Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

nczonline.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 190 posts

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#81

Post by eCa »

resu_nimda wrote: post #73
Aardwolf wrote: post #7

If they change the UA, why didn't they take this opportunity to get rid of these ridiculously long UA's that mention competing browser brand names, and just make their UA string the following: "Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; rv 11.0"

Not being very familiar with browser standards, I found this bit pretty funny: navigator.appName is now set to “Netscape” This may seem like a sneaky attempt to trick developers, but this behavior is actually specified in HTML5.

This seems like a way to force developers to use the correct way to detect which browser is used: Check for the specific thing you want to do.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#82

Post by underwater »

RyanZAG wrote: post #56
recursive wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fix the old bad monoculture with a new shiny monoculture.

I'd take a mono-culture over terrible IE (6-8) any day of the week. The problem was never a mono-culture - the problem was IE6 was closed off to non-windows OSes, and stopped progressing. If IE6 had been available as a portable open source project that could be run on linux/android/anything and had continued to include new features, we'd all still be using IE. The problem with IE was failure to provide value, and not…

IE11+ changing rendering engines wouldn't magically fix all the IE6 - 8 installs out there. Wishing that history had played out different isn't really productive.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#83

Post by masklinn »

megaman821 wrote: post #78
tomelders wrote: post #25

I still don't forgive Microsoft for being absolutely massive tools in the past. As such, they have a higher bar to jump over if they want me to acknowledge that they have created a "modern" browser. They have to make a browser that beats every other browser in it's standards compliance, stability and performance. They have to create the greatest browser that has ever been and ever will be. And only then will I even c…

I have cursed at working around IE quirks more times than I can remember, but I don't dump all the blame on Microsoft. Why is this the top comment, it is just a rant/whine? What other browser released at the same time as IE6 would work well (or at all) with them modern web? Microsoft has given customers a choice on whether to update their browser or not, and by in large they haven't. Then it becomes Microsoft's fault…

> What other browser released at the same time as IE6 would work well (or at all) with them modern web?

Not relevant, the problem is that IE6 didn't work with the web back then unless untold amounts of time was wasted and untold amounts of pain experienced to get it to work. When Microsoft got the market leadership they just stopped every investment in it until forced to get back in the game, and GP fears the same will happen again if they're allowed to gain dominant position again.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#84

Post by pcwalton »

nwilliams wrote: post #77
tomelders wrote: post #25

I still don't forgive Microsoft for being absolutely massive tools in the past. As such, they have a higher bar to jump over if they want me to acknowledge that they have created a "modern" browser. They have to make a browser that beats every other browser in it's standards compliance, stability and performance. They have to create the greatest browser that has ever been and ever will be. And only then will I even c…

Well, the case of Opera's Presto engine being forced to die in the past few years proved that the holy grail of everything being fine and dandy if browser engines and websites follow web standards is a big lie. Opera is/was known for its standards support, . Google Service Drops Support for Opera https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195298 G+ doesn't support Opera... why? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2738099…

Chrome doesn't use WebKit anymore. They forked it into Blink.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#85

Post by mmanfrin »

megaman821 wrote: post #78
tomelders wrote: post #25

I still don't forgive Microsoft for being absolutely massive tools in the past. As such, they have a higher bar to jump over if they want me to acknowledge that they have created a "modern" browser. They have to make a browser that beats every other browser in it's standards compliance, stability and performance. They have to create the greatest browser that has ever been and ever will be. And only then will I even c…

I have cursed at working around IE quirks more times than I can remember, but I don't dump all the blame on Microsoft. Why is this the top comment, it is just a rant/whine? What other browser released at the same time as IE6 would work well (or at all) with them modern web? Microsoft has given customers a choice on whether to update their browser or not, and by in large they haven't. Then it becomes Microsoft's fault…

Working as a developer right now, I can tell you that even IE10 has odd, noncompliant quirks. And then there's IE9 and IE8 to support as well.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#86

Post by T-hawk »

aclimatt wrote: post #34
Aardwolf wrote: post #7

If they change the UA, why didn't they take this opportunity to get rid of these ridiculously long UA's that mention competing browser brand names, and just make their UA string the following: "Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; rv 11.0"

The "Mozilla" part of the user agent has been maintained for historical reasons, and could potentially break compatibility if removed. Originally it was used to detect frames. It may not be used in the majority of user agent sniffers these days, but I doubt Microsoft is interested in testing their luck removing it. http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/

We have a real test case. Opera has identified directly as "Opera" not "Mozilla" since forever (unless you configure it otherwise), and at least 95% of websites work fine with it. And of the small minority that do fail in Opera, faulty user agent sniffing could represent only a fraction of those.

Opera 12.15 identifies as this for me: Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.15

We could lose that historical crufty "Mozilla" and be fine. Opera has shown us the way.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#87

Post by Legion »

masklinn wrote: post #83
megaman821 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have cursed at working around IE quirks more times than I can remember, but I don't dump all the blame on Microsoft. Why is this the top comment, it is just a rant/whine? What other browser released at the same time as IE6 would work well (or at all) with them modern web? Microsoft has given customers a choice on whether to update their browser or not, and by in large they haven't. Then it becomes Microsoft's fault…

> What other browser released at the same time as IE6 would work well (or at all) with them modern web? Not relevant, the problem is that IE6 didn't work with the web back then unless untold amounts of time was wasted and untold amounts of pain experienced to get it to work. When Microsoft got the market leadership they just stopped every investment in it until forced to get back in the game, and GP fears the same wi…

Exactly. The web had to bend to IE, not the other way around.

The fact that that bending resulted in IE6 still being able to mostly display websites today is not any sort of testament to IE6's quality as a browser.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#88

Post by pjmlp »

sixothree wrote: post #46
BillyMaize wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way about everything MS has produced/is planning on producing in the near future. IE, Windows 8, Xbox One, Microsoft Office, the list just goes on.

Everything about Windows 8 to me just feels like a kick in the groin from Microsoft. For many years now they've claimed that .Net was the present and future of Microsoft development; yet it seems they've shoved it into the back seat and likely next into the trunk of deprecation.

There was lots of cool .NET stuff to see at BUILD 2013, not sure what you mean.

Re: Internet Explorer 11: “Don’t call me IE”

#89

Post by toble »

megaman821 wrote: post #78
tomelders wrote: post #25

I still don't forgive Microsoft for being absolutely massive tools in the past. As such, they have a higher bar to jump over if they want me to acknowledge that they have created a "modern" browser. They have to make a browser that beats every other browser in it's standards compliance, stability and performance. They have to create the greatest browser that has ever been and ever will be. And only then will I even c…

I have cursed at working around IE quirks more times than I can remember, but I don't dump all the blame on Microsoft. Why is this the top comment, it is just a rant/whine? What other browser released at the same time as IE6 would work well (or at all) with them modern web? Microsoft has given customers a choice on whether to update their browser or not, and by in large they haven't. Then it becomes Microsoft's fault…

I thought the comment was beautiful... many of us have ten years (or more) of pent up aggression towards IE.

These days I am still wary of that browser because it is Windows only and they have poor support for their legacy OS releases.

Post reply on HN