back to article Mozilla chucks Roc at Microsoft's new hardness

Microsoft has claimed that Internet Explorer 9 is the only browser offering "full" hardware acceleration. And Mozilla has accused its old rival of talking nonsense. With a Friday blog post, Microsoft web graphics program manager Ted Johnson laid out a trio hardware acceleration "phases," before telling the world that only IE9 …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. gimbal
    Badgers

    How entertaining!

    Oh, the old Microsoft smoke-and-mirrors game, in which their tenacity is rivaled only by the flexibility of their claims. Who needs sit-coms, with there's such news about?

    Do they offer a certification as a Microsoft Marketing Partner? I wonder!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Nah, it's the Firefox smoke and mirrors game

      Firefox 4 has all the hardware acceleration features that IE9 has, except that Composition Acceleration is currently disabled by default, presumably because it's buggy as heck. This is why IE9PP3 wipes the floor with FF4b5 in both the IE and FF hardware acceleration tests in the default configuration.

      I'm glad both browsers will presumably have fully working implementations by launch, it'l be good for the web overall. But to claim Firefox was fastest and first, when it clearly isn't either, is a bit of a joke.

      1. bjacob

        Nah, Firefox _has_ acceleration by default

        Firefox has had Direct3D accelerated compositing on by default for like a week in the nightlies and Direct2D content acceleration was on by default even before that. So we definitely were there first.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    haha x-what?

    Answer to question in last paragraph.. "Because they don't fuckin want to nor have to now." LOL!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Mozilla chucks Roc at Microsoft's new hardness

    "...it seems Microsoft are the ones struggling to support even their most popular Windows version"

    Buuuuurrrrrrrn

    1. Ben Holmes
      Thumb Down

      But...

      ...why would they bother? It's not in their business interests to carry on making things whizzy-quick on XP. If they turn round and go "You can have this fabulous browsing experience with our browser on XP and Vista, but it'll be even better / faster on Win7" then that, coupled with the inevitable end of support, might be enough to finally start to push people onto the new OS in meaningful numbers.

      And by 'people', I also mean 'business easily lead by the MS Propaganda Machine'

  4. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    Sometimes I wonder.

    Maybe Google funds Mozilla just so Microsoft have someone else to badmouth. Y/N?

  5. Mizilla
    Megaphone

    Mizilla

    I'm still using Mozilla.. and enjoying it !!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm a bit confused

    It happens, small brain syndrome I call it. Why does the browser need to do hardware acceleration at all? Surely what it should do it just say "Hey, OS! Run this video/audio/whatever. I need it 320x200 and at these co-ordinates" (or whatever parameters make sense). Then the OS either says "Sure!" and responds with the stream/whatever; or the OS says "WTF? I don't have the codec for that." and the browser just plonks and error message somewhere.

    I mean, this is what happens with file access etc. It's not as if every browser bundles it's own disc managers and so on, so why should other resources be any different?

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      CSS animation

      Probably because HTML 5 is more than just video.

      Have a look at CSS animation, it basically allows for CSS values to be altered over time. So the browser is continually rendering the page.

      Of course there will be few sites that are using this and if anything people are more likely to only add support for it if it works well in Firefox and IE.

  7. The BigYin

    When...

    ...IE (any version) can do hardware acceleration on Mac and Linux I'll take an interest. Until then MS can just shut their yap.

  8. Ian Yates
    Badgers

    B****** Wars

    First person to mention a certain kind of "War" is starting again loses.

  9. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Grenade

    ANGELs versus Daemons ...... Nymphs and Satyrs versus Suits and Spinners

    Of course the killer applications are always going to be XSSXXXX CodedD .... for Always Naked Graphic Engine Layers....... for Full Transparency in Saucy Secret Source Algorithm Sorcery ..... Virtual MoJo for Magical AIMystery Turing Trips ........ which you might like to consider and accept is the Future, and a Better Beta Future to Boot, in a Global Computer Generated Reality Program Hosted and Presented as a Daily Show/Zeroday Application by IT and Media, which would then strongly Suggest and/or Prove that the True Nature of Existence and Reality is Binary Coded and therefore also Virtual.

    Although that does sort of screw up all sorts of InterPlanetary Black Hole type work and also render Religions a Right Dodgy Fraud and Abuse Perpetrated on the Masses.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    WTF

    This sounds like Microsoft saying "we are incompatible with the rest of the world, so only our stuff runs okay on our stuff." Great, well, stop being that way.

    IE is a POS browser, and MS probably won't realize that until after they have sub 30% market share.

  11. Jad
    Happy

    I need popcorn

    This is getting interesting :)

  12. FuzzyTheBear
    Pint

    Again ?

    btw .. .is IE 9 out in any way ? even a public beta ? no ? yes ? until it's out the door .. they dont have a browser that does it. Come on .. typical MS bs .We're used to it by now.

    I been running ff4 b5 for a week or so now.Works great and without after-taste. PS : take the surveys.

    Nothing to see here .. beer time.

    1. DrJaymansLoveCookie
      Pint

      @ FuzzyTheBear

      "btw .. .is IE 9 out in any way ? even a public beta ? no ? yes ? until it's out the door .. they dont have a browser that does it. Come on .. typical MS bs .We're used to it by now."

      I believe the term you are looking for is 'vaporware':-)

      Have a beer

  13. Mage Silver badge
    FAIL

    Nuts

    What sort of mad web content needs Hardware Acceleration "built-into the Browser"? What is that content going to be like on Tablet., iThing, MID, single core Atom Netbook with Integrated Graphics?

    Or is it the case that unless you do this on Windows 7, that Windows 7 is SLOWER than XP with same content on Same Browser on Same PC, because MS has deliberately "slugged" the traditional Windows APIs in favour of the Direct 3D etc that Aero needs?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Before everyone starts.....

    Yes, we already know that opera does this and has been doing so since the dawn or time.

    <EOM>

  15. Don S.
    Dead Vulture

    So?

    Can we expect a funeral march for Firefox and Opera at the upcoming Beta launch?

    (I'm not disgusted with El Reg but the tombstone fit.)

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like