OSNews

OSNews should upgrade to the new IE7 logo - it's a LOT cooler:
http://neosmart.net/gallery/v/apps/IE7/Internet+Explorer+7.png.html

props to the MS design team on this one.

Yep. They've outdone themselves this time.

I agree... NeoSmart Technologies has some really great and innovative stuff that's really good quality (Y). (they wrote VistaBootPRO!)

Do you think it will actually ever become possible that the browser you choose doesn't actually matter? If you think about it, with standards coming in from all sides it certainly is plausible that 5, 10, or even 20 years from now the difference will become like that between Coke and Pepsi: unless you are a true and honest-to-god expert there is none.

To some degree, I think that it's already become that way. Standards compliance has really become a minor issue now, in my opinion, because most browsers can display the average page correctly. It's really the more obscure CSS standards that don't work -- and I'm not sure how relevant those are to the average page. I'm not saying that browser devs should strive for mediocrity or ignore standards. I think it's somewhat akin to wine tasting. Most of us don't know a whole lot about wines. We just know what tastes good and what doesn't. Let the experts argue over the color, body, fruitiness, acidity, or oakiness of a particular wine. It either works for us -- or it doesn't.

Ask any professional web developer and they should tell you that there are some serious standards issues between the browsers, even with IE7 coming soon.

>> Do you think it will actually ever become possible that the browser you choose doesn't actually matter? If you think about it, with standards coming in from all sides it certainly is plausible that 5, 10, or even 20 years from now the difference will become like that between Coke and Pepsi: unless you are a true and honest-to-god expert there is none.

It's certainly getting that way on the features front - Opera, Safari, Firefox... they are all getting more and more uniform...

On the rendering front though - it's still a long ways off on the back-end. Unless you are using the most basic HTML in your page, most websites (ESPECIALLY ones coded as XHTML compliant) are laden down with 'hacks' to make the page display properly in all the different browsers; at least, the well coded websites are... If you code for IE, you have to write separate hacks for Opera, Firefox and Safari... If you code for Opera, Safari or Konqueror, you have to write UBER hacks for IE, and MIGHT get lucky with Firefox... If you code for Firefox, most coders end up writing UBER hacks for IE and minor alterations for Opera and K/Safari... and the people who write and test in IE pretty much say "Screw anyone not using IE"

I moonlight as a web site coder, and am a big advocate of site TESTING in as many browsers, resolutions and font metrics as possible; Which is why I have Parallels installed in BOTH Windows XP and Linux so I can 'boot into' the other OS as needed... (I used to use VMWare, but it's just gotten to intrusive on the Host OS in recent versions)

This is my browser testing list:
Linux:
Opera 8.5 and 9
Firefox 1.0 and 1.5
Konqueror (latest build)

Windows:
IE 6 and 7 Beta
Opera 8.5 and 9
Firefox 1.0 and 1.5

and I do have a G3 iBook I reboot into to test Safari should I have a section of code that Konquerer was REALLY choking on.

I also do my testing in both small (96dpi) and Large (120dpi) fonts in windows. I'm often AMAZED at the websites which are just 'slapped up' with what appears to be no testing, or on the assumption that the user is using one browser or another or that everybody is using windows small font metrics... or worse the sites that are ENTIRELY designed in 8 or 9px sized fonts... 8 Pixel high fonts? What is this? 1983 on a trash-80 model 4? phpBB based forums are among the WORST offenders on this category...

Oddly enough, the 'hacks' needed to make XHTML code work in IE 90%+ of the time makes your site not validate - it sucks, but

Not to mention that the 'web standards' as put forth by the W3C have if anything made the situation WORSE, not better... for a variety of reasons... One big reason is that Microsoft hasn't been on the bandwagon (despite claims to the contrary... and from what I've tested on IE7 that hasn't changed).

But worse, since the introduction of XHTML been this HUGE movement claiming that 'tables for formatting is a hack', that DESPARATELY tries to replicate the tables functionality with DIV tags... to the point that to even WORK in IE I've seen site designers from this camp resort to 17k .CSS and javascript files - all because TABLES are a hack... Sure, but 17k of .CSS and javascript just to fix your formatting isn't???

Sites that do this are usually easily recognized if you have a machine running large font metrics, as their text often overruns the containers, sometimes the 'content' section that's supposed to be in the middle on a three column site is forced down UNDER the left menu, and the website is forced into this CRAPPY LITTLE COLUMN down the middle of the screen...

Although you do see that last one from time to time with table based sites... like this one... Which makes even LESS sense since tables can be this thing called... DYNAMICALLY SIZED. Something DIV attempts but /FAILS/ miserably at. (and yes, I mean '/FAIL at Intarnet/'.. and no that's not a typo)

Bottom line - we're not there yet, and it's doubtful we ever will be. Not as long as lazy site coders continue to just slap up poorly coded sites, as long as uber-geek coders overthink solutions to browser compatability and even site layout, and as long as the browser makers cannot even agree how each and every HTML/XHTML tag is even supposed to RENDER.

Of course, you want a indication of how XHTML and web standards has made inroads on the biggest and most successful websites, try validating Google, Yahoo, Amazon and E-bay.

http://www.yahoo.com - Failed validation, 351 errors
http://www.google.com - Failed validation, 42 errors
http://www.amazon.com - Failed validation, 1111 errors
http://www.ebay.com - Failed validation, 248 errors

Yet these are sites that rarely if ever come up as having problems in the different browsers... So much for web standards.

Nevertheless: the <em>ratio</em> of non-standards compliant to standards compliant sites is constantly dropping - which means that more of these will display the same (i.e. just as wrong) on those browsers

You list IE 7 beta, but not which version of the beta.
There is beta 1, beta 2 and beta 3 currently.
The same applies for the other browsers listed. You list the major version number but not the minor.

One reason why the different browsers render things differently is because the standards that apply do not specify EXACT behaviour and leaves a lot to interpretation.

Another reason is that the browser developers start including features that are not finalized in the standard yet. This happened to IE6 where there was changes made between the implementation and the finalization of the standards supported (disclaimer: there are also bugs in IE6 so not all problems can be attributed to changes between draft and final, and I don't know the ratio between bugs in the software and things that "break" because of the changes.)

I don't know about the area in which you live, but where I am Coca Cola products have switched over completely to corn syrup instead of the mix they've been using the last few years or the pure sugar taste I recall from my childhood whereas I can see Pespi still favors the mix of sugar and corn syrup. I used to be a coke fan but have since moved on to Pepsi products until they too quit using sugar, then I'll switch to RC Cola or possibly give up on soda all together.

There is a difference you can taste it.

In the case of FirefoxOperaOther vs Internet Explorer, you can also taste the difference; it usually comes via ads and spyware via the many holes in IE....

--bornagainpenguin (long time 98lite user, Fred Vorck fanboi and nLite enthusiast, now moving on to Ubuntu...)

These "holes" that allow spyware all stem from one place... the user.

You can not blame IE because YOU (yes YOU) clicked yes to install some application.

You can not blame IE because YOU (yes YOU) clicked yes to install some application.

Yes, why did he attempt to install applications? On a personal computer, no less. WTF was he thinking.

PEBCAK indeed. IE is a fine piece of software.

I most certainly can blame Microsoft and IE when it was disabled and yet still insisted on popping in when I used MSN messenger to chat with my sister and I clicked to check my email.

I most certainly can blame IE when programs can install themselves WITH NO USER INTERVENTION.

But mostly I don't blame IE because I (yes I!) am among those who rip out IE on their Windows installations. (Yes it can be done, and no it doesn't 'break' Windows.)

Now if you'd actually read my post you'd have noticed I said I am a long time IE decoupler...been one since the early days of 98Lite 2.0....been removing IE from Windows with Fred Vorck's files, and then later via the magic that is <a href="http://www.nliteos.com">nLite which has just entered 1.0 Final. Given Microsoft's track record of not listening to its customers and their history of abandonning the web once they've crushed their competition I have no intention of returning to Internet Explorer.

Thanks for playing! Next time maybe you'll read the actual post all the way through to discover the poster knows what he's talking about?

--bornagainpenguin

A nice feature of ie7 that missing is search on the page while you type..

FFox has this from stone age.

Is it patented or something?
Because Opera doesn't have it either - and one would think it's easy enough to implement.

Opera's had it for some years longer than Firefox, actually. Thankfully it doesn't automatically activate, but rather uses '/' (like vi), so that you can still use Opera's tremendous keyboard shortcuts.

Microsoft won't; they let Explorer for the Mac lanquish for years before Apple developed their own browser. When Safari appeared, MS took the chance to kill Explorer for the mac.

That's a given - it's quite cleare the authors meant that <em>with IE7</em>, FF 2/3, and Opera 9 that's the case... but obviously it's an imperfect world.

users don't, developers do.

And that's the problem. The lack of improvements to their JS engine and the fact the IE7 is the default browser for Vista means that developers are going to have to support yet another sub-par browser. Sure, better CSS and PNG support is great.. for 2001 but once again, Microsoft has missed the changing winds of web development.

That's nonsense. The JS engine works just fine - it's the underlying DOM scripting that's buggy and not by any fault of the browser. JS is itself an unstable language, but the coders *can* write cross-platform JS (look at GMail)... and still have it validate.

The reason for writing that tag isn't because the JS isn't supported but because a core (X)HTML or CSS feature isn't - and that's how it decides whether to use it or not, no more, no less.

Microsoft has brought IE a long way with Windows Internet Explorer 7, and it does indeed rival Opera and FF in terms of compatibility and compliance - but it just so happens that it isn't compatible in the same way they are. Two lies, whose to say which is right and which is wrong?

"Microsoft has brought IE a long way with Windows Internet Explorer 7, and it does indeed rival Opera and FF in terms of compatibility and compliance - but it just so happens that it isn't compatible in the same way they are. Two lies, whose to say which is right and which is wrong?"


i dont know which world you live in ...
but as far as i know ...

Technology IE 6 IE 7 Firefox 1.5 Opera8.5
HTML / XHTML 73% 74% 91% 85%
CSS 2.1 52% 54% 93% 93%
CSS 3 changes 10% 13% 27% 8%
DOM 50% 50% 79% 77%
ECMAScript 100% 100% Y Y

http://www.webdevout.net/browser_support_summary.php

and then there are conspiracy theorists who say that microsoft has planned this all along ... if web browsers get good enough ... it would shift the platform to the web ... (somebody remember the good old netscape days ?) where they wont be able to keep their monopoly ...

who knows .. they may be write afterall ..
(you may want to imagine what gmail would be like if it only had to support firefox and opera .. you will have your answer !)

The last changes made to the IE 7 columns were made on the 9th of June, which is before beta 3 was released, which makes the numbers irrelevant until beta 3 has been tested properly against all these things listed.

>> That's nonsense. The JS engine works just fine
In terms of speed, rendering access, and timer events - DAMNED STRAIGHT. The old joke - Netscape invented javascript, but IE made it work. Gecko javascript is still buggy as sin and slower than molassas in february... and don't even THINK about relying on the 'SetTimeout' or other timer functions even being CLOSE to accurate in Gecko, ESPECIALLY with intervals of less than 100ms.

case in point:
http://battletech.hopto.org/mechproject/game.html
*** WARNING *** IMAGE HEAVY - 40+ images totalling about 250k, so on dailup give it a moment. It's a little game idea I've been fiddling with on and off in my spare time. You move about with the arrow keys - no collision detection yet... oh, and the directory is unlocked so you can grab the code if you like.

The reason I linked to that is it runs at radically different speeds in IE and Gecko, regardless of what I set the 'Interval' to - in the final version I may have to add a browser sniffer to put a shorter delay in on gecko to make the game execution uniform with IE... Note, if you make a program to compare a 'ticker' of a fixed setInterval period to the actual system clock - IE is spot on while gecko is... well, let's just say it lags badly.

>> it's the underlying DOM scripting that's buggy and not by any fault of the browser.
It's not buggy - it's just NOT the W3C DOM. IE's object model is different from the DOM in many MANY ways, (as Sphinx's point aptly illustrated) resulting in most Javascript coders having to include the code Sphinx posted (or something like it) if they don't want to bloat out their code every time they want a object descriptor.

My own code for that goes like this:
function Get_Object(name) {
if (document.getElementById) {
return document.getElementById(name);
} else if (document.all) {
return document.all[name];
} else if (document.layers) {
if (document.layers[name]) {
return document.layers[name];
} else {
return document.layers.testP.layers[name];
}
}
}

Which pretty much covers ALL the bases going back to Nyetscape 4. (I've got a couple Solaris 8 users who won't install anything newer and one guy still using a Windows 3.1 box - the mind boggles).. The thing about this is, that 99%+ of the DOM objects exists in the IEDOM, and vice versa, just with DIFFERENT NAMES. There is NO reason you couldn't just create a fake 'alias' in the parser so when it see's "document.all[name]" in Firefux or Opera it parses it as "document.getElementByID[name]" or vice versa in IE's case (Given that most of these use a lexical parser, we're probably not even talking a LINE of code per missing object!). That they haven't on either side of the fence is just indicitive of a short-sighted arrogance - BOTH sides are saying "I'm right, screw them."

>> Microsoft has brought IE a long way with Windows Internet Explorer 7

I dunno, as a site coder it seems to be a step sideways, not forward as they broke a HELL of a lot more than they fixed. It STILL calculates container margin/padding out/in instead of in/in (as the W3C spec states and how everybody else calculates it), still screws up bounding boxes if you have padding, margin or width/height stated on aligned text (a 'new' error that IE6 didn't have)... I've got a laundry list of things like that which IE7 does wrong that weren't a problem in IE6 and responded no different in IE6 than they do any of the other browsers... and some of the hacks I've had to add to the 'big' site I maintain just so the people who don't know what 'beta' means don't throw fits over IE7 being broken have been downright ugly. (and in one case, rather ingenious)

>>and it does indeed rival Opera and FF in terms of compatibility and compliance - but it just so happens that it isn't compatible in the same way they are. Two lies, whose to say which is right and which is wrong?

Depends, who's compliance? Microsofts or the W3C? It falls MILES short of compliance with the web standards put out by the W3C...

Which treads into the territory of how do you define a standard? The W3C XHTML/CSS specs are 'standards by comittee' which longterm could mean exactly two things - jack and shit - if the lions share of people don't use a browser that actually supports it properly.

While IE could be considered the 'adopted standard' - as the majority of people use IE, so 'how it does it' could be considered the 'real standard' REGARDLESS of what the W3C publishes as a specification or what the other browsers do. PART of the reason a number of web developers refuse to even bother checking browsers other than IE is exactly that reason - the number of people using alternative browsers is 'such a small' group, it 'hardly seems worth the effort'. (That's called being lazy in my book)

Of course, the one thing people often forget is how we ended up in this boat in the first place - and that's the classic Netscape vs. IE wars. IE won it NOT by flooding the market with a free IE as many people claim, though that did contribute greatly... Stay with me on this.

At the time, websites were throwing up banners left and right "Best viewed with netscape 3.x" or "Best viewed with IE 3.x"... There were MAJOR compatability and rendering differences between the two browsers, with separate codebases that were difficult, if not impossible to reconcile against each-other. IE took the lead with IE 4.0 and added compatability for a LOT of Netscape only sites, adopting javascript into it's repertoire among many other functions - while netscape 4 went off on an entirely different tangent adding loads more proprietary functions - many of which were so buggy no sane web developer would go NEAR them... Even so MS added those features in IE5, which was pretty much the nail in Netscape's coffin - then once Netscape was squashed, they could do/add whatever they liked with IE5.5 - which is where IEDOM and the 'official' W3C DOM began their parting of the ways.

It ended up being a situation much akin to the DVD RW wars - at the time of IE5 nobody CARED about that only supported it's own way of doing things, when there was a browser that attempted to do it both ways - just as the DVD+RW vs. DVD-RW 'wars' turned into a non-event the day someone released a burner that did both.

Which oddly enough is why I still say if one of these other browsers was SERIOUS about taking down IE, they'd code in a switch to make their engine parse and render HTML/XHTML JUST LIKE IE, without actually CALLING IE. It may be 'wrong' to the 'W3C Standards Zealots' (ooh, there's that nasty word again!) but it would also make alternative browsers more viable for the end users.

Even I, who really DOESN'T think IE is safe to even USE, ends up running it from time to time for the occasional website that doesn't work in Opera or FF - and there's no GOOD reason for it when you actually THINK about it.

deathshadow: I don't think you understand the problems I'm talking about. This isn't something you can throw a switch and make FireFox behave like IE. IE is BROKEN in many ways and these issues still aren't fixed in IE7.

Here is some info from actual web developers

How IE7 Can Avoid Irrelevance
http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/?p=536

Have a gander at Erik Arvidsson's review
"IE7b2, is it intentionally this bad?"
http://erik.eae.net/archives/2006/02/01/12.10.34/


To sum it up

Here are the DOM and JavaScript changes in the latest version of Internet Explorer 7, as well as the planned ones for the final release, since Internet Explorer 6.0 which was released in 2001:

Begin Changelist
-----------------

----------------- End of Changes

Edited 2006-07-02 09:06

What does this have to do with anything?

Firefox looked like IE when it came out, with the addition of a search field, which was already in other brothers.

Why bother pointing it out? Why does everything always have to be "like Firefox"? Get over it, Firefox innovated.. well.. almost nothing.

Get over it, Firefox innovated.. well.. almost nothing.

I can tell you haven't used Firefox or Mozilla lately. Features such as Find as you Type and Keywords and extensions for power users are incredible time savers. It is always good to know what you are talking about before you actually talk about it.

>> I can tell you haven't used Firefox or Mozilla lately. Features such as Find as you Type and Keywords and extensions for power users are incredible time savers. It is always good to know what you are talking about before you actually talk about it.

It may HAVE those features, but they neither invented them or did them first. In other words, they didn't innovate JACK.

- Opera had had find as you type since before Firefox 1.0 was even in beta. As far as I know, the Mozilla browser never had it.
- Keywords... huh? Keywords for what?
- Extensions are just plug-ins with a different name dude. IE had those long before Firefox or Mozilla.

What were you saying about knowing what you are talking about before you actually talk?

>> What were you saying about knowing what you are talking about before you actually talk?

Methinks he knows not what the word 'innovate' means.

As far as I know, the Mozilla browser never had it

Well, guess what, you guessed wrong. Mozilla had it before Firefox became popular, which was before Opera had it.

Keywords... huh? Keywords for what?

More evidence the contrarians don't know what they are talking about. Keywords in Mozilla/Firefox allow you to open a bookmark or group of tabs using one letter abbreviation. If you were familiar with the feature you would be able to comment on it.

Extensions are just plug-ins with a different name dude. IE had those long before Firefox or Moz

Wrong again folks. Mozilla/Firefox supports both plugins and extensions. They are not the same. An extension can add new features to the browser by extending the underlying XUL code or completely change the user interface around allowing users to tweak it in unlimited ways. A plugin such as real player is incorporated into the rendering part of the Mozilla/Firefox engine but it doesn't extend the XUL code at all.

Edited 2006-07-02 20:55

Extensions are just plug-ins with a different name dude.

I'm afraid you're wrong. Plugins are completely different from extensions.

Plugins are pieces of third-party software that make the browser able to handle certain types of data (PDF, Flash, audio and video streams) internally, without resorting to another application. All major browsers support plugins.

Extensions are a way to extend the functionality of the browser itself, in every possible way. A browser needs to be built in a certain way in order for this to be possible. Firefox (actually, Mozilla) was built from the ground up on the XUL platform, where extensions are a native thing. Opera is starting to offer a somewhat similar functionality with their desklets in version 9, but it doesn't go anywhere nearly as far as Firefox, because desklets are just something extra to the browser itself. As for Explorer, it never had anything similar.

Well, let's see:
Opera had find as you tipe first...
Extensions have been in Opera and IE since the beginning - albiet not JavaScript so most people didn't bat their eyes.

FF's biggest innovation: A SQL-powered favorites bar - WOW, how useful (/sarcasm if you couldn't tell).

I'm a geek, I memorize my favorites - but that's besides the point, I mean, don't they have anything bigger, better, or more important, to take care of!?

>> MS in not about community spirit or open standards they operate with an aggressive business model. Forcing others to adopt to their standard is part of their strategy. You may argue it is very uncool but it is what has made them very financially successful.

Actually, that too was my point - I'm just waiting for one of the other browser makers to REALIZE it, and cut MS off at the knees by adding support for IE's way of doing things to their products.

You already see that in a Firefox plugin and the latest Netscape - problem with those implementations is you are actually RUNNING IE, and therein all the vulnerabilities and security issues.

IE wants to try and set the standard, DANCE to their tune - and do a better job of it. THAT's called competition.