comments have been deleted from this blog! What’s a matter Dean? As a phrase from Jack Nicholson <quote>You can’t handle the truth!</quote> Would love to see my original comments reposted to the blog please!
committie and Microsoft ? Are you kidding me? when was the last time IE 6 got a major update? only until SP2 come out that MS added popup blocker. Only when FireFox start kicking IE butt, that make Microsoft nervous that you guy want to commiting to release update for IE.
IMO, Microsoft only committing to something when opensource/alternative start kicking MS butt.
It would be great if IE7 will fully support at least 1998’s W3C specifications. Let’s hope so.
I’d like to point out at the outset that I’m not bashing IE. Yes, I’m disgusted that MS basically let it wither away, and I’ve felt ActiveX was dubious from the outset. But I was also one of the first to download IE6 and the previous versions when they first came out. What I’m trying to do correct some faulty thinking amongst some.
@Snuffkin:
"Unless I’m mistaken XUL isn’t a W3C standard."
Yes, it’s an interface language that’s used internally on the various bits of software built as part of the Mozilla project. It is *not* for use in websites. In fact, it doesn’t even impact on people developing websites even slightly. All it does is make interface development easier for the Moz developers.
Its one thing in arguing in favour of IE. But your arguments need to be real ones rather than just picking things and saying "ha! so there!" It sounds childish.
BTW, XUL is just like XAML, except it existed before XAML was a twinkle in its originator’s eye.
"I guess you’re right, Robert, but when CSS3 goes final the properties won’t be named -moz-*, so I think it’s ‘support’ of CSS3 is questionable."
The -moz-* bit means that its experimental and isn’t to be depended upon. That’s because CSS3 is still a draft rather than a recommendation. When it becomes a recommendation, it’s trivial to removed the prefixes. So it’s not questionable: it’s there, they’ve just have it properly marked as part of the draft.
"The only reason I hate Firefox is because all the FF users seriously headbang me to use it. It’s really annoying the hundreds of people trying to get me to switch, when I made a decision and I think they should respect it. Other than that, I think, well, Firefox is decent, and I respect people’s decisions to use it."
That’s better. But you’re your own person. I use Firefox and I’m enthusiastic about it, but I’d never headbang somebody about it.
Still, what they’re doing is grassroots marketing. It’s what Coke and Pepsi do, except at another level. However, bashing Firefox because of that rather than on its merits as a browser isn’t right.
@N.N. Thayer:
"Will, I was referring to the development process for Firefox itself, not for websites."
Glacial though Mozilla’s initial development was, that’s never been so with Firefox. If anything they’ve made blazing progress.
"In my opinion, IE has delivered more new Web technologies with each successive release than Firefox could even dream of doing."
This is a baseless argument. You need examples. You also need to take into account that in the last five years, they (the Mozilla project) have managed to build what took MS ten years to from scratch.
And they’ve produced a lot of useful technologies that can be applied outside of their original sphere while they were at it.
Featurewise, the only thing that gecko-based browsers lack, if that’s the word, is support for ActiveX, and that’s no bad thing quite frankly. And in a lot of areas it outstrips IE.
"And by ‘technologies,’ I do not refer to such trivial things as tabbed browsing or transparent-PNG-blah-blah. I am referring to under-the-hood capabilities that facilitate websites of amazing sophistication, …"
Like decent CSS support? Like near-perfect DOM compliance? These are things that Firefox has and IE doesn’t because they’ve been working on them while IE has been left, unfortunately, to fester.
"such as what you will find in companies that use .NET-based Web applications."
Now stop there. You’re spouting rubbish there. .NET is server-based. It doesn’t matter what browser you’re using. This is not an argument against anything.
Now, if you’re thinking of the likes of ActiveX controls, stop there. Whether ActiveX support is a feature or a misfeature is quite debatable.
"IE and .NET are so far ahead of Firefox and the OSS community, so off in an advanced league of their own, showing what they can really do, that they have made me an adherent."
I repeat: .NET has nothing to do with Firefox. Firefox, as it stands, is a more powerful browser than IE6. Maybe IE7 will change this, maybe it won’t. We’ll see.
However, how you can say that they’re in "an advanced league of their own" is quite beyond me.
"Firefox kludges along, always playing catchup (except with a few highly visible things like tabbed browsing that most users simply do not give two s***s about),"
For now, it’s caught up and is currently outpacing IE, which isn’t surprising seeing as IE’s been moribund for so long.
"with its advocates wallowing in a false sense of security brought on by obscurity (and NOTHING MORE)."
The sense of security isn’t false. It comes from the fact that everything in the browser is properly sandboxed. This is not so with IE, which depends on trust.
"I have no respect for Firefox or its sorry excuse for a development ‘process.’"
Less bile and more reason, please.
@kisps:
"Why don’t you show your appreciation for Firefox in a different place, and let the contructive comments from the IE users and developers flow here."
You’re indeed correct. The IE users ought not be flaming other browsers too.
@anonymous coward:
"I think Microsoft’s best option would be to drop development of IE/Win too"
Not an option: the GUI depends on it too much.
So, Microsoft apparantly – almost by themselves – figured out that waiting for Longhorn won’t cut it; IE7 is coming…. And while important, that part mostly has to do with not having done a decent job in the first place, not committing to delivering a product that support web standards properly.
And yes, you can run IE6 on Linux with a little help from the good folks at Codeweavers, who make Crossover Office. You can also get your local machine shop to make you some adapter plates and run wooden spoke wagon wheels on your Mercedes. And to answer another question, IE fans dislike Firefox because the become confused and frustrated by all the extra features and customisation possibilities. And while I’m ranting, Microsoft sure owns a lot of patents for a outfit that started out as a cheap imitation of Apple and went downhill from there.
Finally IE7.
Especially the full PNG support, finally!!!
But aren’t you taking risks downgrading IE7 from Longhorn to XP SP2? Both systems are different I guess…
There is more to FireFox then a cool look and nifty features.
Stop war make love.
As a web developer all i wish is a browser which simply is not designed to kill another.
hi yes me two glad ie7 is coming i hope that ie7 shuts of close ad pop up in there pop up blocker to abilities to take off ads on websites so the page is freash clean with out ads that would be nice and to like yahoo toolbar they have anti spy cleanner that scan your system for ads and deletes them off your computer hope it is possible that ie7 has it in there broswer built in button on the toolbar that customers can scan clean there system from ie pop ups
Ludovic, that KB talks about a workaround to get alpha blending (partial transparency) to work and is very IE specific.
People are asking for IE to natively support alpha blend transparent PNGs, not that kind of workaround.
Microsoft representatives have gone on the record to state that the next version of Internet Explorer after the update in SP2 would include IDN support.
Is this still the case?
I never used microsoft products for
serious applications, but anyway –
the main job of a browser is to show
webpages correctly (xhtml, css, png,
svg, mathml etc)
- according to this, the
change from msie5 to msie6 was
only mainly cosmetic – so what can
we expect from msie7? even more
work to make websites accessible
for the users of this browser? –
hopefully not – but ms will know is
better.
msie is a browser of the last millennium –
let it die in peace like netscape4!
ms should take the source code from
mozilla and give it an own face like
netscape7, firefox, ephipany, galeon
and so on.
This sounds very much like a ‘hang-in-there’ message to all the corporations out there thinking about switching to Firefox… After all the betas and delays, I would expect a final IE7 to be out no earlier than spring 2006.
Reading the description of what is to come, IE7 sounds like little more than a glorified XP SP3…
Also, I believe maintaining compatibility = not touching the rendering engine. So, don’t hold your breath for real CSS or PNG support…
Hey, maybe you guys can get a new version of the Yugo out, too!
"Make it work for Windows 2000. Dont give us the lame excuses that it cant, or that XPSP2 has ‘special features’ that make it work. Thats just a load of BS and you know it. "
Of course, Mighty One. MS took two years to release XPSP2 compared to 6 SPs during 4 years for NT4 and an SP for Win2K roughly every year.
Obviously they took the extra time to play marbles on the Microsoft Playfield rather than to add ‘special features’.
Hi Friends, I got so excited about the new Google Toolbar for IE on Windows, that I for got to add the real exciting news for the Windows community… Internet Explorer 7 is coming out in beta this summer. Bill…
Scoble and Dean reports: "…we’re committing to deliver a new version of Internet Explorer for Windows XP customers. Betas of IE7 will be available this summer. This new release will build on the work we did in Windows XP SP2…
Put in full and automatic PNG transparency support! I’m sure others have said this, but I want to emphasize it again:
*Put in and automatic PNG transparency support!!!!*
Full XHTML and CSS support, obviously, are important too. Otherwise? I will stick to using Firefox.
just out of curiosity, what is the browser ration of visitors to this dedicated IE blog?
"committed" *cough* Let’s see if you guys can get it right the first time!!
@GodaiNoBaka
"By the same token, I see no reason to switch back to IE, just because they have finally caught up with Firefox!"
"Caught up" is maybe a little strong for what they have done so far …
And how about actually releasing IE7 for W2K users instead of keeping it for WXP and above?
Don’t tell me it’s not doable, everyone managed to do it but Microsoft until now
Avalanches So. Bill Gates has announced that Internet Explorer 7 is coming, according to the IEBlog announcement as an update…
A really great feature Microsoft might consider for future operating systems would be the ability to UN-install the browser, since it will probably be another piece of crap. If they want me to switch from Firefox back to IE, they would first have to get me to switch from Linux back to Windows. I don’t see it happenin’.
please please please let is support web standards and a proper DOM.
First of all, thank you for IE7, it’s about time !
And I’d like to ask you guys NOT to support JPEG2000, that bloated, unnecessarily complicated, not-better-than-JPEG-for-most-uses, bureaucratic committee standard.
I’d be enthused if I felt that MS would be supporting Web standards with this version. Sadly I’m guessing it’ll be a slightly patched version of 6.0… more of a 6.1 if normal software numbering systems were being used.
I’ve seen all kinds of figures thrown around as to how many Firefox users, Safari users, Opera users, etc. there are out there. I can say from studying the various logs for the past month on all the systems that I work with that:
1 out of every ten visitors is using Firefox. They are mostly using MS-Windows (a big mix of versions) but are also using Macs and (rarely) Solaris or HP-UX.
1 out of every twenty visitors is using Safari.
1 out of every twenty visitors is using Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror, Lynx, Camino, or you-name-it. They are using a pretty steady mix of MS-Windows (all different versions), Mac OS (both classic and X), UNIX-like things (Linux, the BSDs, you-name-it), hand-held machines, PDAs, even Amigas.
The remaining 8 out of 10 are using some type of MSIE (or are using Opera, Safari, Firefox, whatever disguised as MSIE apparently to get around buggy old sites that do browser detection and content control).
Some are saying it’s already a two-browser world. The numbers are showing that it’s already a three-browser world (at least). What business in its right mind is going to want to turn away one out of every twenty (let alone one out of ten) customers?
I really hope IE7 does address standards issues. Most people learning design now are learning based upon standards, and more and more people are starting to use tricks like the IE7 Javascript suite to make MSIE behave… I think it’s going to take a lot more than security patches and a new version number to convince people who have already switched to switch back (especially those not using Win XP as it looks like other systems won’t have an available update).
Just waiting for it……
IE is cool!
But would be nice if more of Standards were incorporated!
Microsoft must look at incorporating more of Standards OR atleast release their own standards in a well documented form.
_________________________
Jason S
Bridgeline Software.
Bangalore.
India.
Mob: +91 94486 71082
jasonblr@hotmailNOSPAM.com (remove NOSPAM to e-mail me)
I blog at http://spaces.msn.com/members/sjason
________________________________________
I think it’s fantastic the the most insecure, noncompliant browser since at least 1995 is getting an update. Any idea on who cares?
Thanks !
Please add full web standards compliances, webmasters really feel handicaped by IE6. You are responsible for the future of the WWW, and you know you prevent creation and great designs with IE6.
> Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: “Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment.”
Really?? Or was it another voice you heard, maybe from Bill gates and others, implying that you need to wake up and deal with threat of Firefox etc. These problems have been there for ages. Why dealing with it now only?
Are you aware that with your LIMITED standards support you are costing businesses more time and money in writing more HTML/CSS etc than they would normally need? Have you listened to those complaints?
VERY glad to hear we’re looking at a new IE!
Got a question, though:
It’s clear you have been listening to those parties (customers, analysts, and partners) who directly or indirectly most affect your *monetary* bottom line, and that’s understandable for any business.
However, for content creators, web developers, and related "creative" types trying to make things work across platforms, are there as yet any plans in place/in progress to more fully support not only MS-specific technologies, but open standards such as:
- CSS
- XHTML
- PNG
- SVG
- MathML
- etc.
??
It’s truly great that MS has "heard" and is "committed"–I do hope that enhancing the support of such open standards (developed by W3C-type bodies of which MS is a part) is part of that "listening" and "commitment". The folks at Mozilla.org and Opera, to name just two, have been able to do this to a much greater extent to date, but I *have* to believe it’s possible for MS to do this (even in addition to more proprietary solutions contained within the same browser).
Please comment on this for the benefit of all concerned. Thanks.
Veerle’s blog
Please decouple the browser from the task bar and run it in a sandbox; no access to any user or system files (just the sandbox files) and give it a button to restore the sandbox to initial state. Yes, it makes downloading and installing things difficult; provide a wizard to move things from the sandbox to the rest of the system thus making the barrier to getting cide very high.
As I was reading this page: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/ , I
noticed this paragraph:
"Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business
partners. We heard a clear message: ‘Yes, XP SP2 makes the
situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on
top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we
want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment.’"
Obviously that "blanket statement" does not take into effect
the harassing issues of Authenticode! I KNOW I’m not alone
when I say I am FED UP with not being able to open JACK on any
of my SP2 computers thanks to getting prompted into oblivion!
"Are you sure you want to open [blah blah]??" YES, I’M SURE,
IF I WOULDN’T BE, I WOULDN’T HAVE CLICKED THE DAMN FILE to open
it!!!!!
Now I realize some idiots need this, but if they are that
stupid to click anything they happen to "find" on their PC that
"mysteriously shows up", they deserve the consequences! Why
the hell not make this Authenticode an **OPTION**? What’s so
hard about putting an "enable/disable" in the Security Center
regarding Authenticode for those with an IQ over 60, (and that
use anti-malware problems), that do NOT NEED IT?
Another thing….get RID OF ActiveX! That’s another thing not
needed and it’s only a security risk. I am also fed up with
SP2 b!tching at so many websites about ActiveX! If IE didn’t
use it, no one would write for it! It’s a causality loop!
FireFox for example doesn’t need it, and I have yet to find
that to be a problem.
Your overzealous security features in SP2 have almost rendered
the OS unusable! C’mon, why do you need to hand-hold a billion
people?? OPTIONS, options, options. Give those of ****US****
that KNOW about computers and the internet the **OPTION** of
turning OFF certain security features WE DO NOT NEED! Doesn’t
that make the most sense of all?
You’re also never going to get back the ever-growing FireFox
crowd until there are hundreds of USEFUL and NEEDED plugins for
IE, as they are for FireFox. If FF didn’t have so many bugs, I
(and I’m sure most others) would be using it instead of IE,
(due to these overzealous security items I mentioned). There
of course are many more.
Actually, I love IE. However, as soon as FireFox has it’s bugs
fixed, I’ll probably be using it because of the massive amount
of great plugins, and of course with it I’m not pulling my hair
out over countless security prompts I DO NOT NEED. If you make
all of these prompts an OPTION, and give IE7 some of the
FireFox features, then why not keep using IE? I see some are
mentioning it being a tabbed browser. I hope to God not.
Tabbed sucks. But, many like it. So, if it will have tabbed
support, why not make it like FireFox so users can use it *IF*
they want?
Best of luck, and thanks for listening.
The CNET article on the IE7 beta quotes Bill Gates as saying "Browsing is definitely a point of vulnerability."
Yes, browsing is a point of vulnerability. Those of us who are concerned about security have already switched to Opera, Firefox or another operating system.
… and I say this as an ASP / ASP.NET developer.
The nicest part about this announcement is that it means virtually nothing to me. It’s nice to be able to say that. For years, we’ve been stuck in browser-limbo, forced to use Internet Explorer. Now, my entire enterprise has fixed our web applications so they work outside of IE, we’ve mostly migrated to FireFox, and IE is only an afterthought.
I remember my excitement downloading IE 4, 5 and 6, to see what new gifts I’d find. Now I just don’t care. When I sit down to Firefox, with its perfect cookie management, mouse gestures, tabbed browsing (with an amazing Tabbrowing Preferences extension), integrated BugMeNot, integrated web searching and dictionary plugins, integrated RSS, none of IE’s annoying quirks, and so much more, I’m still amazed at how much more enjoyable my browsing experience is. It actually pains me to use IE.
For the sake of the web and expediency, I hope Microsoft improves IE in 7.0. But I honestly don’t care much if they do. Barring an incredible effort in IE7, Internet Explorer has reached its apex. I’m convinced of that. Firefox — with all its many extensions — is just insurmountably better than IE at this point. It’s only a matter of 18-24 months before Firefox wins Browser War 2.0.
Microsoft doesn’t believe users are ready for things like mouse gestures. They would never build that feature for Internet Explorer. But when I show it to my non-techie friends and co-workers, they demand I install it, and they use it religiously. When I visit my mom, I’ll catch her making mouse gestures in My Computer, or Word, cursing the fact that they don’t work there. You don’t need to be a techie to dig on these types of features, but Microsoft will never implement them.
Thus, Firefox will win.
I am using both IE and Firefox and would like to see IE implement some nice features present in Firefox.
These are the features that are very good in Firefox:
1. Tabbed browsing
2. Extensions
3. Skins support
4. A downloads panel
Plus the most required feature is speed which is a must in case of slower connection.
Will wait patiently till I get the new IE
@nobby
This is just good business sense. Microsoft’s first duties aren’t to its customers, but its shareholders. Telling politicians that European companies can’t compete (even if they can still patent their stuff in America!) is just good business.
Also, for you interoperability clowns out there. You’re always going on about how monocultures are bad. You often use biological arguments to back your points. Well, why are you so keen on standards then? Surely different software and platforms give ‘genetic’ diversity, different standards give memetic diversity.
It is rarely in Microsoft’s business interests to interoperate with software made by others, except to ease migration TO (and certainly not FROM) MS software.
As Richard Stallman is fond of saying, there are two types of competition, and I agree:
1 – the competition to have the best features
2 – slagging off and otherwise squeezing your competitors – which he calls combat.
Microsoft can’t win type 1, because as soon as it innovates open sourcers will copy. It must therefore win type 2.
Announcing this on the same day that FF was downloaded 25 million times is an excellent example of this. Patents are another excellent example. Financial leverage – ie buying out companies and then threatening to fire the employees – is another good example. Pretending for so long that IE was only going to come out in Longhorn encouraged the competition to become lazy and not release new features – yet another example. Microsoft has handled the whole affair skilfully, and the move away from developer skill to legal skill with considerable aplomb.
MS developers may not be as friendly or approachable as the Firefox crew, but they handle themselves more professionally, and I certainly accord them all due respect for their business savvy.
IE7 "Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.” Predictions?…
As I said earlier, I’m glad MS is doing something about IE. But really, when Bill Gates says, "Browsing is a vulnerability", you’ve got to think:
WHY WON’T MS TAKE IE **OUT** OF WINDOWS? If it’s such a risk (a permanent risk, since there will always be "bad" people out there trying to cause trouble), it would seem the VERY BEST security fix that MS could make. The ideal would be "okay, IE got hosed, but at least the machine still works" instead of what we have now where IE is a big neon "open" sign luring these jerks in with their viruses, spyware, trojans, worms, whatever.
Or maybe here’s a reason for the update?: http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3483496
In any case, there’s ONE BIG LESSON that I really hope MS gets:
when you create a product, stick with it, don’t disband the developers, don’t assume you’ve "won" the (browser) wars, don’t assume that "since you’ve won" it’s now "good enough" for your customers: it’s clear security threats will NEVER go away–Firefox, Opera, Safari, and others have clearly shown that there are other features that customers really like and find useful–and it’s also terribly obnoxious that every MS update somehow involves a "side benefit" for MS (think: automatic bookmark for Windows Marketplace as part of XPSP2 "security" update (how the hell is that security?), it’s that sort of self-serving behaviour that makes people think (rightly so) that maybe, just maybe, MS *doesn’t* just have the customers’ best interests at heart
LEARN THE LESSON: SERVE YOUR CUSTOMERS, NOT YOURSELVES (maybe you’ll even get a few new customers out of it!)
Yeee!!! It rox soooo much!! I can have a hundred thousand tabs in a quadrillion of windows and it is still fast! It has proper printing! It gets standards implemented properly! It looks and works beautifully! And it can browse filesystems aswell as any other resource you might think of! And you know what’s best?
KDE is soon coming to WINDOWS! Not that I care, because I am very happy with my Gentoo Linux since switchting a year ago.. but I feel there are a lot of Joe’s who will be..
So M$ has to really have some grand ideas for making IE7/LH even up-par! Better? Well, you could, if you only had released XP/IE6 and afterwards took the 5000 devs to a programming seminar, then start all over! But now it’s gonna get reaaaal tough, even with that many devs.. to correct mistakes, you first have to acknowledge them, right? Mr. Gates seems faar from that, rather relying on legal and marketing strategies. Whatever, just go on trying to build a quakeproof scyscraper on a mud fundament..
How it all turns out? Well, will see….
I hope that the new version be more compatible with web standards…
Amazing, Microsoft is finally going to release an update for Internet Explorer after what, 5 years now? (counting the service pack update in XPSP2). I remember the days of the browser wars when we anxiously awaited each new release beceause each time they brought forth compelling new features that actually made using the web more interesting. Microsoft is always really good at that when someone gets out ahead of them and does it better, sooner (ala Netscape). IE was for some time THE best game in town but like far too many MS technologies, as soon as they became king of the browser hill, they got lazy, IE grew long in the tooth and it too a slew of compelling browsers (and web standards) to get MS to finally declare that they would indeed launch another version of IE.
I’m happy that MS is updating IE for all of you who still choose to use it, hopefully you’ll be getting some modern conveniences and above all, I pray you get full web standards compliance.
The IEBlog is great – definately a step in the right direction. Learn from Scoble! MS – not only listen to your customers but actually act on what they tell you – it really is ok to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do (ala web standards).
Congrats – I look forward to seeing it. God only knows how much further the other browsers will be by the time it finally ships but at least it’s progress.
Promises, promises… Man, where have you MS guys been all those years… With every new version of Windows or whatever product you name, you keep telling us how it got much better and faster…
Well, I’ll tell you it got BIGGER already, and it needs better hardware, and apart from that, nothing changes if not for the worse! Wasn’t LONGHORN due for this summer, originally? And WITH a better browser?? Then why IE7-beta??? LONGHORN taking another year to release?
I really don’t believe you MS-guys anymore, after 25 years of lies and crap. The best thing you guys ever did was the initial DOS, and it should have stopped right then and there!
Add some tabs for the various IE windows please! I use FireFox at the moment (precisely because of the security issues). I then found that I liked the ability to have tabbed windows so that I can have many sites open but be able to change between them at the click of a tab.
regnskygge.net » The lathe of heaven?
In other news:
3DRealms director is qouted saying that long awaited Duke Nukem Forever (Beta) is finally out this summer, stating "If Microsoft can do it, Why can’t we!"
Ho, that’s cool!
So, IE will at least have a decent CSS support?
I hope
Or perhapse IE will be the first browser to support CSS3?
I dream
Note to Dean:
First thing, about all the hard work you’re doing: It wouldn’t be that hard if you started with a decent code base. Look into Mozilla and KHTML. They’re open source, and since you’re giving the browser away anyhow, you might as well take advantage of the work done by better engineers than you have available to you. Take a look in the KHTML and Konqueror credits, and compare the number of people working on that code to the army of incompetents who’ve botched Internet Exploder over the years. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and that goes doubly for the kind of coders who are willing to tolerate your company’s development tools.
Secondly, people don’t want you to "better secure the web experience". That phraseology implies that you’ve partially secured your browser in the first place, which is patently untrue. What they want, is for you to quit making the same beginners’ mistakes that have plagued your company’s products from the get-go. Internet Exploder is now, and has *always* been utterly unsecureable. It’s time to dump that code, and switch to something that works. Maybe you can buy out the Opera guys.
Thirdly, forget "committing": try "delivering". We’ve heard your marketing dinks "commit" to security for about ten years now. Nobody believes you anymore, if indeed they ever did. Instead of inventing new ways to try to make the web proprietary, (and make no mistake, we know exactly what you had in mind when you clowns came up with CaptiveX), try addressing the customers’ needs, not your company’s needs.
Don’t even *think* of shipping something that doesn’t vastly exceed what a handful of open-source contributors can do in their spare time. Your product today is a disgrace, even for Microsoft.
For those like snuffkin and NN Thayer who ardently refuse to support W3C Web Standards, you have my utmost pity.
N.N. Thayer wrote @@In my opinion, IE has delivered more new Web technologies with each successive release than Firefox could even dream of doing. And by "technologies," I do not refer to such trivial things as tabbed browsing or transparent-PNG-blah-blah. I am referring to under-the-hood capabilities that facilitate websites of amazing sophistication, such as what you will find in companies that use .NET-based Web applications. IE and .NET are so far ahead of Firefox and the OSS community, so off in an advanced league of their own, showing what they can really do, that they have made me an adherent. Firefox kludges along, always playing catchup (except with a few highly visible things like tabbed browsing that most users simply do not give two s***s about), with its advocates wallowing in a false sense of security brought on by obscurity (and NOTHING MORE). I have no respect for Firefox or its sorry excuse for a development "process."@@
And I have no respect for you and your ignorance. You have clearly not heard of PHP, Perl, Cold Fusion etc. They allow you to do far more then possable with lumbering closed-source untrustworthy applications built on .NET and IE. How can you trust a company that won’t show you what it put into the code, it’s like going into a dodgy shop and buying a burger, you just don’t know what you are getting. It is a well known fact that MS has given the NSA backdoors to windows PC’s.
I do use IE as well but only for sites that need it, those sites that refuse to load because I choose to use firefox. I don’t use IE for mainstream browsing because it is slow and unstable. The best way for microsoft to sort it’s IE problem is to dump the currant IE code and start over.
use the Gecko widget from firefox to render the pages providing full support for the relevent w3c standards that everyone else supports. Add the useful features for pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing search-bar etc and bolt on the required propriatary systems like activeX and .net support. This gives you the best of both worlds. A firefox-like browser based on stable secure open standards with support for .net apps and other microsoft stuff. If it is done right then the browser will be lighter and more efficient, that will definatly give us firefox users something to think about.
Competition will be interesting. If IE7 isn’t released for previous Operating systems (2000, XP minimum), then I don’t see how many will care.
Most IE users with any technical knowledge have already duck-taped it with enough addon popup blocking, anti this, anti that, etc. that it’s buldging at the seams.
If it isn’t built secure from the ground up and ripped away from the framework of the OS, it will be a dud.
For now, and the conceivable furture, Firefox/Safari/Opera remain the viable options for secure web browsing.
If it supports recent web standards however, it may stand a chance. Web development today requires using standards, and so do users of their browsers.
Last but not least, quit taking months to get a n issue fixed.
Here are a few examples:
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/netsec/2001-11/msg00012.html
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115664,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118172,00.asp
Here is an exerpt from the last cited source:
########################################################################
################
Slow on the Update?
eEye Digital Security criticized Microsoft for taking its time on some
of the patches, with a patch for the Zip issue taking 71 days from when
Microsoft was notified of the problem. A less serious
privilege-escalation issue took Microsoft 408 days to patch, eEye said.
Both were fixed in the August release of SP2 before being released this
week as stand-alone patches.
Sophos’ Cluley responded that speed isn’t always the most important
concern with patching. "As long as information about how to exploit the
problem doesn’t get out, it’s probably better for them to take the time
to make sure the patch works properly," he said.
He noted that in the past some of Microsoft patches have required
patches of their own because they haven’t worked or have created new
problems.
########################################################################
################
Amazing, Microsoft is finally going to release an update for Internet Explorer after what, 5 years now? (counting the service pack update in XPSP2). I remember the days of the browser wars when we anxiously awaited each new release beceause each time they brought forth compelling new features that actually made using the web more interesting. Microsoft is always really good at that when someone gets out ahead of them and does it better, sooner (ala Netscape). IE was for some time THE best game in town but like far too many MS technologies, as soon as they became king of the browser hill, they got lazy, IE grew long in the tooth and it too a slew of compelling browsers (and web standards) to get MS to finally declare that they would indeed launch another version of IE.
I’m happy that MS is updating IE for all of you who still choose to use it, hopefully you’ll be getting some modern conveniences and above all, I pray you get full web standards compliance.
The IEBlog is great – definately a step in the right direction. Learn from Scoble! MS – not only listen to your customers but actually act on what they tell you – it really is ok to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do (ala web standards).
Congrats – I look forward to seeing it. God only knows how much further the other browsers will be by the time it finally ships but at least it’s progress.
…and IE 7.0 will do for the world wide web?
I want to browse with IE (I feel IE as homely) but now using Firebox because IE is lacking some useful features. We need lots of useful features as in Opera. For example: tabbed browsing, handy tools etc.
Yeah, fantastic news. Another version to get kicked in the ass by Firefox.
i agree with the desire to have improved standards support but i consider that a given. youd have to be as lame as the typical /.er claim you are to think an ie7 without improved standards support is going to fly.
i have a few things i’d like to see that haven’t been mentioned yet:
1. when prompting to run/script an activex control, don’t ask me if i want to run/script an activex control. ask me by name the same way you do when downloading/installing it.
2. a mechanism to always allow/deny use of certain ontrols. this wouldve been nice for the recent help control vulnerability. you already do this with bhos, id like it for all controls.
3. temporary cookies. i dont want to have to accept a cookie to make a site to work properly then have go manage cookies to delete it 10 minutes later. adding a ‘allow temporary’ button to the accept cookie dialog that would use the cookie until the broswer window closed, or until a user configured expiry has passed.
4. better descriptions for security related configuration options. when you click the dialog item help button dont tell me i can enable/disable the option. i can see that i can do that. tell me what enabling/disabling the option actually does. i shouldnt have to search the web or wade through msdn to find the answer. the infrastructure is there its just that the current information provided is completely and absolutely useless.
Good luck gyus
Mozilla is now so-o-o-o way ahead of you.
still, Firefox anyday for me.
Please add support for the currently used major technologies:
* Real PNG Support
* CSS 2 Support
* DOM 2 Support (Event Handling, …)
* XHTML Support
Simple, indeed. I use whatever platform is the best for a given task: linux for scientific programming because of unreached availability of free developement tools, and linux for easy and effective net management. Windows for presentations because I cannot find something as easy and powerful as PPT+TexPoint for my work. Surfing with IE6 is a mess, you simply cannot go out with it without getting pissed by silly spyware and so on. I think it’s absolutely crazy being obliged to run a crap firewall (ain’t easy to find one which is both free and good), an antivirus, a resident anti-spyware (forget "microsoft antispyware", which is clearly a joke) plus a good scan by "AdAware" just to be sure. Crazy. I am absolutely not against microsoft "because it is microsoft"… I just face the reality: SP2 or not, patches or not, Internet with IE6 seems like inferno – and it should not be, isn’t it?
Let’s see what IE7 (and maybe Longhorn) will bring us…
Firefox is a pretty damn good browser considering the fact that it is tiny compared to the monster known as Internet explorer 6.whatever Software keeps getting bigger with microsoft why is that bigger isn’t always better. IF the programming was better and tighter the computers that run the software wouldn’t have to be as fast or need as much ram but no people keep making software bigger and bigger (garbage_
..sooner than one might have expected? Although I doubted for long that anything good would ever come out of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer department, and Tom Sommer still doubts (see this chat transcript on Microsoft TechNet saying there would not be any
Only it tastes better.
"If you idiots spent as much time delivering compelling and innovative ideas"
Like popup blockers, tabbed-browsing, and a cross-platform rich-client technology named XUL? Or perhaps by good implementations of modern open stadards such as CSS, DOM or XForms?
IE only implemented the first so far. The others don’t matter, since they are going for their own Avalon-enabled lockin offerings…
One more feature (from firefox) request:
– uninstall please! (or at least disable the browser part and leave the dlls that you really need)
I would like IE7 to perform the way my monitor performs. And by that I mean that a web page should only be able to control what is drawn on the canvas and not the browser UI. Things like changing the status bar text, making it full screen, changing scroll bar appearance, etc should not be allowed period.
>> You are responsible for the future of the WWW
Saying that is basically saying you believe MS constols the internet. This couldn’t be further from the truth. They only have an iron grip over the internet because web developers LET THEM, a grip which is now being weakened by 25 million+ people who’ve had enough.
A new version of Internet Explorer is in the works.
Come’on, everybody knows Microsoft is NOT going to meet the W3C compliancy. This was already planned back in the time IE4 was released. Microsoft’s goal is still to turn the Internet into MSN or Microsoft Internet.
A few things you can count on when IE7 will be released:
1. Avelon integrated into your browser,
2. more .NET browser enhanchements,
3. Therefore Less W3C compliancy and proberly more Microsoft standards.
I think there are alot of people who have been waiting for Microsoft to release a fantastic new version of their browser with a bunch of new features to compete with Firefox. I just wanted to say, I think you’re waiting for nothing.
The browser market is obviously entirely without any kind of profit. Microsoft themselves made sure of that back in the day. So why would Microsoft want to invest the millions it takes to make it significantly better when a perfectly good browser is sitting right there? Security matters because it’s a component of Windows. Features don’t.
Sure they may release a new version of IE, but they don’t have any motive to compete. If they’re smart about what they’re doing, they’ll make IE move the way of msNotepad and msPaint – the lowest common denominator. That way when people get a new system they have something – no matter how pathetic – that will let them get the job done. They do however, need to provide security because even the lowest common denominator needs to be safe.
Just my thoughts about, well, someone elses product and business strategy.
Please, oh please, don’t break the hacks.
There are a few good hacks that we all use to adjust for the shortcomings of ie 5/6.
Please don’t break these, so we will be able to build pages that look good in all the browsers in large use
Ensight – Jeremy C. Wright » IE 7 Announced
How did you harden your servers and bandwidth and bridging infrastructure, knowing that this news was going to prompt the mother of all slashdottings to this blog?
(lowercase s, i recognize there will be loads of traffic from other sites too)
I have two questions:
1) WHAT have you "heard"?
2) WHAT are you "committed" to delivering?
All that we know so far is that a new version of IE will be delivered some time, and that it will (probably) be available only for Windows XP. If this will indeed be IE7, what *new* features will it have to justify the change in major version number? (The only thing that’s been hinted at so far is security, and although it’s important, that’s just a case of fixing something that is inherently broken, not adding something new.)
A reminder to Dean at Microsoft: in the 90’s IE beat out the incumbent Netscape browser fair & square by providing a superior browser faster than NS could. Sure MS had great PR & marketing, but IE was a superior machine and wasn’t just a me-too product. Rather, each version was a significant leapfrog over the competition — otherwise, the tide would have remained in NS’ favor.
I’m tired of the current slo-mo browser market. Let’s see you guys kick some butt & make me a truly superior browser I can’t resist!
So, you say there will be Betas… where do people sign up to get one and provide feedback?
We need TABBED BROWSING please!
Just like to reiterate the desire for better standards compliance with XHTML 1.1 ( application/xhtml+xml mime type ), CSS2, CSS pseudo class selectors ( :hover, :focus, etc on all elements ), PNG, Dom, etc.
RageBoy points to the Microsoft Internet Explorer Weblog where someone named Dave — "the guy responsible for IE" — tells us Microsoft will release IE 7.0 before Longhorn and that it will kick butt somehow. There are 544 comments. I assume that IE 7.0 will mercilessly rip-off Firefox, which is exactly what should happen. But Firefox escapes the leapfrog paradigm because its friendly development environment — and the commitment of so many talented developers — means that features get added whenever anyone has a good idea. In fact, here’s a suggested mouse gesture for use within Firefox: It’d open an…
How about operating IE by default in a non-admin context? That should help stem the tide of malware.
As mentioned in the countless posts earlier, a true W3C compliancy would be nice like other browsers on the market.
I’m using FF exclusively instead of IE for some time now. I have over 10 extensions installed on both my work and home machines, that help me work the way that I want. And I frequently have tons of tabs open at the same time. This is functionality that helps me work better, so this is the way that IE should be going.
But, job ONE is security. While if you don’t include any other features, include security. It will help greatly the tons of machines that are used by average people. It is those people that IE has really let down. I’m cleaning up spyware problems on a constant basis, and I know the drill when a person calls in and says his computer is slow, or five thousand pop up windows open when you open IE.
Well, I think this is going to be a cold war between FireFox and IE.
Until last month I was a devoted user of IE. But the main drawback I saw in IE was its poor security and heavy integration with the underlyin OS.
When FF completely replaced IE, I just tried because of my curiosity. And now I use IE only for testing the compatibility of my JS.
FF is thin and fast. No security hazards upto now. And MOST FASCINATING FEATURE IS THE TABS!
Now I am waiting for FF 1.1 rather than IE7.
And I appreciate the work of FF guys for releasing a wonderful peace of code in the first version.
Here’s an idea for how Microsoft can fix IE. Replace it with Firefox.
This is great news! Just in time too.
When will be find out what exact features will be in IE7?
I used to think, great let’s fire on the ‘net, so up pops IE6. I’d always been intrigued by other browsers, and something inside niggled me to try out Firefox…especially since the offical public release 1.0…not to mention people all over the show telling me i should try it out…so i did..and now when the ‘net loads, up pops FF1.0
people who haven’t tried it already should, you’ll be amazed. Plugins gallore, and for the artists among you, skins too…what more could you want? Well perhaps if big Bill and his team could manage to get any website to work with it, that would work wonders. I have but one request. Tabbed browsing…no…it’s a nice feature, one i appreciate but please most of all…please go into the compliants dept. and tell them to delete YES delete all MS standards and adopt (shock-horror) W3C standards…please…for the sake on man’s sanity….
quote_____
If it isn’t built secure from the ground up and ripped away from the framework of the OS, it will be a dud.
For now, and the conceivable furture, Firefox/Safari/Opera remain the viable options for secure web browsing.
_____/quote
Actually, I find IE incredibly secure as it is. SP2 WAS a big improvement. In fact, I didn’t get any viruses or spyware pre-SP2, due to the steps I took to secure it. I use IE because Firefox does not conform to the Win32 GUI Defaults; to me, those defaults are just as important as web standards.
It will be integrated into the operating system so it will suck like it has always done. For the Hard Core IE user: I hope you finally get the toys you don’t like in Firefox so you can use them after all. Don’t trust this version either. It will contain spyware after a clean install (like all previous versions) and will get infected and exploited in no time to. Get a real browser. Get Firefox.
You say IE7 will be for XP. I hope you’ll do a version for 2000 and perhaps even lower. Not everyone uses XP, and already we’re loosing out as Media Player 10 is XP only. I just hope IE7 won’t be!
I use opera but I’d like to test this software…
Glad to hear users will finally be getting an update! Whatever some of us may think of IE personally, a lot of our users use it, and if improvements to IE make their use of our sites and applications better and more secure I’m very happy to see it happen.
The announcement mentions security as a strong focus; it would be great news if this means that IE will start respecting the Content-type header to help close some cross-site scripting and other attack vectors through misidentified file types. This was added for XP SP2 but disabled by default, leaving the vast majority of users on the vulnerable setting.
If that’s not going to happen, we web developers could really use better documentation on the content-type autodetection to protect our users against maliciously created files which exploit the detection heuristics.
Love Firefox, but need IE at work. Why? ActiveX on key apps’ browser interfaces. Good work locking out other platfroms MS! Without ActiveX, IE would be dying much faster.
Camaban » Bill Gives Away AntiSpyware
For the first time, last week, I made firefox part of the default disk images, and the default browser, for our company. If Win2k isn’t supported by IE7, then it looks like Firefox won’t be coming off the image for a long time.
I would much rather not have to deal with multiple browsers, but right now MS hasn’t made it possible to do that with it’s own product. But Firefox doesn’t render some things as nicely as IE (OWA, in particular). So, we’re stuck with 2 products, which together make a pretty good whole unit.
The problem is that I don’t see any light in this dark tunnel for Microsoft to make a better version of IE. It’s easier to drop the whole IE and start with developing a new browser than trying to patch IE becuase it will never end.
So, what features were stolen from FireFox ??
If you’ll make it just a **browser**, then we might be talking about something good for the world you wish to dominate.
How ’bout this, developers? Grab the dino-source (ftp://pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.8a6/source/Imozilla-source-1.8a6.tar.bz2) and port it to the best API you have lying around from whenever (’93?). Paint it blue and change the UA string, and don’t forget to disable the about:Mozilla egg ….
Please, please, please add Alpha PNG support to IE7. Us web developers are severely limited by IE’s inability to properly render .png’s. In my mind this issue is second only to security.
Additionally, proper CSS2 support would be very nice.
Why do I care?
I run Linux and Firefox and haven’t sold my soul to a convicted monopolist.
I’m happy and free whatever happens…
Forget the browser- all MS will do is copy Firefox and act like it’s a big deal, just like ME did with Netscape. Firefox is great and the need is now fulfilled. Don’t try to ruin yet another great effort by some good people. Instead, try to build a secure OS that actually works….
The only, only, only thing I want (ouside of imporved security), is a tighter, or complete adaption to the w3c standards, and rendering these pages correctly. JUST because people code and create pages the wrong way, does not mean that MS has to cater to them, CATER to how you are supposed to do it.
…in terms of setting standards…we need a browser that can read images that are tagged with ICC profiles!…and of course intergrated spell chck,chk…check:)!!
Simple, indeed. I use whatever platform is the best for a given task: linux for scientific programming because of unreached availability of free developement tools, and linux for easy and effective net management. Windows for presentations because I cannot find something as easy and powerful as PPT+TexPoint for my work. Surfing with IE6 is a mess, you simply cannot go out with it without getting pissed by silly spyware and so on. I think it’s absolutely crazy being obliged to run a crap firewall (ain’t easy to find one which is both free and good), an antivirus, a resident anti-spyware (forget "microsoft antispyware", which is clearly a joke) plus a good scan by "AdAware" just to be sure. Crazy. I am absolutely not against microsoft "because it is microsoft"… I just face the reality: SP2 or not, patches or not, Internet with IE6 seems like inferno – and it should not be, isn’t it?
Let’s see what IE7 (and maybe Longhorn) will bring us…
CNTRL + for Zooming would be necessary. The zoom feature is horrible in IE 6 plus putting dropdown menus in the Links menus would be a must.
" I then found that I liked the ability to have tabbed windows so that I can have many sites open but be able to change between them at the click of a tab."
And then give us an OS that can handle the load.
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ExtremeTech has written up the most comprehensive comparison between recent versions of three browsers…
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Just as he was the first to talk about IE7 , Bill Gates kept the tradition alive and discussed IE8 at
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Just as he was the first to talk about IE7 , Bill Gates kept the tradition alive and discussed IE8 at
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"…I mean, we’re not — there’s not like some deep secret about what we’re doing with IE." That’s what
"…I mean, we’re not — there’s not like some deep secret about what we’re doing with IE." That’s what
Yes I know that a piece on Internet Explorer is hardly in keeping with the political nature of ThatPoliticalBlog but being an MCSE I do have to stay in touch with the Microsoftian universe. Some people call them The Borg but hey, MS has been berry berry
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