Microsoft is preparing to unveil a new browser in Windows 10, codenamed Spartan, and leaked images are providing an early glimpse at the Internet Explorer successor. Chinese site Cnbeta has published screenshots showing the simple interface of Spartan and the Cortana digital assistant integration. The Verge revealed yesterday that Spartan will include digital inking support to share and annotate web pages, and deep Cortana integration in the address bar and throughout the browser.
The shots also show that the desktop side of Windows 10 will have a completely new theme – very flat and Metro. I like it.
I thought the rationale for a new browser was to start afresh… no bloat … instead we read about cortana integration and inking… ?
Colour me puzzled.
“Bloat” as used by microsoft has always meant “bad things” that were new features in previous releases. So each release of their product removes bloat and adds new features, thus allowing them to keep the same marketing material.
To be fair, I think most software developers end up doing this in the corperate world.
I’d really love to just release something with just the “What’s changed Notes”:
Program sucks slightly less than before.
Or
Program protects itself against insane users.
Or
Program no longer desires human flesh.
True, at least they should solve some problems:
“Why I use Firefox”
http://www.qdb.us/52748
[Please, if you are under 18 years of age… do not click on that link, your mental health will be better]
Edited 2015-01-09 23:28 UTC
I don’t it’s all a bit too 1990s a bit RISCOS but not as cool as BeOS. Surely its possible to do 3D without it being tacky?
It sure is!
http://www.tuxradar.com/files/imagemagick-1.png
A modern UI my CGA video adapter can handle!
It is a step up from earlier attempts where a Hercules adapter could do the trick.
I’m excited. I can’t wait ’till it shows up in the Windows 10 previews.
Inking sounds like a really cool feature, and it sounds like they are adding a good tab grouping feature, and if it’s like Firefox’s tab groups, it’ll rock. But, as with the current IE, if it doesn’t have a good support for extensions, it’s a non-starter.
I can’t understate how important extensions and tab grouping are to me. Chrome has extensions that are good-enough for me to use Chrome instead of Firefox, but the complete and utter lack of decent tab management makes Chrome unsuitable as my primary browser.
No Chrome extension I’ve found competes with Firefox’s Tab Groups. Not even close.
Edited 2015-01-10 04:11 UTC
It’s nice and all that MS is at least trying to make an effort to improve on IE’s stagnation, but even if it’s the best browser in the world I just can’t see switching to it if I’m going to be handcuffed to one platform. The ability to have a consistent experience across all my OSes is just too important to overcome short of some miracle or another ill advised game of proprietary feature lockin.
Could they please rewrite the options? That part is now probably 20 years old and is the worst part of the whole browser.