Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 planned for 2009Posted Friday 21st November 2008 13:55 GMT
So, the news is that "Microsoft will be releasing a browser that works, just like all other browsers"?
As in Firefox: just works. Safari: just works. Microsoft IE7 doesn't work. Microsoft IE6 <spit> doesn't work. Microsoft IE for CE doesn't work...
Ah, I see, there's a pattern developing here...
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 13:55 GMT
Will IE8 drop crappy JScript and do proper Javascript? Will they render CSS attributes like opacity instead of M$'s dumb filter attributes? Will it handle SVG? No, we'll still be writing a load of extra code for each website to make IE8 work like other browsers.
The situation is getting better but by the time IE8 is released they'll still be far behind in terms of CSS3, passing Acid3 etc.
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 13:55 GMT
"Our plan is to deliver the final product after listening for feedback about critical issues," Hachamovitch said. ®
Nah.
They've never done it in the past, with ANY product, they're not going to do it this time either. It will be a complete dog for the first two years...
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 13:55 GMT
...not "standards __COMPLIANT__" then?
Sigh. ANOTHER broken browser to test in then. I can't wait to be rid of IE for ever.
With so much money, why can't Microsoft get this right. Are they hiring chimpanzees in the IE dev team or something?
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 13:55 GMT
well I've been playing this for a while and noticing 'issues' such as the underlining of all links carried over into Outlook, for instance, and bookmarks with an ampersand turning into keyboard shortcuts, but there's no easy way (apparently) for Joe Public to leave feedback on such things.
Paris, because I may well have Missed The Point
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 13:55 GMT
They wouldn't be having problems updating their creaking rendering engine, would they?
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 13:55 GMT
I've been using the second beta and have so many performance issues - lots of sites with lots of content stop responding for up to minutes at a time. Mainly MyEbay, iStockPhoto, FaceBook, Easynews (global search). Hoepfully these will get ironed out by the final release :)
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 13:57 GMT
for those that care. The POS is far too intertwined with the OS to be allowed to go out roaming on its own. Much more looking forward to FF3.2 by then.
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 17:11 GMT
"We want them to test their sites and services with IE 8, make any changes they feel are necessary for the best possible customer experience using IE8, and report any critical issues (e.g., issues impacting robustness, security, backwards compatibility, or completeness with respect to planned standards work)."
No.
Change to...
"We want them to test their sites and services against open standards, make any changes they feel are necessary for the best possible customer experience, and report any critical issues (e.g., issues impacting robustness, security, backwards compatibility, or completeness with respect to planned standards work) so that IE8 can be made standards-compliant."
There. Much better.
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 19:33 GMT
It sounds more like a way of encouraging people to carry on writing websites that require IE 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 than like a way of encouraging standards compliant or compatible website development.
Why would anyone want more sites to be developed that only work in IEx?
But if they do, presumably having a new browser that makes those sites look as if they are written right would be handy for anyone who still wanted to fragment the Web into a maze of proprietary channels all unlike, and for anyone who wanted to persuade people that stanrds compliant web browsers had something wrong with them.
"Well it must be OK, it renders correctly in IE8".
Posted Friday 21st November 2008 19:33 GMT
"Safari: just works"
AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*pauses to catch breath*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
What are you smoking because I want some.
Safari and working should NOT be in the same sentence.
Posted Saturday 22nd November 2008 02:35 GMT
"Our plan is to deliver the final product after listening for feedback about critical issues,"
I don't think so - I have just spent the day listening to an MS reseller trying to tell me a daft bug that was in Microsoft Business Systems GP Version 7.5, (circa eight years ago) was "fixed in V9 SP3" but is apparently back as it used to be in Version 10 SP2. What a load of nonsense!
Listening to users is NOT an MS trait.
Posted Saturday 22nd November 2008 02:35 GMT
Another broken browser that I will be glad to disdain then.
Also, "the release candidate will be final product".... heh, you have to stress the stong points of your product. I think he might have added that the browser is expected to be compatible with most recent versions of Windows, and could even allow the user to browse the Internet.
Posted Saturday 22nd November 2008 02:35 GMT
" Safari and working should NOT be in the same sentence. "
Strange, all four of my home Macs and the the ones at the office where I'm consulting are working just great with Safari, and guess which rendering engine is the only one to get a perfect Acid3 score?
Posted Saturday 22nd November 2008 19:05 GMT
I wonder if IE8 will still use index.dat to store every single url you ever type?
It'll probably use the Content.IE5 directories as well....or in a revolutionary move call them Content.IE8 maybe. Not expecting much more innovation than that in IE8
Posted Sunday 23rd November 2008 22:05 GMT
It is admittedly infinitely better than IE (not hard), but definitely not as good as Firefox or Opera.
@ David - Safari doesn't yet, at least not the publicly released versions. It scores 4 higher than Ff but 10 lower than Opera.
Posted Sunday 23rd November 2008 22:05 GMT
Who did they listen to? Certainly not the Beta testers, Take a view at the IE8 blog, the best Microsoft could is to say, "NO" So much for all the PR Bull Stick that Microsoft has put out that they have changed, that Windows is "Lift with out Walls." IE 8 will fail like Vista, and Microsoft will still be saying, "We don't understand, Why do you love us?" Hey Dean you might want to try a mohave experiment For IE 8, so that way your Bosses can say see everybody really loves us, it just the news media and the beta testers being negative... Now the real question is what will IE 9 be called?
Posted Monday 24th November 2008 12:31 GMT
I think you misunderstand.
Microsoft will listen to the feedback. They have a whole department that does that. Nothing but that. That department never passes on the feedback. Other departments never act on that feedback.
But they do listen.
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