Microsoft has let the world know that Internet Explorer 8 will support web standards.
It has taken Microsoft years to recognise that developers want to have a web browser that supports web standards. According to Microsoft this was completed before Opera filing their complaint against IE not supporting web standards.
In a blog post on the IE Blog Microsoft states that IE8 will beta in the first quarter of 2008 and lots of details will be revealed at Mix 08.
View: IE Blog
It has taken Microsoft years to recognise that developers want to have a web browser that supports web standards. According to Microsoft this was completed before Opera filing their complaint against IE not supporting web standards.
In a blog post on the IE Blog Microsoft states that IE8 will beta in the first quarter of 2008 and lots of details will be revealed at Mix 08.
View: IE Blog
that they didn't fully support basic web standards before, or that it took them THIS long to do it?
But sure, Firefox 3 is at least in public beta now, so it can be argued that it has a slight edge there.
However, Acid2 compliance isn't something that browsers had too many years ago.
But sure, Firefox 3 is at least in public beta now, so it can be argued that it has a slight edge there.
However, Acid2 compliance isn't something that browsers had too many years ago.
Firefox 3 beta 2 does not past the Acid2 test. Just update it from beta 1 and it fails. Safari 3 beta fails too.
Kudos to the IE8 team, its good to see them pushing to fix IE<8 problems. With this news, it would be interesting to see how it affects Opera's arguments for their antitrust suit.
But sure, Firefox 3 is at least in public beta now, so it can be argued that it has a slight edge there.
However, Acid2 compliance isn't something that browsers had too many years ago.
Firefox 3 beta 2 does not past the Acid2 test. Just update it from beta 1 and it fails. Safari 3 beta fails too.
Actually, it's because something went wrong with the server hosting the Acid2 test. It's returning an HTTP 200 code when a page is not found, instead of a 404.
Firefox 3 beta 2 can render it fine, as can Safari, if the server's configured correctly ;-)
I am all for standards compliance, but ACID is just one metric of this. Nice to see, regardless.
Maybe they did this as well in IE.
I've long thought people put too much emphasis on ACID. Passing ACID doesn't mean standards support; it simply means it passes that specific test.
Here's hoping they do a good job of it.
er, acid2 only tests a tiny subset of some things. it by no means show how standards compliant you actually are.
No, Opera has been freeware for over two years now. You should get out of that cave more often.
Oh well, that's why there's choice in browsers. Pick what makes you happy.
less customization its what i call ie7, compared to ie6, i dont like the position of stop and reload button
I wish firefox would make opening a tab easier like it is in IE7, but I guess every browser has its flaws to personal liking.
I wish firefox would make opening a tab easier like it is in IE7, but I guess every browser has its flaws to personal liking.
i haven't used ie7 that much, but how is opening a new tab in firefox difficult? you can either double click the tab bar, or press ctrl+t. i'm not trying to jump all over you on this, i'm just curious what you mean.
I wish firefox would make opening a tab easier like it is in IE7, but I guess every browser has its flaws to personal liking.
i haven't used ie7 that much, but how is opening a new tab in firefox difficult? you can either double click the tab bar, or press ctrl+t. i'm not trying to jump all over you on this, i'm just curious what you mean.
there is a mini tab at the end of the tabbar behind the last tab. is mega easy, use it all the time, hate that firefox does NOT have it (or safari or opera etc), and biggest pro: EVERYONE knows what it does when they see it
have always loved IE's design and layout. yeah the standard compliance isn't what it should be .. but hey, nobody's perfect. atleast they listen.
IE8 is going to rock your box!
Oh well, that's why there's choice in browsers. Pick what makes you happy.
Uh, on Firefox, I have my menu, navigation buttons, address bar and everything fit into ONE single bar. Widescreen monitor helps add bunches of room so nothing is cramped or too tight. Hell, posting this message, the link at the top with all the internet-explorer-8-passes-acid2-etcetcetc, it only uses half the address bar.
In IE7, I'm FORCED to have the tab menu open, so single site browsing isn't as minimal, buttons are chosen FOR ME, not where I want them, and the tab bar is pretty big just by itself. I can take a screenshot if I need to, but I think you get my point.
A browser is, aside from letting you access the internet, supposed to be YOURS. Customizable to do what YOU want and need it to do. I could care less about themes, although they're nice. I just want to be able to do what I want with it, not be pushed to a standard some old guys sat and decided upon.
Oh well, that's why there's choice in browsers. Pick what makes you happy.
Uh, on Firefox, I have my menu, navigation buttons, address bar and everything fit into ONE single bar. Widescreen monitor helps add bunches of room so nothing is cramped or too tight. Hell, posting this message, the link at the top with all the internet-explorer-8-passes-acid2-etcetcetc, it only uses half the address bar.
In IE7, I'm FORCED to have the tab menu open, so single site browsing isn't as minimal, buttons are chosen FOR ME, not where I want them, and the tab bar is pretty big just by itself. I can take a screenshot if I need to, but I think you get my point.
A browser is, aside from letting you access the internet, supposed to be YOURS. Customizable to do what YOU want and need it to do. I could care less about themes, although they're nice. I just want to be able to do what I want with it, not be pushed to a standard some old guys sat and decided upon.
You can Turn OFF Tab browsing in IE 7.. you arent Forced to use it! ;-)
Oh well, that's why there's choice in browsers. Pick what makes you happy.
Uh, on Firefox, I have my menu, navigation buttons, address bar and everything fit into ONE single bar. Widescreen monitor helps add bunches of room so nothing is cramped or too tight. Hell, posting this message, the link at the top with all the internet-explorer-8-passes-acid2-etcetcetc, it only uses half the address bar.
In IE7, I'm FORCED to have the tab menu open, so single site browsing isn't as minimal, buttons are chosen FOR ME, not where I want them, and the tab bar is pretty big just by itself. I can take a screenshot if I need to, but I think you get my point.
A browser is, aside from letting you access the internet, supposed to be YOURS. Customizable to do what YOU want and need it to do. I could care less about themes, although they're nice. I just want to be able to do what I want with it, not be pushed to a standard some old guys sat and decided upon.
You can Turn OFF Tab browsing in IE 7.. you arent Forced to use it! ;-)
It's not even about tabbed browsing, it's about how much room they dedicate to those tabs. I'm sorry, but I don't need such a wide bar for just tabs. And it should hide when I'm not USING another tab.
Anyway, let's just hope they stick to it, as that would really make my job easier.
Anyway, let's just hope they stick to it, as that would really make my job easier.
And what would you have done with WinFS that you can't do in Vista already?
Anyway, let's just hope they stick to it, as that would really make my job easier.
And what would you have done with WinFS that you can't do in Vista already?
Avoid storing metadata in the files themselves. Storing custom metadata in files, and of custom file types, and using that information to organize the information with. All these things are actually already possible in NTFS through NTFS streams, even in Windows XP, but sadly not even Vista provides a simple GUI for it. Also, WinFS could provide a more abstract storage method that may be easier to approach to non-technical users.
Anyway, let's just hope they stick to it, as that would really make my job easier.
Explain to us what WinFS is so we know what me missed... I'm curious.
Anyway, let's just hope they stick to it, as that would really make my job easier.
k ... so you're an webdeveloper right?
so why the f do you care so much about WinFS?
Modern day SQL server use WinFS in their operations. Even Exchange uses it.
WinFS is NOT dead. And no .. the lack of doesn't make your Vista crap!
Except they didn't sue; they lodged a complaint with the European Commission for anti-competitive behaviour. For some unfathomable reason, most people don't seem to be able to understand the difference.
Good point actually .. would they have told us this news in dec '07 when they originally intented to blow us away @ MIX '08 in march if Opera didn't file complaint?
(yeah that sentence sucks, sorry)
....someone had to say it
good for them, its good to see them listening to there users for a change
Too bad we'll still be making CSS and HTML hacks for IE7 and IE6 for a few years to come.
Read what I put on them and you might notice I completely slag off apple / mac as much as I can.
IE CSS: Too little, too late
I do.
All other browsers will be looking to implement HTML5 and/or XHTM2 as soon as it's meaningful, will developers be stuck for another decade as MS ignores upcoming standards, or new standards as they roll out?
True true, but of course if you consider your "standard" as the web itself, IE7 is the most standards compliant browser, hehe.
Anyways, that blog post has a listing of IE8 source files... wouldn't those be fun to have?
uh, what?
why on earth would anyone be loyal to a certain company rather than look at the quality of the product?
uh, what?
why on earth would anyone be loyal to a certain company rather than look at the quality of the product?
Take a look at eaters of the fruit over there
Do we know if they will or not?
but not 95! All they needed to do was add a few extra files but no, they slacked off from that and left it at IE 5.5
Well at least I can roll with the old days on my NT 4 box with MSN messenger 5, old sk00l style
I created a page that was HTML and CSS only and standards compliant - there was no Javascript or anything doing anything to the page. When you load the page it appears fine ... try and resize the page smaller using the diagonal drag from the corner - oh noes it doesnt work (however you can use this method to make the page bigger)... also I could resize using the horizontal and vertical resizing, just the diagonal smaller resizing doesnt work. I told and showed Opera this but apparently it wasnt Operas fault, and Ive had numerous people look at my source and no-one can find anything wrong. - I can only presume Opera isnt perfect as it worked fine in the latest versions of IE and Firefox.
who claims that it is perfect?
it should be blatantly obvious that opera cannot be perfect when it not only has to implement proper standards, but also be compatible with msie.
I always feel In have to qualify my statements by saying I have always disliked IE and think Opera has been the best browser for a good 6 years now with Firefox a ver y close contender especially in the last few years..IE has never been even close until IE7.
Safari??? Come on now Safari? Safari is the biggest piece of rubbish browser ever. There are so many things wrong with its not even funny. Yuck!
You do know Safari was the first browser to completely pass the Acid2 Test... This was back in 2005.
Not that Webcore appreciation issue, again... And Safari passed first.
k that doesn't count because:
- everyone versions their product differently. Mac OS is on X .. the 10th .. but the 10th has 5 subversions? (Which aren't service packs and all cost about 130$, sigh)
- 1 and 2 basically don't count as they weren't mass market
- 3 and 4 were completely different programs then modern day browsers. different market, different web, different users...
so by that take .. it's only been 5, 5.5, 6, 7.
Took them 5x to get it perfect. Which seems fair to me.
IMHO, the IE browser is still one of the best...
(if only Adobe could learn to make DESCENT software .. like Flash plugins :@)
lol...what?
lol...what?
I think what he means was that back then we didn't have all the fancy web2.0 and CSS stuff we have today. IE3 and 4 (4 was a great browser for it's day, it blew Netscape away back then.) didn't have to work with a load of different things like today.
That's what he means by different web, different market and so on. It was all basic html and text in those days, you'd be lucky if you even saw any type of pictures/graphics on a website.
No it wasn't. I was there. True, if you went to purely "hypertext" academic sites then there weren't many images, but they tended to be legacy document repositories that had been updated for the "new" http protocol (remember gopher? Kickarse. How about WAIS? Supreme stuff).
Thanks to Mosaic, graphics appeared all over the place.
IE3 was ages after Mosaic and the original Netscape (anybody else remember: "it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e but pronounced Mozilla"?), which lest we forget allowed frameset sites to flourish.
IE4 brought in the vainglorous era of having Desktop Content to slow your super-fast DX4-100 Win95 box to a crawl, but JavaScript was alive and well and quite happy, having long been in Netscape (as ActiveScript before they changed the name). DHTML was "born" (I've got an ancient Microsoft book on it), and, arguably, Remote Scripting in an early form was possible (there was a Java applet you could use, see Brent Ashley's site), yet it took until more browsers handled XmlHttp (which IE had since v5) and various Google sites before the explosion of "Web 2.0" sites occurred.
It was all about SGML in those days. Structure, structure, structure!!!
1) "Why? All websites work just fine on IE6." Well of course they do, because web developers are forced to support IE6. We web devs could save lots of time if we didn't need to work around IE6's quirks and flaws. If all web developers started ignoring IE6 people would be forced to update because they'd finally see why that browser is a piece of ****.
2) "Our system doesn't work on IE7." This is merely a case of **** code/markup and it's certainly a big problem for many companies. Maybe MS needs something insane like IE6 compatibility mode or something to alleviate this problem. Of course the better solution would be for those companies to just suck it up and have their stuff fixed.
So I'm all for a forced update to IE8 on all Windows versions.
As for IE8 itself, I truly hope they take a long look at their competitors especially in the performance department. IE7 often just hangs and takes a long time to load a website or does it instantly if you hit refresh. It's little things like this that make it suck. I think the user interface on it is actually pretty good because it's compact. I wish MS had opted to make the "hidden file etc menus until alt is pressed" a default (and working) on all applications.
All this time I thought IE7 ran the test perfectly. It reminds me why I switched from IE back then and how much I used to swear when I was developping websites.
I wish they'd clarify that. Standards mode? At first glance I like the sound of that: it means sites designed for IE will still work, but then you have the option to switch to this Standards Mode to view web pages "properly". Still, part of me just thinks it will be something like IE tab for Firefox, or something, and break everything.
Every browser already does it (Firefox has 3 modes, quirks, almost-standard and standards mode), IE6 does it, etc. It's like backwards compatibility for old sites.
Last edited by Tikitiki on 14 Feb 2008 - 04:15
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