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Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

arstechnica.com

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Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#51

Post by robchez »

Visually, IE9 is one of the most gorgeous browsers I have ever seen. It had the wow feeling I had after installing Chrome for the first time.

The amount of new features in this release is amazing. I am blown away at how much has changed.

I think the whole speed issue has become a moot point now. Shaving of milliseconds off of already fast browsers doesn't impress me anymore.

To everyone who complains about standards compliance, IE6 etc. etc. remember that when IE6 came out, it was the greatest browser ever. It was revolutionary for the time and it doesn't deserve the hate it receives. MS Shouldn't have let it stagnate, but look at HTML4, it only recently is being updated.

Say what you want about ActiveX, but it was MS attempt at updating the browser, because the standards bodies weren't.

I love chrome, but right now there is no reason for me not to switch to IE9. I use minimal addons (StumbleUpon/Lastpass), I could care less about tiny speed improvements. People who have switched away from IE, may find it hard to go back, but people who haven't, will really have no reason to switch after this release hits final.

Great work Microsoft and IE team.

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#52

Post by ciupicri »

code_duck wrote: post #36
dstein wrote: post #24

I'm still trying to decide how I want to install it. Being able to test all versions of IE on a single machine is getting impossible. I have a Windows 7 virtual machine for testing IE8, a Vista vm for IE7, and an Windows XP for testing IE6. And I only have one license of each system, and I don't really want to drop my ability to test IE7 or IE8. Fuck you Microsoft!!

Do you know that Microsoft supplies VHD images for free that you can use to test any version of IE? YOu don't need a license or anything, just Windows and their free Virtual PC software. They're intended to work only with Windows and Virtual PC (of course!) but apparently it's possible to get them to work with other VM software on other OSs. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=...

Cool, but it seems that I can use them for only 2 weeks ("Expires October 1, 2010") or 90 days ("Expires 90 days after first run.").

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#53

Post by subsection1h »

maguay wrote: post #49
flatulent1 wrote: post #32

It seems like the tech sites that end up with mega-publisher owners are a bit soft in articles that cover products from major potential advertisers. Conde Nast owns Wired, arstechnica, webmonkey, and reddit Tabs to the side of the address bar? Using the URL space for search? What are they smoking? We'll see how standards support actually turns out...

URL space for search? That's one feature that Chrome had first, and most people seem that I've seen to like it. Of course, for me, Chrome's best feature is that it picks up sites you search on and automatically adds them to the search engine list ... that's convenient.

> URL space for search? That's one feature that Chrome had first

Firefox has had this feature since in 2004 [1]. It's called Smart Keywords [2]. It can be enhanced with an extension called SmartSearch [3].

[1] http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/11/65668?...

[2] http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Smart+keywords

[3] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/188/

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#54

Post by code_duck »

ciupicri wrote: post #52
code_duck wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know that Microsoft supplies VHD images for free that you can use to test any version of IE? YOu don't need a license or anything, just Windows and their free Virtual PC software. They're intended to work only with Windows and Virtual PC (of course!) but apparently it's possible to get them to work with other VM software on other OSs. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=...

Cool, but it seems that I can use them for only 2 weeks ("Expires October 1, 2010") or 90 days ("Expires 90 days after first run.").

They supply new ones every 90 days or so.

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#55

Post by code_duck »

zepolen wrote: post #22
ergo98 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All they really need to get back in the game is to come within a lap of the lead browsers -- they don't need users to migrate back from Firefox and Chrome, they just need the "default" browser to be good enough that change isn't necessary.

Personally I can't see why they don't stick an IE badge on webkit and be done with it.

I totally agree, I've many times pleaded the case that MS should just ditch Trident in favor of Webkit, and everyone would benefit.

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#56

Post by danieldon »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #14
DjDarkman wrote: post #3

It's useless unless they stop supporting older IE versions...

Can we please stop bashing MS for the continued usage of IE6? For it's time IE6 was a fine browser (honest), and what exactly is so bad about supporting software long after it is obsolete? If you're tired of supporting IE6 on your site, then stop. Foisting off the cost of transitioning everyone off IE6 onto a big company like MS is comforting but ultimately unrealistic and selfish.

It's not just IE6, it's IE7 and IE8.

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#57

Post by danieldon »

psadauskas wrote: post #6
DjDarkman wrote: post #3

It's useless unless they stop supporting older IE versions...

You can't stop supporting older versions until you have newer versions.

That's not what it's dependent on. IE6 will be supported until 2014. Even with Explorer's glacial release cycle that will be about 5 newer releases than IE6, 4 for the still supported IE7 and so on.

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#58

Post by danieldon »

kennedywm wrote: post #45
code_duck wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's bad about supporting software long after it is obsolete is that it encourages people who know very little to think it is perfectly legitimate to continue using it long after it is obsolete. It's their lousy software, it IS their responsibility to transition people off of it.

It's just not smart to replace a system that only works well in IE 6 because it might mess up your employees' ability to waste their time on some guy's random startup. There are perfectly legitimate reasons why a corporation would continue to use IE6, despite its countless flaws.

In my experience, those systems are in dire need of replacement, anyway.

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#59

Post by nopassrecover »

LaGrange wrote: post #20
niyazpk wrote: post #15

While I am happy too that the new version of IE is coming soon and it supports the latest standards, let us not forget that we all were saying the exact same thing when IE7 and IE8 came out: This new release will help developers very much by supporting the latest standards. The problems is not with supporting a subset of the latest standards. The problem is that the latest standards change over time and IE stays the…

They have auto-update. Usually disabled, because people somehow hate windows update, and corporate clients don't really want weird-application-breaking updates unless THEY decide they want it. So, whatever auto-update mechanism MS puts in place, people will break it.

There's a massive difference between the Firefox auto-update (you're not launching until I'm installed then you're good) and the IE update (I'm going to make you reboot your PC, or nag you until you leave your PC idle for 15 minutes and I'll reboot losing your work for you. Oh yeah im tied into Windows Update so your PC as a whole might have random issues after reboot.)

Re: Inside Internet Explorer 9: Redmond gets back in the game

#60

Post by alanh »

maguay wrote: post #49
flatulent1 wrote: post #32

It seems like the tech sites that end up with mega-publisher owners are a bit soft in articles that cover products from major potential advertisers. Conde Nast owns Wired, arstechnica, webmonkey, and reddit Tabs to the side of the address bar? Using the URL space for search? What are they smoking? We'll see how standards support actually turns out...

URL space for search? That's one feature that Chrome had first, and most people seem that I've seen to like it. Of course, for me, Chrome's best feature is that it picks up sites you search on and automatically adds them to the search engine list ... that's convenient.

Can’t put a year to it, but Opera supported this (even without Firefox-style keywords) years and years ago.
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