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Seriously, I don't take any presents from Microsoft any more (as a web developer, that is)...

Unlike other Christmas presents, you can't sell this one on ebay if you find out that the substance is not as good looking as the gift package suggested.

Edited 2006-07-26 21:37

But will it make us virtually drop support for customers running Windows 2000 overnight?

Overnight ? The name says it all: Windows 2000 ... we're now almost at 2007, and seven years in the computing world is an eternity. Windows support itself has lasted for time enough in my opinion, and has been told to disappear time ago, so call it whatever you want except overnight. I'd like to see such kind of support in several free software projects, and particulary in some GNU/Linux distributions.

Overnight ? The name says it all: Windows 2000 ... we're now almost at 2007, and seven years in the computing world is an eternity.

and what ?

XP was released in 2001 and we are half way through 2006, that is 5 years, an eternity in the computer world, etc etc

Being "slow" has never been a complaint I've had with IE and very few people I've seen have had it. FF has always been the slowest for me.

But anyway, this is an upgrade. There are important changes here. Could be more, but at least it's being developed again.

Firefox feels much faster than IE on high-latency/high-bandwidth networks (some corporate LANs) because it will show partially downloaded pages right away, and it can pipeline data requests.

Extensions like adblock and flashblock which allow you to only download the content you want to see also help in speeding up site viewing by blocking unwanted content!

--bornagainpenguin

Internet Explorer pipelines the requests too.

From MS KB:

"When Internet Explorer establishes a persistent HTTP connection with a Web server (by using Connection: Keep-Alive headers), Internet Explorer reuses the same TCP/IP socket that was used to receive the initial request until the socket is idle for one minute. "

That's funny, being that Trident (IE's rendering engine) is the second fastest overall (I've never seen it render anything slower than Firefox, actually) rendering engine, after Opera.

IE slow?

I use both IE and firefox on daily basis. I think firefox is a turtle when it comes to speed but it is heaven when it comes to extensions and customization.

Except with major security leaps, CSS fixes, transparent PNG rendering, AND tabbed browsing with a unique Quick Tabs feature, but hey..you're the expert.

While that may be true..make no mistake, Microsoft has only done the most bare minimum to update their product to something that resembles a modern web browser. And unlike the rest of the computing world, they get to just sit back, click a button and instantly have 80% of the world running it. Interestingly there are people that think there is nothing wrong with this...

I couldn't agree more, MS's problem is that they've never been in the heat of competition. I think however with the rise of competition and people like the EU making them play fair the quality of their products will either improve or Microsoft will fall to competition.

I dont care about CSS I dont care about transparent PNG rendering. IE 7 is offering only one more feature than Maxthon on IE 6 and that is that anti phishing stuff. I dont like IE 7. And i wont use it. With Maxthon so far I am enjoying the Internet the way it should be. As far as I am concerned, IE 7 is offering me nothing new or useful. But that is me...but I am sure there are people who agree with my opinion. This is just Microsoft shoving software down your throat as the parent message suggested.

So because you don't care about something means it's irrelevant in arguing that it is indeed more than a small step up from IE6? I doubt it.

Your opinion. There is no right and wrong in this matter besides that Maxthon is offering all that I will need at the moment and so if Firefox. So why upgrade? How big is the download for IE 7? How big is the download for Maxthon? All of that taken in to consideration, alternatives to IE 7 win hands down.

Actually you should be worried. Maxthon uses the IE6 rendering engine. IF they have made changes to the API etc your favourite browser may break!

Also users of web browsers hardly worry about CSS, PNG etc.... however web developers DO CARE and can create better, smaller, prettier and more robust sites with these technologies. Based on the way Maxthon is written you may get all the new stuff by proxy..

In the long run the fixes will be good for all no matter what browser you use.

I don't understand where you see the 'unique' factor in quick tabs. Install Showcase extension for Firefox.It does exactly the same thing.
I don't comment on other issues, I am not an expert.

"Except with major security leaps, CSS fixes, transparent PNG rendering, AND tabbed browsing with a unique Quick Tabs feature, but hey..you're the expert."

There is nothing unique in the IE 7 quick tabs feature. OmniWeb has been proposing this kind of features since a least 1 year, and Shiira has also been proposing it for months (it uses an Expose like implemetation). Moreover Omniweb implemenattion is more powerful as it allows actions on the tabs, create new tabs by dragging the desired links to the drawer (quite powerful staff here), you can view the opened tabs as graphics or only the tab titles, etc......

Sorry this not unique to IE7 which is even quite limited.

So it took them this long to deliver those relatively minor features? Not to mention Firefox has supported transparent PNG rendering and tabbed browsing all along; and it's done CSS closer to standard and security is excellent. Here we are watching Microsoft do what they've always done: catch up.

IE Manager: Alright I've got a list of the features in Firefox that IE6 doesn't have. [peruses list]. Looks good, okay send this to the programmers and call it IE7.

Intern: But, won't most people be unable to notice these changes?

IE Manager: You're right. Get the UI people onboard too.

But really, isn't IE7 compared to IE6 just like comparing Windows XP to Vista: a few new interesting features which might attract technical users and a whole boatload of graphical improvements which will attract non-technical people (but also make it run on 0.5% of the hardware Windows XP does? /number exaggerated).

This isn't software pushed down your throat, it's a software update pushed down your throat.

People using firefox on windows still have IE on the system (unless they jumped through hoops to uninstall it, but that's fairly unlikely).

Just because their version of IE gets updated doesn't mean they'll stop using firefox.

Unless of course the update just so happens to set the default browser to IE as part of the install. Like MSN messenger seems to like to do if you're not cautious with those tick boxes.

Most people who are savvy enough to use Firefox will be able to deal with IE7 setting itself to be the default browser.

I think this could easily be seen as the first anti-competitive action in the New Browser Wars. It should be blatantly obvious that they are trying to bring Firefox users back to IE with a new version which ALL windows users will have, regardless of their browser preference. It's hard enough getting IE6 to let go of being the default browser (some apps actually call iexplore.exe directly) when you install Windows and of course good ole Firefox. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if IE7 will take over the default browser spot when it's installed. This would be dastardly, but that IS Microsoft for you.

But now I'm going to have to worry about a new version of IE being installed on MY computer (when I do not want it) which potentially has two-fold as many security vulnerabilities as the last one. They are STILL fixing the exploits that resulted from the last team of crack(pot) programmers that updated IE. I think that's one reason why IE6 lasted so long without a major update, including of course the fact that IE won almost all of the browser market and thus their was no _need_ for improvement in the browser because Microsoft did not need to win. This whole situation makes me sick.

Furthermore, the UI changed quite radically. Computer neophytes might require a retraining, which is a waste of time. Talking of UI, the XP version of MSIE7 looks quite similar to the one coming with Windows Vista. Perhaps they are pushing it as high priority for hyping Vista? --Wrawrat


Is there anyone here who doesn't think this is merely an attempt to hook people on the Vista interface by forcing an half-assed implementation on their users?

...

...


Astroturfers can put their hands down now. Anyone else? I didn't think so.

What really bothers me about this situation is the precedent this sets. I seem to recall the last time Microsoft forced a browser down everyone's throats, it also came with a shell upgrade and was suddenly a mandatory component in everything from video players to virus scanners to defragmenters...

Given that Microsoft has already made it quite clear it plans to beta test various Vista components in limited implementation on Windows XP what's to stop them from pushing various other 'features' on people who don't want or need them?

I seem to recall how Windows Media Player was also pushed in this fashion. Am I truly the only one whose gotten tired of these types of things? Surely everyone recalls how well bundling the web browser into the system level of NT has worked over the years? The massive explosion of worms and scumware which has gotten so bad even Microsoft's best response is to do a fresh install? The wonderful Alexia spyware bundled into the system at install time as well as the WGA bait and switch?

I'm certain to be modded down as flamebait or a troll by various Microsoft apologist for saying this, but it needs to be said.

--bornagainpenguin

These are very valid points Wrawrat, but Microsoft is not concerned with any of them. They see inching Firefox off of Windows as their highest priority.

Yes they should've, but they needed "features" (read: bug fixes) for IE7

"And I've noticed firefox has a silent 'update' feature."

Really? Because every FireFox update I got came as a notice somewhere around the throbber (that thingy that animates as pages load) which I had to click on to be prompted to update. This is without using any special extensions by the way. If you've ran into a quiet updater I'd like to know about it.

Actually I just got an update saying that Firefox needs to be restarted to install an update. Not entirely silent but I certainly wasn't made aware that a new update was available and given the option to download it as it was already there.

Perhaps there's an option, I didn't check. I really don't care. Keep it in mind that Windows also has the option to download and install automatically or be prompted at each step.

I think the key point here is that both give you an option to download. I certainly didn't install WGA onto my computer as I used my option not to.

Yeah, I just got that one a minute ago. I'm surprised because it used to be different, and I'm disappointed I wasn't prompted this time.

Perhaps this is another step in trying to be user friendly, but making it the default without prompting the user wouldn't have been my first choice.

It's a setting in Firefox. You can change it by going to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Update.

I don't really think that IE7 is fast or convenient compared to Firefox. Rendering speed is okay, but the tabs implementation is not quite as nice as firefox's (the new tabs take too long to appear and give wierd visual feedback).

There are gestures for IE7, but I've just gotten used to those in Firefox. I still use IE when I want speed to get on and get off. But for longer, more sustained browsing, it's Firefox for me.

I'm not sure sure about that. One of the biggest reason people apparently turn to Firefox is because they're sick of (or paranoid about) the vulnerabilities in IE. This includes me.

I've been using the new IE7 beta since it was released a few weeks ago and it is definately impressive. It's much better than IE6. I'm not entirely sold just yet and continue to move between IE7b3 and Firefox for the time being, but if IE7 can take away the apparent security threat, then I will more than likely migrate back to IE.

Where possible I try to keep my system as lean as possible so if there's no reason for me to keep Firefox thanks to a newer version of IE then I'll likely do that.

As for the usage of Windows as justification for people not being concerned about security, I cannot agree. People use Windows for a number of reasons including it is far easier than Linux, has a much wider range of applicaitons that are supported by a formal structure, hardware compaibility, their friends use it so they can share their experiences / problems and others.

This arguement about being locked into some proprietory system is a fass to me. Apple are the Jedi of locking folks down, not Microsoft.

What's lean about eliminating ~18 MB of program files? That's all Firefox takes.

I suggest you try out features like gestures and Quick Bookmarks (keywords). Gestures are of slightly questionable utility until you get really used to them. But Quick Bookmarks are just great! I type CTRL+L to get to the address bar and "gg some search terms" to do a quick google search. Or "wp Criticisms of Microsoft" for a quick wikipedia search. Or even "fe" or "ef" and some word to go from french to english or vice-versa. IE doesn't have this feature yet and it's the main reason I use Firefox when I'm planning to browse rather than go to a specific site.

The second best firefox feature is find-as-you-type, which was turned off by default in later builds. It can be enabled by going to about:config with the location bar and changing one of the options under Accessiblity. This is by far the best way to find things in long webpages.

Use what you will, but Firefox is really comfortable for me.

I think it's more a case of if I don't need it, then why keep it there. Even if it was 100MB in today's storage terms that's not a lot at all. I have ten times that attached to my keyring.

"But Quick Bookmarks are just great! I type CTRL+L to get to the address bar and "gg some search terms" to do a quick google search. Or "wp Criticisms of Microsoft" for a quick wikipedia search. Or even "fe" or "ef" and some word to go from french to english or vice-versa. IE doesn't have this feature yet and it's the main reason I use Firefox when I'm planning to browse rather than go to a specific site."

I just found an email I sent on June 27, 2000 to some people, showing how to use the IE 5.0 Web Accessories' Quick Search to do exactly that. For instance, I set up "au" to do author searches against our library catalog, and "su" to do a subject search, etc.,.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/previous/webaccess/ie5wa.ms...

After the novelty wore off, I stopped using it. Glad to see Firefox is keeping alive the spirit of 6-year-old deprecated Microsoft novelties, though. Nostalgia isn't necessarily a bad thing.

After the novelty wore off, I stopped using it. Glad to see Firefox is keeping alive the spirit of 6-year-old deprecated Microsoft novelties, though. Nostalgia isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Was IE5/6 extensible through an open plugin framework that didn't expose your system to malware?

No? Oh poo. We all appreciate your sarcastic response, though! Thanks for being so damn constructive!

P.S. Got any emails on Adblock extensions for IE? While you're at it, try penning a witty barb featuring emails in which you handily implemented a subset of these in IE:

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions.php?app=firefox

I eagerly await your sunny reply!

"seems that MS has to "force" his customers to update to IE7. In other OS the decision to upgrade on a completely other version is not enforced."
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It's not "enforced" in this case either.
Read the IE blog and be enlightened.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/07/26/678149.aspx

Because Microsoft has never lied about these types of things before....right?

Sure, I'll take their word for it--nothing harmful here, just like with WGA, WMP and oh lookee here, IE itself! Try to understand if most of us who have used Microsoft for awhile tend to take such things with a grain of salt, the burnt child tending to be skittish around fire and all..

--bornagainpenguin

So you're insisting that since your pet browser is inferior to IE7, Microsoft should be stopped from providing IE7 to users?

"What's the odds that the update will also set IE7 as the default browser in true Microsoft disregard the user's preferences style..."
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Zero.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/07/26/678149.aspx

"If you decide to install IE7, it will preserve your current toolbars, home page, search settings, and favorites and installing will not change your choice of default browser."

Oh, I see. My post was modded down because it was critical of Microsoft's track record in developing a quality browser and of their release strategy, but I admitted that IE7 is an impressive product nonetheless. You really laid into them on all accounts, didn't say anything about IE7 in particular, and got modded up generously.

I should really pick sides before I post. "Fair and balanced" doesn't work any better for me than it does for Fox News.

I suspect there wouldn't have been an IE 7 were it not for FireFox. FireFox was becomming a noticable threat to Microsoft's IE mindshare, so they got back into action. Were it not for FireFox we'd be waiting for Opera to scare Microsoft, and Opera might not have become freeware which would have made that even harder to accomplish.

It's a bad idea to support IE which is only developed when a competitor takes away enough mindshare to scare Microsoft. Here's to hoping MS doesn't get much of a boost from IE 7, maybe then we'll see some continued effort and an IE 8.